Posted By:
DKA
Web Member
Reelfoot 08-06-2007 08:08
– – –
Believe it or not, I actually got drawn at Reelfoot Sat. Ended up with 51, timber hole next to Black Bayou, actually the first blind coming to the lake from the refuge. Should be pretty good, going tohave to build a blind but we can walk in to it from the refuge parking area. Cool!
Posted By:
DKA
Web Member
Reelfoot 07-28-2007 09:23
– – –
I will be there selling chances on a shotgun for the Waterfowl Festival the second week in Oct. Stop by. Kevin
Posted By:
steve68
Guest
Reelfoot 07-26-2007 16:21
– – –
Is any one going to the Reelfoot WMA blind drawings. It is time to start getting ready it will be here before you know it. P/m me and I will try to meet you at the drawings.
GOOD LUCK to everyone in all the WMA draws
Posted By:
flyfish37129
Guest
Stones River Chapter of Ducks Unlimited 04-22-2007 08:59
– – –
The Stones River Chapter of Ducks Unlimited is having their annual fund raising banquet Thursday May 31, 2007 at the Middle Tennessee Association of Realtors Building located at 311 Butler Drive in Murfreesboro.
For information shoot me a message or give me a call (615)351-0477. Tickets are $40 for individuals or $55 a couple, $15 for greenwings. It should be our best event yet!!! For the Early Bird drawing tickets must be bought(paid for) by May 16, 2007.
Thank you,
Mike
Posted By:
mstone
Guest
West Tennessee 03-28-2007 12:26
– – –
Would like to know if anyone knows about any hunting leases available for the next season around Kentucky Lake.
mstone
Posted By:
gleasonduck
Web Member
Gleason TN 03-06-2007 14:23
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 40-45 Degrees
Went to our duck hole to pull boards and tidy up-Holy cow were there a lot of birds, est 3-4000. Blue and green wingers, at least 1000 Mallards, 2-300 Shovelers and a mix of Gadwalls, Widgeon and a few Black Ducks. That was the most ducks I have ever seen at our place. Wish it would have been Jan and not March, but it was still cool to see.
Posted By:
DKA
Web Member
02-28-2007 09:18
– – –
Ross, hate to see you getting out of the ED. pos. You have always had good insightful information and have provided everyone a chance to use their noggin for something besides a hat rack. I am sure we will continue to see your post and look forward to getting to hunt with you next year at Reelfoot. You should try and make it up for the spring fling at Reelfoot. Everyone has a large time. Take care.
Posted By:
Ross-Malone
Guest
02-20-2007 21:01
– – –
All,
Wanted to share a report that was forward from TWF, to the Blue Ribbon Panel.
It’s kind a interesting report that I can tell you I did witnessed some of the examples listed toward the end of the season. Sorry for it is kind of long, but good reading.
Also want to add this will be my last year as a Tennessee Editor. I think it been 6 years now and we have many other good editors to keep the reports coming.
I want to thank Waterfowler.com for allowing me this honor to be a part this history making process.
Remember to manage the resource with science base biology and your heart and we will have a legacy to past onto future generations.
Be Blessed.
Ross A. Malone
BIRD’S-EYE VIEW
Research shows mallards are not falling prey to hunters’ tactics
Sunday, February 18, 2007
By Bob Marshall
This just in: Ducks are smarter than hunters.
That’s the major headline developing after a two-year study by two LSU
graduate students on the movements of mallards wintering in Louisiana.
Although many waterfowlers have complained that the recent string of
poor seasons was because of factors beyond their control — a paucity of
ducks, a change to nocturnal habits by the birds and the safe heavens
provided by state and federal refuges being off-limits to hunting —
preliminary results from research by Bruce Davis and Paul Link revealed
something else.
Mallards, at least, have been around in basically the same numbers, have
been using open lands instead of refuges and have been traveling during
hours. They just aren’t falling for hunters’ tricks.
“Many times we would track birds to sites right next to hunters set up
in blinds with (decoy) spreads including spinning wing decoys, and the
hunters never knew they were there,” Link said. “The birds just weren’t
falling for whatever the hunters were trying.”
Working under the direction of LSU professor Al Afton, Davis and Link
placed radio tracking devices in small backpacks on almost 400 mallard
hens trapped in southwest and northeast Louisiana during the winters of
2005 and 2006.
Using laptop computers, they were able to travel across the two regions
tracking the movements of the birds. Similar research will be conducted
on gadwalls and mottled ducks in the next two winters, Afton said.
The research was prompted, in part, by growing frustration of hunters
because of plummeting success the past six years in what has long been
one of the most productive waterfowling grounds on the continent. For
decades Louisiana hunters led the nation in the number of ducks killed,
often topping 3 million birds, more than the entire population of ducks
on the Atlantic Flyway. But that began to wane in the late 1990s.
Biologists and hunters have looked at several theories for the decline,
including the disruption of traditional migration patterns caused by
warming winter weather patterns along the Mississippi Flyway,
degradation of coastal habitats by tropical storms and the impact of
hunting pressure.
The waterfowling community mined some insight into the trend from a
similar tracking study Afton conducted on pintails a decade ago. That
research shed light on the impact of hunting pressure by revealing
pintails quickly changed their habits after opening day. Once started,
the birds became primarily nocturnal, retreating to the safety of
protected refuges during daylight and venturing into hunted areas after
sundown, when hunting had stopped. It also revealed that pintails on the
Louisiana coast often would travel more than 400 miles in a day in
response to weather changes that promised better feeding conditions as
far away as Arkansas.
But the key preliminary findings by Davis and Link on winter movement of
mallards might be even more surprising:
— Mallards traveled in much smaller numbers than pintails, staying in
groups of less than eight birds. Pintails often traveled in flights of
more than a dozen.
— Hunting pressure had little affect on mallards’ activities. The birds
remained primarily diurnal, and continued to primarily use lands open to
hunting.
— In northeast Louisiana, mallards preferred to feed in flooded timber,
avoiding the open water where most hunters tend to set up. The smaller
numbers meant they were more able to land in smaller patches of open
water in the flooded timber. It also meant they were less likely to be
attracted to large decoy spreads.
— In southwest Louisiana, mallards tended to remain in the marsh,
preferring that habitat for foraging over the flooded rice and other
agricultural fields favored by pintails and other species. Mallards
surprised the researchers last year by sticking to the marsh even after
its apparent suitability had been reduced by the saltwater tides from
tropical storms.
— Perhaps most surprising of all, most mallards did not leave Louisiana
until mid-March, and some stayed until the first week of April.
It has been accepted wisdom even among biologists that mallards left the
state by mid-February and made a gradual return to nesting grounds in
the Dakotas and prairie Canada. Link and Davis found them staying later,
and often returning in one hurried flight.
“I followed one back to South Dakota, and I was traveling 70-miles per
hour, but the bird beat me,” Link said.
The findings will be embarrassing to some hunters who have been
demanding that state and federal wildlife agencies open refuges
previously off limits to hunting. They claimed the protected areas were
contributed to the recent poor seasons because birds were crowding onto
the properties in response to hunting pressure.
“That just wasn’t the case,” Afton said. “They didn’t turn nocturnal.
They didn’t use refuges as a way of avoiding hunters. They continued to
use areas open to hunting. In many cases they were very close to groups
of hunters.
But they were moving in small groups. They were very adept at finding
sources of food in areas where hunters just were not located.”
Davis and Link said they often would see birds ignoring hunters’
greatest efforts, including motorized, moving-wing decoys and expert
calling. The ineffectiveness of hunters and the feeding tactics of the
mallards might well be adjustments to hunting pressure, Afton said. When
birds find an effective strategy, they stay with it.
“This could be something that has been developing over the years, and
hunters just haven’t noticed it, and have yet to adapt,” he said.
Link said his education in duck marshes of his native North Dakota
prepared him for the findings.
“I was taught a long time ago that one of two things happens when a gun
goes off in a duck marsh,” said Link. “Either a duck falls out of the
sky , or it flies away a smarter duck.”
The research shows that these bird brains, at least mallards, have been
smarter than Louisiana hunters.
Posted By:
TROTRO
Guest
02-12-2007 12:03
– – –
I’d be in on this but don’t think i can get anytime off for the hunt. Shoot! i love to go. I will just have to quit my jobs,lol.
Posted By:
Thomas-Quinlen
Field Editor
Martin’s Goos Hunt 02-12-2007 11:05
– – –
I’d be interested. Didn’t see many ducks this year, so I’ll be angry if and when I encounter any sky-carp! 🙂
