Posted By:
Thomas-Quinlen
Field Editor
Harrisburg, AR 12-24-2006 13:47
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 45-50 Degrees
Youth hunt. Lots of ducks in the area, though they were not working well. Seems the clear skys are letting them feed at night and raft up during the day.
Posted By:
mmetcalf
Guest
camden 12-22-2006 19:07
Cloudy, Occassional Rain Showers – 45-50 Degrees
went to camden this morning and did about the same as in reelfoot the main birds are around them bigass draw blinds and the other people are in the left over spots. Going back out to kansas on the 26 to do some real hunt
Posted By:
Kevin-Stewart
Field Editor
Woods Res 12-21-2006 11:43
Cloudy, High Winds – 60-65 Degrees
Just to give you guys a good laugh:
I hosted a duck hunt for some of my soldiers yesterday at Woods. All three were first timers. I knew the weather and birds count was poor, but had to schedule over a month ago. So, got them there early, and took them into the blind. Wind was in our face all day.
About daybreak, 2 different boats of blind hoppers, drove into our dekes. I waved them off, and watched as they tried to find their way from 1 blind to the next, looking for a vacancy. FINALLY, they got in and got settled, only to begin serenading the whole lake as soon as the first seagulls showed up. Both blinds sounded like JR High School marching bands!
Some grey ducks sat down about 400 yds from 1 blind, and OMG did the highballing begin. Does highballing rafting ducks really make them want to swim 400 yds over to your dekes? Does that answer change after 2 HOURS of highballing? HAHAHAHA
The silver lining to all of this was, that since there were few birds, poor weather conditions, etc… my boys did learn alot about the do’s and dont’s of public land waterfowling.
About 1000 hrs, we cut bait and went to a lease. Of course, we didn’t kill any birds there either, but we were far enough away from the marching bands, that we all got in some serious power naps!!!
Luck to all, and Merry Christmas!
“Have gun, will travel” – Paladin
Posted By:
DKA
Web Member
Reelfoot 12-21-2006 08:15
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Long point Refuge at Reelfoot Nat’l WR. is holding close to 200K birds they have been there for about 2 weeks.
Posted By:
mmetcalf
Guest
west ten. 12-20-2006 18:54
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 50-60 Degrees
has anyone even seen a thing to shoot at in the last 2 weeks
Posted By:
DKA
Web Member
Reelfoot 12-18-2006 13:09
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Gooseslayer, all the state management areas draw on the first weekend of August.
Posted By:
GOOSE SLAYER22
Web Member
DUCK HUNTING 12-18-2006 11:27
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Does any body no about , draw drawing they do every year at reelfoot lake, Wat time of year do u have to sign up, to see if u can get drawed down there for a blind, if some body could help me out,
Posted By:
DKA
Web Member
Reelfoot 12-18-2006 08:36
Sunny & Clear, Morning Fog – 60-65 Degrees
Sat. knocked down 19 picked up 16 on the lake. Sun. went to the pit got 3 geese and two teal. Had to leave early for a christmas party yesterday afternoon. Musty confess, I was loading my gun down in the pit and heard the teal fly by, eased up and two were sitting on the water 10 yards in front of me looking right at me, the next thing they saw was a load of BB’s entering their cranium.
Posted By:
Ross-Malone
Guest
West TN Reports 12-14-2006 18:17
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From my friend Steve McCadams.
His report kind of tells the story in West Tennessee.
Warm weather slow everything down for sometime now. Oh Well.
Take care,
RAM
Updated December 13th, 2006)
DUCK NUMBERS INCREASE DRAMATICALLY IN KENTUCKY LAKE AREA…MILD WEATHER NOT HELPING HUNTERS
By Steve McCadams
Waterfowl have increased in the Kentucky Lake area lately but an extended spell of mild weather has curtailed activity for most duck hunters this week.
Late last week the quick weather change delivered a great day of shooting on Thursday and gale force northwest winds sent the mercury plunging more than 30 degrees in a 24-hour period.
Ducks filled the skies across the whole area that day and hunting was good. However, temperatures dipped to 12 degrees that night with no wind and ice entered the picture in many shallow fields and swamps. By the next day activity was down as stagnant winds gave in to a rapid warm up that has lasted over a week now.
Aerial surveys taken by U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service last Friday (Dec 8th) show numbers of ducks and geese have increased on the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge.
Total numbers for ducks increased dramatically from the previous survey taken over three weeks ago. Estimates show a total of 138,174 ducks, which is 80 percent ahead of last year at this same time and 87 percent above the 5-year average. That total is also some 93 percent above the 10-year average.
A breakdown of the survey indicated mallards were tops at 85,021, followed by gadwall at 72,792. Pintails were reported at 7,300 with greenwing teal at 5,021.
The Big Sandy unit of the refuge accounted for 56,069 out of the total survey and the Duck River unit showed 80,118 using that sector.
Numbers of geese increased slightly on the refuge as well. There were 3,361 Canada geese estimated in the survey.
Updates from duck hunters across the region stretching from middle to west Tennessee indicates action has slowed dramatically as above average temperatures have lingered for more than a week. Unfortunately, no cold fronts are in the forecast as mild weather is predicted through early next week.
Hunting success has been limited to only a few blinds in West Sandy WMA. Most hunters are not seeing many mallards there as most blinds above the Elkhorn Road area have experienced slow shooting this week. Only a blind or two in the pumphouse field was scoring and overall action was slow.
Similar reports are coming in from both Gin Creek and Big Sandy WMAs where hunters are off to a slow start in those two units this year. The loss of the corn crop planted by TWRA due to summer flooding has likely been a factor for those units.
Elsewhere, Dover Bottoms WMA has dropped off drastically since the opening weekends and Camden Bottoms WMA is in pretty much the same boat. Only a blind or two in Camden has been bagging ducks consistently with the lion’s share of blinds seeing low numbers of ducks and harvesting low numbers as well.
The open water of Kentucky Lake has been slow this week too. A few hunters have seen flocks of gadwalls and some greenwing teal moving but mallards sightings have been low and overall shooting fell off since last weekend.
Further west into the Obion and Forked Deer River bottoms hunters are also singing the blues as ducks have just not been moving up the bottoms much, choosing instead to stay on private hunt clubs and state refuges where abundant food and very little hunting pressure is holding them.
Duck activity also slowed for most blinds on Reelfoot Lake this week, although a few on the north end of the lake were getting shooting each morning.
Several ducks were using the Bogota sector around Dyersburg and White’s Lake Refuge this week. Most of the consistent shooting of mallards has come from that area lately.
While recent surveys indicate a surge in duck numbers for the Kentucky Lake zone, the song is pretty much the same across the middle and west Tennessee region. Ducks are not moving much in the spring-like weather and until another cold front slips in the door activity will likely be limited to some early morning volleys.
The bulk of waterfowlers are watching the weather forecast in hopes of seeing some change. It doesn’t appear to be headed our way anytime soon.
Below are survey dates by USFWS on TN Nat’l Wildlife Refuge and total duck count with comparisons to last year at the same time in parenthesis).
SURVEY DATE TOTAL DUCK COUNT
October 26th 23,194 (+177% Last Yr)
November 3rd 32,632 (+11% Last Yr)
November 20th 49,492 (-15% Last Yr)
December 8th 138,174 (+80% Last Yr)
Posted By:
Martin-Hall
Field Editor
Southern Middle TN 12-11-2006 11:48
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – 30-34 Degrees – Ice
Didn’t make it to Woods Res. this weekend due to doing a little deer hunting but Hooter and I did meet up for a goose hunt Saturday after lunch. We furnished my Son-in-Law with birds for a wild game dinner this Thursday. I just hope no one had a camera when we had to paddle all over the lake breaking ice to retrieve the geese. You’d think at least one of them could have landed on the bank.
You know you’re eat up with the duck hunting fever when you go duck hunting during the middle of final exams. Go get’em Gunn.
Word from the Woods blind has a few ducks still flying with most of them being divers. Still a few Redheads and Bluebills around the water that didn’t freeze. No ice in the decoys, just some near the bank.
Hope to hunt Wed. and Thur. morning before work. I just wish I hadn’t left my waders in Arkansas. The boat is getting to be a pain in the ramp.
I hear there a hunters floating the Elk River and killing ducks but they must have been generating Sat. because the river was rolling. If you get on the river, be carefull. A dunking in freezing could be deadly. Be prepared if you go.
A very few birds a Cowan Swamp. Spotty at the best. Mostly frozen this weekend.
If you’re having trouble finding the ducks, give the local geese another try. They can be a lot of work for the two bird limit, but they can save a weekend too.
You can’t kill them setting on the couch. Get out and do it.
Wind at your back and good friends in your blind. MuddyDucker
