Hunted lake A this morning. Tough walking in. Decided to test the mud and broke through up to my thigh. Had to fall back and work my way out. Found no hard bottom near the water. Moved up the creek channel hoping it would be better but I finally just picked a spot on the creek and set up decoys close to the bank. Not a lot of birds flying. Saw 9 grey's and 7 teal. But i couldn't see behind me. I wanted to cross the creek channel as I expect more birds were moving on the other side.

Private tank that's not hunted was loaded. I'm just not finding food on the main lakes and the holes are all dry. The tanks got some help with the last rains but the lakes and the lake holes not so much.

Last weekend we hunted small ponds on private land in east TX and did well. Put the miles in and scouted public Tuesday and Wednesday and found enough to head out in the boat shortly. Weather seems good. Will have several motion decoys to include pulsators, a swimmer and a double jerk rig. Maybe we can hypnotize them. lol

I’m hunting Haggerman this weekend. They’ve got all the birds

I drew hogs up there two years ago and set by a small creek in some flooded timber. Watched the mallards come and go for a couple hours. I was so enamored with their activities I forgot about hogs for a while. This was a very small water source about 10 feet across and 30 feet long. But there were some leftover acorns.

If I don't find any birds before the split I'm heading north. I usually take a couple newbies duck hunting each year and I need to get some productive spots for them. North or east is what I'm thinking. These are the times I wish I still had some private ponds to hunt.

Hunt #5 was another Skunk. Went into a spot a checked out last year, but never got around to hunting it till this morning. Its decent looking spot, a few ducks flying around but only had 4 teal buzz the decoys that I wiffed on.

After the hunt I checked out several more areas and didn't really see much. A few ducks here and there, but nothing to get excited about. Didnt hear much shooting either. Not much on the tanks while driving home either.

I'll just keep bouncing around looking for birds.

2 1 duck days - in Vanzandt, don’t get them until first week December, rest has been one 2 and 2 3 man limits. Great year so far. Tomorrow hunting w 2 maybe 3 guns, if one buddy shows in AM.

Scouted northwest NTX. I'm not going to label the lakes and tanks since it was a random drive and look. Some tanks held as many as 70 birds. Wide variety. One lake was full...of coots. Although I expect there were some ducks out there. Probably a lot, just what I saw was coots. Tanks held water but were low. Lakes were low as you would expect. Didn't get to all the lakes in that region. I did try to scout some private I have access to but I couldn't see the tanks from the access point and didn't have my truck. Will scout some other areas during the split and report back. I'm not hunting ducks until the second split. I need to go get a deer and a hog for the freezer. Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and has plenty to be thankful for.

I'm no longer a huge football fan. At least since they took over calling plays from the sideline. But the Cowhowhow boys won so that's something.

Unitas took Eubanks one time, when Eubanks tried to call a play from the sideline, "Coach, this is your team from Monday to Saturday. But on Sunday it's my team." Or something to that effect.

Also, The Texas drought map looks like it shrunk a little. Not much but it appears to be getting smaller rather than larger.

Hunt #6
Finally found some birds. Quick limit of teal this morning.

The NTX drought map has shrunk with a small portion returning to normal and a lot of the area listed as abnormally dry. Soil moisture is fair. One month outlook is remain in drought and three month outlook is drought continuing. This is before yesterday's rain. Oklahoma has improved some but Kansas and Nebraska do not appear to have improved. NETX remains normal to abnormally dry. Austin area is still in extreme drought before yesterday's rains.

We've got some lakes in NTX that actually came up enough to potentially make a huge difference.

Lots of ducks around!

Naturally, The split has begun.

Im talking about from the first of season til now.

That's true. Wasn't meant to be sarcastic. More of a "that figures, now that I can't hunt them they show up" kind of post.

Didnt mean it like that. Was just saying this has been the best opening split in a while for not just myself, but alot of buddies of mine hunting all over Texas.

Best for me since 2015, hunted solo or with a buddy. 6 hunts 48 ducks, 39 of them teal, couple gads and the rest green heads.

Best first split since 2016 for us. We have pretty much found good numbers of ducks where they should be. Haven't had to scout quite as hard as the last few years to find them. Hoping second split is as good!

We had a weird morning the other day.....for NTX at least. Private pond that I got invited to last minute....they didn't scout the day before and no blind built. Sitting in tall weeds on a tank dam hunting the wrong side in a north wind. The tank wasn't very big so we made it work. We ended up with a mixed bag of redheads, two bufflehead hens, some bluebills, one gwt and a few spoonies.
Historically it is mostly gadwalls and gwt in the area.

Scouted Lake D yesterday. Between 800 and 1200 (estimate) resting. Mostly grays, pintail and teal.

Fun to watch that many ducks on the water. I learn something every time I watch

Common this year. Must be weather and food combo. Tons of red heads, some Canvas backs, piles of ring necks in areas never seen them in. I’ve had 100-150plus last 2 weekends on a moist soil lake I have never shot or seen a diver on

Hunt #10
Only saw 2 birds flying today. Full moon, no wind, 60 degree weather, not sure..... but no bird movement today

Scouted lake f. Walked about 3 miles. No birds, no feathers, no shotgun shells. Water looked good though. Didn't see any birds flying at dusk. Cold front up North hopefully will push more down this weekend.

For you duck hunters, strong northern wind casted to accompany cold front for eastern part of state shifting east as the high moves through. My guess is as Oklahoma freezes up birds will move through North Texas as our tanks freeze and continue to the coast. An open tank on the flyway or large spreads on open water may be the ticket Saturday through Monday.

Anybody have estimates of ice formation on still water for this weekend?

Mallards show up at tank A finally. Fewer than previous years and later. But it does seem the changes to A did not alter their flight plan. Or some of them at least.

You will have ducks for a week plus. Will be enough open water on big reservoirs to hold ducks thru deep freeze. Not worth the risk IMO- especially public in boats.

Too risky. Not that mad at them. Letting my private holes rest/ will be plenty of ducks to shoot after Christmas.

Happy Holidays to all