Anyone actually seeing big numbers of ducks in the piney woods? I’ve hunted several times the last few weeks and have barely seen anything. Only had 2 groups of woodies fly over this morning sky high. Just wondering if I’m not in good locations or if there aren’t many ducks around. Didn’t hear hardly any shooting this morning.

Well the first response I typed hung and did not post. Let me try this again.

I've not spoke to one person that has seen any big numbers of ducks. The weather just never got cold north of us, until this past Thursday.

KS had a foot of snow on the ground by Thanksgiving in 2017. This year their temps didn't deep below freezing until the other day on the 26th of December.

I've emailed, texted, and talked with folks I know hunting in the east, the cost (POC), pan handle, metro mess, and in my area and the birds are far and few between.
With so much water the birds we have are just spread out.

Even the post in this section are far and few between with pics of limits. Our current posts are about coffee, crane hunts, federal shut down, etc.

Unless things continue to freeze up north of us, I'm afraid for most of us, this season will be a bust.

I've driven more miles in the truck and put more hours on the throttle from 35 east and from 30 north into Oklahoma and it's been a poor season. Nothing in the 7 day freezes Nebraska much less Kansas.

Im not hunting, but can tell you IVe had between 50-100 ducks on the pond by my house daily for the last week.

I only recently started noticing the social media posts about the lack of ducks in TX and LA. As well as a lot of people calling out DUs practices over it. I have mostly been hunting four footed critters this season and little to no public water duck scouting, but I will say my young county hunting lease for the last two months I have seen two ducks period. And that is just a young mated pair of resident wood ducks that stayed behind on our creek and always present. I usually have dozens of them around if not hundreds, but all other resident woodies left just before the first big rains filled everything back up this year. No migrators of any kind have shown up on our ponds or on the live creek. The wide portions of the creek would almost always have ringers working it by now. There are none. Driving the countryside, non of the larger ponds close to us that have always had ducks sitting on them, I have seen none. The morning hunts by now for many years going I would always see flocks of ducks using a flyway that followed our creek bottom. I have seen none this season and I have been hunting there more this season than I have in years. As for East Texas, my new hunting place in Panola Co has three small ponds in the woods and a live creek. There are three large ponds bordering us visible from the boundary fences. There is a huntable public lake nearby. It is my first year hunting there so I have no idea if those ponds normally hold ducks or not, but they all look ducky. At the very least I expected a few wood ducks. I have not seen a single duck in the area this season. Too bad pigs don't fly, because I have seen 100s of those this season.

Very few ducks right now. What’s down here has been here a while IMO and I think a lot went nocturnal around the full moon. Plus there is a lot of water.

We had a good hunt on private water this morning but it is a pond that has never been hunted since it was built ~20 years ago and is full of food. After that hunt I’m betting it won’t be good until the birds start moving South. The weather should start being a bit more conducive of that this week.

After our hunt we scouted a bunch of other places we have access to and saw 4 ducks total. Normal year and we’d have seen hundreds. We thought they may be in the flooded bottoms below tawakoni but we didn’t see many ducks when we checked that out either. My FIL works for the river authority and is all around Fork and Tawkoni every day and he’s said he saw his first big group this past week but that was the only decent amount of birds he’s seen.

They’ll come. Just need Mother Nature to do her thing.

Thanks for the input guys. I don’t feel as bad now. Maybe they just aren’t here yet.

It’s been really tough this second split. We killed 1 green head this morning in the timber. We scouted a little more and found a few hanging out. What’s here now, has been here for the past few weeks. Lots and lots of water. People are getting lucky and finding ducks but you’ve really got to spend some time on the water.

I keep a trail cam on one of the tanks I hunt and I didn't even start seeing ducks until like Nov 27th or 28th. The last few years, I have been covered up in Wood ducks and then in December the Mallards show up. I have only had less that a dozen ducks total on camera and they are usually in groups of 2 and 3. I haven't even heard the quacking I normally hear off the big pond next to out property. everyone I have talked to around here has not been seeing ducks in any large numbers. May have to wait until later in January and hope it gets colder up north and force them down.

The first half was the worst I have seen in my whole life. The start of the 2nd half was the worst I have seen in my life. I have seen some good numbers the past few days, so maybe the final few weeks will end the as the best I have seen in my life. Keeping my fingers crossed and a positive attitude full of hope.

I have seen very few ducks in Anderson county. Headed back this weekend to see if the weather brought an in

Took this picture two hours ago. There are probably 150 ducks on each of our 4 ponds. I guess they know I don't eat duck, lol.

good to know!

I spent 5 days on a large east texas lake from Christmas to New Year. The water came up over a foot in that time and every piece of timber surrounding the lake is flooded, most of it too deep for dabbling ducks. I was to find one area the next to last day there that made for a good last morning hunt that was holding a large number of woodies. Most everywhere i went was 2 birds, 3 birds, etc. Have to go WAY back in the woods to find em.....

About 1-3 hunts has been de ent as best- at 50% of last year- which was spectacular. Flooded hay fields has been the key here lately.

We had some flooded costal that drew in 50+ in first 20 minutes last week- didn’t set up w lay downs was birdwatcher- frustrating.

Very few sunny days Has really hurt us on big water

Boy, lots of food in there