Social media changed it. Deep pockets have always been around.

I don't follow you. Social media has caused public land to be covered up. That should help private land

Pressure is what makes duck hunting hard. Ducks imprint on properties where they don't get shot. Over the years those areas become duck magnets. Go look at the refuge in Decatur or Lake Ashbaugh in Arkansas. These areas hold ducks. The ducks there are hard to kill because they retreat to the safe areas at the first sign of pressure. If there is not a safe area then there are no ducks. Managing pressure on a piece of ground isn't easy.

The way to create a good duck hunting property is provide food and not hunt it for years. Then only hunt it once or twice a year. Get in and get out. Most of us are too greedy or don't have the resources needed .

Absolutely

There was a farm up here that nobody could hunt for seversl years and it played out just as yall say. A lot of ducks killed till they stopped hunting again. The ducks are not even on this farm either. It is not all about pressure. It's more about duck numbers and who has the food. What ducks are around here are getting shot on the same places

I am more of a believer in killing them when you have them. You have to rest fields during the season, but resting them for years won't help any ince you start hunting them again.


EDIT: I reread the post and that would be a way to keep ducks. But, I'm not into bird watching. I can drive to a refuge to do that. What I remember is shooting limits every trip of Canada geese and ducks out of one pit. Or shooting a limit of greenheads off an old slough on public. Birds always came back. NOT anymore. Now, both of those things don't happen. Too many hunters and every tom, dick, and harry rented out fields for big money from the cities. Plus, Canada geese don't come south and ducks only eat at night.

Semo you are correct. Last year during late deer season you would hear them in the air. Way after sundown. During the first week of turkey season last year I seen more ducks than I seen all winter. They were on their way back north. Hopefully some will stop back soon

You can watch it play out every year after duck season ends. Duck holes that were hunted all season and never killed many ducks are now covered up. The only difference is no one is shooting anymore.

I believe you can attract ducks but I don't think you can hold them without managing the pressure.

A lot of truth to that. But where were they all winter

The ducks are on the refuges during the season. Not just the Federal refuges but anywhere that isn't hunted. They are on lakes at the city park, the old lady fish pond, the swamp on the deer club and anywhere they are not shooting at ducks. Create one of those refuges and you can keep ducks in the area. The sucky part is that if you hunt it then it is no longer a refuge.

This is the answer. Feed during the night in these planted fields then spend the days loafing in said locations

Pressure pressure pressure

It’s that simple. All other thoughts are just part of the equation

I’ve been at it for 40 years and I’ve talked to guys been at longer than that. They all will say since the 70s it’s been on a downhill slide. The next bump downward as when limits and days were increased.

I’ve mentioned numerous times that ducks once rested in pickwick out in the middle in large rafts of ducks. These days there will several boats out here all day long running them up and OUT of the AREA

Every mud hole from Mississippi line to other side of Decatur has a blind on it. Used to be plenty of holes without but not these days.

You can’t turn up the limited pressure to a state of constant heavy pressure and expect things to stay the same. Yeah weather will help like last years last week. Those are anomalies these days. Weather used to not make them come down but it’s all we got now.

Never knew of folks traveling north to kill ducks. Now it’s uncommon not to.

Gotta slow the appeal if it’s gonna return to what I knew in the 80s and other knew in the 70s.

Several things are true

Waterfowl hunting is a huge financial driver for some states and at the same time the only consistent holes have a few things in common. BIG money is the key and these days that where the consistent ducks are

I don’t blame them. I’d do the exact same thing!!!
https://youtu.be/lJotPBoAqS8?si=1iU6Mf2gFNHYFgul

I agree with most of your points completely. Ducks are feeding more at night but they always came in to most places after legal shooting time. I quit back in the 80's when you had to race people to get to the best spots. Had very little time for years and deer hunting is so much easier. Also I like to crappie fish. I started back around 2010 with some buddies I met at the paper mill at Stevenson. We worked off midnights one morning and I went with them. Borrowed a gun and sit on the dike of their duck pond. We killed several mallards a couple of pintails and some more ducks. I went and bought me some more equipment and started back. We killed a lot of ducks until 2018 since then it has been horrible. A lot of years there is no water in peoples duck fields when the ducks first get here. I have planted for several places this year that don't have water. The people with big money enough to flood hundreds of acres have all the ducks.

I fish mud creek a lot in the winter. One day a couple of boys stopped and talked a minute. They asked me had I seen any ducks. I told him no but I average seeing at least 2 mud motors and hour doing just exactly what y'all are doing. Ducks ain't got a chance to rest.

Talked to a guy today that said he’d live to see it go back to 3/30. I agreed wholeheartedly.

It’s gotten stupid and if you don’t have deep deep pockets duck hunting gonna be sporadic at best

I agree completely. Sadly so much money has been poured into the state and local economy they’ll never change it. Best we could hope for are rest days or split seasons.

I know it may not be a popular opinion, but if the WMAs would go to to walk in or paddle only, it would make a big difference in numbers killed.

I’ve heard talk of putting 20 hp limits and no mud motors on some wmas. Maybe was Arkansas

On some it use to be 25 hp but that was before mud motors when we were hunting the cache and white rivers. They were also public land but not federal. They became a shucks show when they became federal. We used to hunt with the locals with some of the jokes going way back. One of my favorite holes was spoonyfloat that a family had since way back. Nice folks.

What got me going the other day was talking to a guy that’s hunted some of the best holes from the Delta thru Arkansas and over to Reel foot since the 90s, his family has connections. He made mention it’s been downhill since 2017 forward. Hes 15 years or so younger than myself and made mention his son will more than likely, will not know what it was like.