Like Bobo is saying, I would be more interested in cartridges for existing cartridges at higher pressures than a new cartridge.

Any chef's knifes available, sir?

My family had a cabin there for years. I haven't been in 11 years. My parents went last year and said they would never go back. Covid and dems have ruined it. Lots of homeless people and wee shops on every corner. Some of the museums have closed down.

But with a worn out Carcano

I forgot about the Yankees up north.

Meanwhile I'm paying $140/roll in Laredo.

I need to move North already.

as a guy who has been duck hunting for over 40 years, I’m gonna give you my perception and what my data backs. I’ve been keeping a detailed logbook of our hunts since 1993 and on average I hunt about 60 days a year. I own and control the Hunting pressure on over 30,000 acres in central Tx so i am able to watch the trends over the last 20 years on these properties.

1. when I started hunting these properties in 1991 we were averaging 600 mallards a year on our properties on the Brazos river from 91 through 2001. In about 98 we saw that number start declining from a peak of 800 dropping to 600, 400 200 and by about 2005 and every year since we’ve shot 50 mallards or less. What changed? Farming practices and hunting practices north of us. Farmers started doing no till farming and Duck clubs started farming for Ducks. Everybody says come on cold front, come on cold front – our mallards in the 90s started showing up on the river in October – didn’t matter what the weather was that’s when they showed up. At that time having moved from Louisiana I had over 100,000 acres in Central texas that I could hunt that no one else was hunting. I could hunt the whole season and not hear another person shoot. every year since our peak harvest of total ducks in 2011 I’ve seen the number of Hunters drastically increase. Now there’s not a piece of water in our area greater than an acre that somebody’s not hunting. The cost of deer hunting and the popularity of duck hunting on social media drastically increased the number of Hunters. I’ve got at least 20 friends that have jumped into the sport in the last five years. These are guys with money, assets, and time, and they are shooting a lot of ducks on properties that were not getting shot a few years ago.

2. Do the cold front push mallards in? Absolutely but other species like pintail, gadwalls, redheads, shovelers, Ruddy Ducks, and snow geese historically have all shown up at a very predictable time. I have a pond that for 30 years Has held a group of 30isg ruddy Ducks and we do not shoot them. Every year they show up plus or -5 days of Thanksgiving and they stay the entire season and leave in May. This isn’t rocket science – go follow some of the guys that are doing the telemetry banding studies and they will show you that the birds show back up to the same place as they were caught and banded within a matter of days every year. We have a big snow goose roost on one of our properties and for the last 28 years those geese show up every year between December 26 and January 4. Doesn’t matter what the weather is that’s when they will show up. The difference is 20 years ago our roost was 50,000 birds and this year it’s 500. We noticed a drastic dropping off in the population when the conservation order season kicked in. It’s no secret that the wholesale massacre of the snow geese which I’m not against but it has correlated to a substantial decline. I have this data so well documented that if a guy tells me he wants to kill a lesser scaup I can tell him exactly which farm he needs to be on and which week and they will be there. I’ve got this to the point where I’ve actually considered selling hunts by species for the guys that are chasing their 41 bird target.

3. targeted pressure and focus has me really doubting the harvest data. we really saw a ramp up in the decline of our Central texas type birds like Widgeon and gadwalls 10 years ago. What change? Cadillac Creek outfitters, tornado country, outfitters, bluestem, outfitters, Fowlco, etc. These guys are killing machines. A frames and realistic full body decoys have impacted success rates of field hunting birds. They have acquired hundreds of thousands of acres of land that historically was getting recreational hunting and have numerous guides scouting up to 400 mile circles, finding the birds and hammering them. Just go look at their Instagram and it becomes real hard to argue. One of our ranches in the San Saba area for decades has held lots of Widgeon that normally showed up around January 1. About six years ago, we started noticing a decline in them and I have not seen a single bird on any of those ponds in three years and they get zero duck hunting pressure. Just look at the number of Widgeon that Cadillac and tornado country are killing year in and year out and it’s got to have an impact. How many of you guys accurately report what you shoot each year? Every year when I do my hip survey and put 500+ birds I get a call/email from Fish and wildlife saying it must be a mistake that nobody shooting that many ducks and this year it looks like i will shoot a total of 48 ducks. Guys I personally know that are shooting 2 to 300 birds a year are putting that they’re shooting 20 because they don’t want the government in their business. You know what we have not seen a decline in? Pintails. We still see big flocks of pintails every day you know why – it’s been restricted to one bird limiting the number that are killed. Id bet you a lot of $$ that when that number goes to two next year, we will see a big drop in the number of pintails making it to Central texas.

4. Saying the migration has shifted or changed infers that the ducks are still somewhere. i’ve developed an extensive network of friends all over the country that we trade hunts each year. Been doing it for 30+ years and I can tell you my friends in Canada say they saw 1/10 of the number of birds they normally do to the point they cane home 3 weeks early from their 6 week hunt. My friends in South Dakota have killed less than 20% of what they normally kill. My friends on the East Coast have watched the same decline of their eiders and scorers over the last 10 years. In 2008 the first time I went hunting with them we literally saw tens of thousands of eiders. Last year when I went, everyone was happy to shoot two on a three day trip. what changed? Hunt 41 and the targeted pressure of “collectors”. i’m not knocking it, i’ve done it and just pointing out facts.

here’s the reality of the current situation – U.S. Fish and Wildlife and most state agencies have recognized this is a problem. They understand that there are likely more ducks being killed right now than there ever was in the market hunting day. They also know they don’t want to do anything that will impact the sale of licenses because that’s where they get their funding for all of their programs. Canada and South Dakota are both changing their laws this year to regulate out of state guides and outfitters. Several states are considering going to a system like Alaska, where you are not allowed to shoot more than four of any species of sea duck in a season. Imagine what they would do to the King eiders on st paul if you were allowed to shoot six a day instead of four per season.

so to sum up all of this gibberish, basically we are feeling the impact of 10 years of a drastic increase in targeted hunting pressure on the waterfowl and this year is the eorst drought year in my area in 16 years which always correlates to less birds. my data is certainly limited to central Tx but it reflects what my friends are seeing all over the country. Or as said above, we are waiting on those paper ducks.

Any response to the accusations ?
Asking for a friend!