You hear nothing but great things about West Texas deer hunting, but how about the duck hunting? Specifically north of Abilene, and west of Wichita Falls, there are 2 rivers right around there that get pretty close together. The Brazos and the Wichita.. anybody know anything about this area??

Thanks guys.

Same as everywhere else in a flyway. If you have the habitat and roosting areas close you will have birds. The duck numbers fall off the further west you go and are pretty much non existent in far West Texas.

If you're talking west and north of abilene, and west of WF, you're getting into the panhandle, not west Texas

West Tx is van horn/ big bend/ el paso area as a friendly psa.

That area can be good. Have had deer leases over the years out there with small half acre to acre and half tanks. They hold birds if not hunted hard. But they dissapear pretty quickly if they get hunted more than once a week or so.

Most those tanks are just loafing ponds. Theres some food in them but not much.

Can't you tell how new I am here? Haha! How is the hunting in the Panhandle?!

I wish I could find it, but at one point I located a doc from TPWD that listed regional wintering duck numbers by region over the last 20 years or so. One thing stood out to me, the wetter TX is the more the flyway shifts towards the panhandle. In wet years every playa lake up there will hold ducks. Lots of agriculture and relatively less hunting pressure. I assume that is the reason. Back in the drought years several years ago East TX was clearly better. Lots of outfitters out there were doing very well for themselves.

As far as between Abilene and WF, that is where our deer/hog/duck/dove/turkey lease is. We have three ponds and two are huntable... meaning far enough away from feeders and winter wheat fields to not spook deer. None of them are loafing ponds. They're coming there at LST to feed on wigeon grass (aka American pond weed) as long as it lasts and tons of submerged aquatic vegetation. Both ponds provided limits for 2-4 guns every weekend, mostly greys and wigeon. We do have a major river a quarter mile from us so I'm not sure how typical that would be for areas further away. I do know outfitters stick to properties close to the river.

The Panhandle is everything west and north of Childress. I grew up in Tulia (in the southern Panhandle). South of that is the South Plains. Further south is the Permian Basin. It's all part of West Texas, but west of the Permian Basin is "Far West Texas". I currently live in Abilene (3 hours from the Panhandle). The country between Abilene and Wichita Falls and west to the South Plains and Panhandle is the Rolling Plains.

But to everyone from East Texas, anything west of I-35 and north of I-20 is the "Panhandle".

For ducks, as somebody said already, if you find some marshy, shallow water holes, there will be ducks. Some parts of the Rolling Plains also have some decent goose and crane hunting, but not everywhere.

The key to some of the Rolling Planes (Big Country) is to have enough holes if your going to hunt a bunch. When we duck hunted out that way we had somewhere around 18-20 holes and stayed on the birds pretty much all season. Lots of door knocking and lots of hand shaking to get that many holes.

Don't over look the Eastland County area. This is old peanut country and has lots of private water around there. That's west of "somewhere".

Guys thank yall for all the advice. Happy hunting and Geaux Tigers!

It's terrible no ducks or geese anywhere around here...

I have never seen as many geese and crane, as we have had around Petersburg this year.