Warm, wet weather dampens waterfowl season

The 2015/2016 waterfowl seasons came to an end March 7 with the close of the conservation order on light geese, and many hunters are bidding good riddance to an awful hunting season.
Larry Reynolds, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries waterfowl leader, said, “It was 84 degrees Christmas Day. There was water everywhere. What did everyone expect?”
He continued, “We have known for a long time from banded mallard data, when it’s cold and dry, the distribution of banded, harvested ducks shifts south. The best weather in general (for southern duck migration) is cold and dry. When it’s warm and wet, duck distribution shifts north.”
Reynolds said this winter was one of the warmest and wettest winters on record in Louisiana, and conditions were extremely dry in a lot of northern states. Reynolds said state aerial duck population surveys for November were below average, and the numbers just declined from December to January.
“It was disappointing,” he said. “People were waiting on late season birds and they didn’t show up. Iowa is not even frozen. Midwinter surveys here and in Arkansas were below average. In Missouri, they had twice the long term average (of ducks). Kentucky and Tennessee were also above the long term average.
“Lots of birds didn’t make it this far south. It was a good year to be a duck.”
Reynold said he received good and bad reports during the season, but most were the same — bad, and reports from the St. Landry Parish area were extremely poor.
At Thistlewaite Wildlife Management area, located in the northeast part of the parish, information gathered from self-clearing permits indicated 805 hunters harvested 347 ducks during the season for an average 0.43 ducks per hunter. Ducks harvested at Thistlewaite are 99 percent wood ducks.
Waterfowl harvest reports from Sherburne WMA, located in neighboring St. Martin and Pointe Coupee parishes, were also sub par. In addition a low number of ducks in the state, Sherburn’s waterfowl hunters were faced with closed roads, closed hunting areas and cancelled lottery hunts, all due to flooding.
On Nov. 21, opening day of first split of the season, Sherburne WMA had 68 waterfowl hunters, and hunters harvested 65 ducks for average of 0.95 birds per hunter. Sherburne South Farm had eight hunters, and those hunters harvested seven ducks for an average of 0.9 birds per hunter. On Dec. 19, the opening day of the second split, Sherburne had 30 hunters with 49 ducks harvested for an overage of 1.6 birds per hunter. Ten South Farm lottery hunts during the second split were canceled due to flooding.
In an e-mail, Tony Vidrine, wildlife and fisheries Mississippi Alluvial Valley South Region manager, said the number of hunters and duck harvests numbers were extremely low in the region, which includes Thistlewaite and Sherburne WMAs.
Reynolds said a few good duck hunting reports came out of the southwest Louisiana area.
“Southwest Louisiana did very well early in the season,” Reynolds said. “Lots of blue wing teal were still around. Halfway through the second split, Southwest Louisiana had a good migration of diving ducks.”
Reynolds said that coastal duck hunters often have better success than rice lake hunters.
“Ducks that typically winter on the coast rely less on weather to migrate,” he said. “They are affected by flooding more than temperature. They are more resilient in bad years like this.”
He added, “By the end of the season, hunting was pretty terrible for everybody. I got lots of complaints from rice lake hunters.”
Another small silver lining from Reynolds’ reports was that some goose hunters reported a banner year for goose hunting.
“There were really high white-fronted goose populations in the January survey,” Reynolds said. “Goose hunting was fair. I had a couple of people with the highest number of geese they had ever seen on their farms, but some also said their goose season was horrible.
“That’s pretty much scratching hard for good news.”
Dates for the 2016/2017 waterfowl seasons will be announced in April.