Any of you guys keeping up with what's going on with this squabble between DU and this Flyway Federation?

From what I gather it's starting heat a bit. The Flyway Federation is gathering quite the following and accusing DU of unnatural farming practices such as flooding corn and heating ponds on federal and state refuges which is short stopping the migration.

https://www.flywayfederationusa.com/who-we-are/

I'm not a member and I've listened and read arguments on both sides and I'm not really sure where I stand and how much influence these practices have on migration.

Interesting

I have heard complaints for ten years about DU properties short stopping the migration with food plots and the such. Their excuse is warmer winters. I have been to DU banquets in Montana and here in Texas, the difference in attendance is not noticeable, huge crowds at both, so I don't think it's because they have more members up north. I will be watching this with interest.

The video's were very interesting to say the least.

The problem is how those FFL guys go about it. There's no reasoning and no civil debate, at all. Even if you do agree on certain aspects of things. One of my best friends is a DU engineer and they have ZERO project designs with anything to do with keeping water open but they can not stop the landowner from doing stuff himself as long as it does not violate the contract. What they don't want to talk about is the thousands of birds that end up in Mexico due to habit losses along the coast. How many acres of duck habitat has LA last in the past ten years? The simple fact that we were consistently shooting a majority of BWT from opening day to the last should tell you everything you need to know about how out of whack the migration was this year.
While I do not agree with planting crops on refuges, you can't even get involved with them without being lumped in with a bunch of crazies screaming all of the time. Everybody wants to blame somebody for the ducks not making it to the same Cypress brake that peepaw killed them in but doesn't want to look at their own area habitat, the fact the entire country had WAY too much water, or that it was in the forties in NoDak until late in the season minus just a few days.
Migrations change, always have and always will. 100 years ago the they were killing mallards and Canada geese on Matagorda island.

Things are just different now then they were in the past. My frame of reference is growing up hunting Iowa, we were frozen out every year by thanksgiving. Now, open water has lasted way into January the last decade. I don’t think that du flooding corn has anything to do with that. Give it time, and everything will cycle around.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/outdoors/article/Survey-tracks-shifts-in-Texas-wintering-13603356.php?utm_campaign=CMS+Sharing+Tools+%28Premium%29&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&fbclid=IwAR2tW22M58LiYLD2aCMZL8OhVV2PgymRU2WsHuUxTB5sOmlWHnXNxW75fik

i do not honestly know how much DU actually does as far as planting grain and keeping water open. They do build a lot of levies, but don't do much that I'm aware of other than that. What a lot of people do not know is the amount of work done by the actual state departments north of us that hold ducks that DU has absolutely nothing to do with. OK takes money from a state stamp or license and flies on thousands of acres of Japanese millet every summer, Ark floods tens of thousands of acres of moist soil and green trees, Missouri plants and floods thousands of acres of corn as well as keeping very large portions of one refuge open, there are a lot of problems other than DU. A lot of inadvertent duck habitat. Look at how many stock ponds that have been built without the intent of them being duck ponds, but they are. Look at the power plant lakes that I have been put in that keep water open close enough to ag fields to keep ducks around. There's a lot more to it than DU.

I'm all for less ducks for the yankees and more ducks for Texas.

DU short stopping ducks for thier boardeee members and using tax payer money todo so... say it ain’t so..

Lol say it ain’t so. I hope flyaway guys stick it to them.

DU bought a property in Nebraska a while back and was trying to flood it in Dec...... luckily the county denied thier permits to bore under the road.

Duck nesting habit in Nebraska in Dec I’m sure......

If it were having a negative impact on the overall population that would be one thing, but some people being creative and working the system legally to benefit waterfowl hunting in their area I don't see the issue. Louisiana has consistently been at the top on total duck harvest for as long as I can remember. Pretty self serving to say hunting over rice is totally fine but anyone else hunting crops isn't.

There are TPWD projects that hold tens of thousands of ducks on each property in Texas from the first day of the season to the last. More and more people every year are buying places just for hunting and putting in wetlands/food plots, etc.

There is a big difference between pouring a bag of corn out and planting 100 acres and flooding it. The benefit to all wildlife including waterfowl should be obvious.

You remember a couple years ago when something like 3k green heads or a ridiculous # like that died at a feedlot from eating bad grain? Those water pits are aerated so they don’t freeze over.... so what where that many ducks doing above the freeze line.... simple open water and corn.

It’s fine if you want to flood out your personal field, it’s not fine to dope tax payers into paying for private “wetland habitat”/WRP. DU needs to stick to breeding habitat like the original mission statement.

If you watch the videos they talk about a lot of different things going on other than just DU short stopping ducks.

A lot of those guys with the FF are in Louisiana. I can't deny that the harvest has been down in recent years in that state as the data shows it. In 2010 LA had a higher duck harvest than any state in the nation, but look at the last three years in the chart below. Something happened, but where are the ducks at that they are not shooting? Common sense tells me there should be an opposite pattern of increased harvest showing in one or more other states north of or near LA. Initially scanning the Data, I am not seeing it.
I don't know what or who or what combination of things including DU factors into this, but with a change of reported harvest of 2,518,402 to 988,453 in just a few seasons while other area states held fairly steady with their reported harvest numbers; the FF has a very valid concern when it comes to Louisiana.

So duck numbers trending down from 15.5M in 1999 to 11.7M in 2017, while duck hunters are trending up 33.2M in 1999 to 36.8M in 2017. SMH

https://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/subpages/licenseinfo/hunting.htm

I think it's them windmills disrupting the flyway.

DU fired longtime writer E. Don Thomas a few years back because he exposed a wealthy land owner in Montana who was trying to keep public anglers off "his" river where anglers have been using a public right of way for years to access that river. The land owner....a huge DU piggy bank donor and past board member.

I've not supported them since.

The main issue is hunting over unharvseted, flooded corn. Can,t do that here or in many other states. Try planting rice with no intention of harvesting it, flooding it and hunting over it here in TX. Or any other food crop for that matter. You,ll wish you didn,t.

I’m conflicted on the lawsuit and the guys who run FF. I’m also conflicted on the migration issues.

The number one migration issue, in my opinion, is weather, which no one can control. Yes, power plant lakes and ice eliminators keep water open longer, but I don’t think that’s a big enough reason to cause the poor migration numbers the last few years. The weather just hasn’t been cold enough in the right places at the right times.

I’m not discounting the issues the Louisiana boys are experiencing (I don’t believe we had a very good migration year here, either), but I don’t like the law suit, either. I don’t see it working at all and, in a way, it’s embarrassing and whiney. If they could prove these issues are detrimental to duck numbers because it keeps ducks up north too long and impacts breeding numbers or something, the lawsuit might make sense, but then they’re arguing that they aren’t getting the chance to kill more ducks, so that seems ridiculous and hypocritical.

Louisiana has lost a lot of habitat due to hurricanes, they have strict private property laws (not necessarily a bad thing in general), and the days of knocking on doors and getting permission to hunt private property are mostly over, it sounds like. It’s different up north.

It’s a multifaceted issue and I don’t have the answers, but I don’t think the lawsuit has a chance and I’m not sure I agree with filing it at all. There are real impacts to migration, but the ducks have a choice in the matter, too.

I’m also seeing that the FF guys seem to be disinterested in any debate or dissenting opinions, which doesn’t make their case very sympathetic. They look absurd with blocking anyone who has a different opinion or even asks questions they don’t like. That’s not a good look, in my opinion.

Yes you can

Yep, you just can’t manipulate it.

The problem with flooded corn is that the majority of the food is above the water level. So all the ducks have to do when it gets super cold is huddle together and keep a small hole open in the ice, then walk up on the ice and stand their and eat corn right off the stalk.

The biggest problem with those guys is they refuse to have a discussion about it with anyone. The second you contradict anything they say you’re immediately blocked. Their opinion is right and that’s all there is to it. Don’t you dare try and tell them it was a hot winter.

Maybe I'm getting in on the tail in of who they are and what they are trying to accomplish but it sounds like this has been going on a while. Where can I find the information that they are not wanting to visit with any one else or have a legitimate debate about it?

I'm not up on what they are trying to do but there are some valid points that they bring up. Maybe there is nothing that can be done about it but this isn't just the LA. coastal hunters complaining ask the guys above I-20 in LA. if things are different. According to the folks I know up that way it gets worse every season.

Can a flyway change, absolutely, and can change year to year in certain regions especially with drought years etc. but look back at some previous topics a few weeks ago and everyone was calling it the worsted season ever here in Texas. Something is changing and weather isn't the only thing holding these birds back.

You want to fix the problem short term, real simple, add a foot of snow above us.