Point I was trying to make, once again, is ducks travel hundreds and some thousands of miles annually. What is going on on one small privately managed wetland is one particular spot will most often not be a solid indicator of the big picture.

I have my own 3 ponds in the North Texas/Southern Oklahoma area. We do a round of hunting on each around Christmas on each pond, then we repeat last week of season (usually do 2 rounds on each pond this time). Most hunts we are limited in 30 minutes (2 or 3 of us). 3 hunts times 6 ducks is 18 ducks. That's is all I need to eat for the year. We shoot 80% Mallards and Woodies and fill in during tougher hunts or when someone wants a certain duck to mount. After the season was over, my ponds were full of ducks. Still have 30 woodies and several geese on them this morning. If you have your own land/ponds and don't over harvest, the hunting is still very good. And before you start with me being "lucky" or "blessed" for having my own land, I use to hunt public until I was 40 years old. I didn't waste money on coffee, cigs, bars, monster drinks, etc. I brought my lunch to work, saved and invested. Born with nothing....went to Army....went to college....worked my [censored] off. Everyone can do what I did.

Drive around Houston, Dallas, Austin, etc Metro areas and you will see 1000's of community ponds built each week. Most of them are full of ducks and geese. They are not as dumb as we think. They go to were they get free meals and no hunting pressure.

Unfortunately this is not always the case. Have a wetlands that went virtually untouched this year in N Texas and then only hunted a couple times between Dec-end of Jan. Less than 10 ducks taken. The ducks have been increasingly sparse over the last 10 years.

I don't hunt or kill ducks. I have some stock ponds that in past years had ducks on them in the fall and winter. It seems that every year there are less and less ducks. This year I have a few Teal. There were a pair of Mallards here for a few days. I have a pair of resident Canada Geese that stay here most of the year and that is it.

This thread has been interesting and lots of good comments. I'm on a nice duck lease in N.E. Tx. We had the good fortune of having John Davis, a Delta Biologist at our place Monday this week. As good as the lease is it can get a whole lot better which is why he agreed to come out. The man was a walking encyclopedia on everything ducks. He's a big duck hunter and charged nothing for his day with us (but he's getting a hunt this year and every year as long as he wants)
While he agrees populations are down, when I asked about hunter's harvest numbers and the effect those numbers have on duck populations, he bluntly said without hesitation and with a shake of his head "that is the most horse-chit crap going around"
The shotgun does not have any meaningful effect on bird populations. Its all about the breeding grounds, which we all know is not what it used to be. There are problems on the horizon, but ample rain can and will solve most of these problems. Coons, skunk's and red foxes are a major problem...especially when you look at the disappearing breeding grounds. Trap them you say....they have been trying that to no avail. Global warming has coons in places they NEVER use to be (there in the boreal) Red foxes are eating hens at an alarming rate and if she gets away, red will just take the eggs. Couple that with there just are not dedicated trappers today like in years past...I was astonished at how much predation the nest are taking on.

But water can solve a lot of it. On a side note, he said this year will be standard but its the following year we may have trouble. Doge has fired almost all the pilots that take the surveys. I didn't know the feds start the meetings with a no season attitude....and the biologist and states have to take survey data and show them that a season can take place and recommend harvest limits.

I plan on emailing John for more detailed info on all this. I'll share here. He has some podcast out there if you want to google them.

Interesting information. Thanks for sharing. That’s crazy about pilot layoffs.

I respectfully disagree about hunting not affecting populations. (As I posted earlier that is one of the oldest arguments in wildlife management) if hunting has no impact on populations why have daily bag limits and why not allow market hunting. There is a 100% guarantee that a hen I harvest will never produce eggs again. I know he is talking in overall percent of yearly mortality, but as the population continues to decline every duck harvested, especially hens, has a greater impact on populations.

Delta is about predator control. They have to have something that differentiates them from DU since they depend on donations from basically the same benefactors.

The bigger more important factor is fragmentation of habitat and destruction of nesting ponds by tillage and enhanced drainage systems. Until that is prioritized and reversed all the predator control in the world won’t work.

Just my 2 cents.
Big Hutch

Question. If John Davis says there is such a negative impact on hens from predators on the nesting grounds why wouldn't the same be true with predators on the wintering grounds. We as hunters are predators, we are killing alot of ducks, and a lot of hens. As mentioned every hen shot is a hen that doesn't lay eggs.

How is hunter harvest not part of the problem?

I get it, if nesting grounds were in optimal conditions every year harvest probably wouldn't be a problem. But nesting grounds aren't in optimal condition every year which results in lower duck production and for what ever reason biologist want to turn a blind eye to hunter harvest rates. Isn't that part of the equation?

It's like a doctor treating you for diabetes, here take this medicine. Don't worry about your sugar intake, this medicine is all you need. Oh wait, doctors and the pharmaceutical companies want the money to keep rolling in. They don't want to look at the whole picture and what is the root cause of the problem.

"Question. If John Davis says there is such a negative impact on hens from predators on the nesting grounds why wouldn't the same be true with predators on the wintering grounds. We as hunters are predators, we are killing alot of ducks, and a lot of hens. As mentioned every hen shot is a hen that doesn't lay eggs."

Wintering grounds is where fully matured ducks are. They can escape in a much higher rate. Ever wonder how we have so many male mallards even though we shoot 10/1 ratio of males.......as soon as the mallard hen gets her nest full of eggs and starts spending almost all her time on it, the male recognizes this and he knows his work is done. He actually protects her from other mallards (he lets other ducks like pintail, teal etc in) while she is foraging in their eating area, running other mallards off. But as soon as she starts incubation, and he sees less and less of her he is gone. The males all gang up in other feed areas where there are no predators, for the most part. Then the hens and eggs are at risk. More hens are killed up north than the shotgun can even compare with. Its pale in comparison.






"I respectfully disagree about hunting not affecting populations. (As I posted earlier that is one of the oldest arguments in wildlife management) if hunting has no impact on populations why have daily bag limits and why not allow market hunting."


market hunting cannot take place on any game species. Even whitetail deer could not sustain that. Bag limits and seasons are inside the management bubble...step outside that bubble (market hunting) and it will burst. From my take away there is so much mortality once a hen starts laying that first egg that everything else down the flyways are so pale in comparison. There are billions of eggs laid every year. There are literally hundreds of millions of eggs hatched....of all those numbers you get to the point of how many are leaving the nesting grounds. Then look at the harvest of those that are making the journey with a shotgun. And then break it down to just hens with a shotgun. Within that bubble is what they look at from what I can gather. I get the point of once thigs get so bad you better start looking at alternative solutions (bag limits). But I think they are looking at the bigger picture sorta. Its like me and you beating each other up at the poker table at one end of the table with our puny stacks.. with my 1 pair against your 2 pair. Meanwhile the dood at the other end of the table is sitting on all the chips with quads. They are looking for solutions at that end of the table.

Again, I can't wait to spend more time with John to learn more. We tried to talk about all this but time was short as we were focusing on our lease and what needs to be done plus he could only stay until early afternoon. The guy is a hunter and cares about populations as much as anyone.

not discrediting John or your property BDB. But run this across John and see what the professionals say, other than hunting has no impact. The normal harvest is 8-10 million in the US annually, recently it was 14 million one year, a year when the population was in the lower 30 millions. Do you really think that 20 million ducks will produce as much offspring as 34 million.....

predator and nest destruction is huge, but I'm thinking that 34 million ducks would produce more than 20 million....its numbers

as long as the fur market is crap, which it will not ever rebound to the levels of the 80s I do not believe, I wouldnt expect many people to be out trapping voluntarily with the grandkids

I think I mentioned this already, but the biologists in the know claim that due to limited viable breeding grounds there is a saturation point. At some point more nests do not result in a meaningful net gain because they won't make it.

I would imagine that saturation point is relative to how much rain those grounds get as well as the overall number of ducks. Surely if the hen numbers drop really low this whole argument goes out the window. That number must be pretty low tho.

We are the apex predator. There is no real limit over our ability to cause harm and chaos whether from ignorance, apathy, or from deliberate actions.

The ethanol mandate and subsidies allowed or forced (depends on how you look at it) farmers to remove lots of acres out of CRP in the Prairie Pothole Region. Ethanol made paying the penalties economically feasible.

Before those acres were removed, the protection of those acres and a wet period reinvigorated the “duck factory”. That led to record duck numbers in the late 90s and the current liberal adaptive harvest management strategy.

Now we are almost 30 years into the liberal seasons and limits and almost none of the “experts” will admit that the paradigm shifted when those acres were removed from CRP The liberal seasons and limits were not modified to reflect the (literal and figurative) changing landscape. Now duck numbers are around 45% below the levels of the late 90s. One would think someone would have recognized the trend and made adjusts. Unfortunately that is not the case. In fact the “experts” are trying to double down on a strategy that by all reasonable metrics is broken and failing.

To use BDB’s example, they are willing to go all in on a 7 3 off-suit but everyone in the game knows they are bluffing. Example, going to a 3 pintail limit when the population is barely over the number that allows us to harvest any pintails. What’s worse is they are bluffing with our money (ducks) and they won’t face any consequences when their bluff fails and they go bust. They will blame everybody and everything but their faulty models.

Just my 2 cents
Big Hutch

I'd say and I think alot of peoole would agree that the current state of waterfowl guides and outfitters is far worse than the market hunting days.

We as hunters in the US take out 25-30% of the population annually, but red foxes catching nesting hens is the problem....seriously? The difference is red foxes don’t buy Sitka waders and hunt at high end clubs and lodges.

And Bdb,

Did the biologist tell you that there were billions of eggs laid and hundreds of millions hatched, or are you grabbing numbers? If so, that is some serious production of a total breeding population of low 30 somethingmillion(with the majority of that being males). Considering a normal nest is only about 10 eggs worth

Sign me up as part of “alot of people”.

Some of the bigger guides services hunt 4-5 groups of 8-10 hunters per day. 30-50 hunters per day x 6 ducks / day x 60 day seasons 10,800 - 18,000 ducks per season per guide service.

You say that can’t or won’t happen. One guide service in SW LA averages 4-5K teal during the 16 day teal season.

The last 10-15 years has seen a rapid proliferation of guide services in the Central and Mississippi Flyways. Many of those guide services are like hordes of locusts. They don’t care about the resource. “Make a pile” …

A single hunter or family of market hunters never killed as many ducks or geese in a season as one of the big guides services does today. They didn’t have the equipment and mobility we have today. Sure a man might go and make a crawl to shoot enough ducks to sell to feed a family or to make a feather bed but that only happened a few days a year.

P. S. I come from a family of market hunters so i have an idea of what used to be harvested in a season. I doubt many of the “experts” on market hunting can say that.

Just my 2 cents
Big Hutch

Very knowledgeable and realistic. But you’ll always have those that believe in what “they” say, it what is actually happening in front of them. Something that hasn’t been discussed with the 3 pintail limit is pintail exclusive hunts that will happen. Not sure about up and down the flyway, but I know of places along the river and coast rarely get hunted because there were 5k pintails on it but nothing else. Who is going to go hunt for one duck per person? But if you can shoot 3? Have already heard some outfitters talking about this.

https://time.com/7267852/duck-population-decline-bird-report/

Here is a link or article about duck numbers.
I agree with the guys on here saying there is a problem. Not talking about a few places holding birds ,but the overall picture. Been hunting for 54 years & the last several years have just went down.

Me too. Guides are already talking about it here too. Many of the guides here in Louisiana have been running pintails out of the decoys to be able to shoot their other ducks. I grew up hunting areas that had no problem shooting 10 pintails per day person on any days you had a decent wind and weather. Shooting 3 pintails per person isn’t going to be difficult.

Better get in on the fun next season. We may not ever be able to legally harvest a pintail again after or if the feds actually accurately estimate the pintail population in 2026.

"Did the biologist tell you that there were billions of eggs laid and hundreds of millions hatched, or are you grabbing numbers? If so, that is some serious production of a total breeding population of low 30 somethingmillion(with the majority of that being males). Considering a normal nest is only about 10 eggs worth"


He used those numbers. But your in a pickle in your example. You say we have low 30m breeding with most being males. How is it that...

- hatch rates are 50/50 male and female
- we as hunters, shooting all the ducks and BY FAR drake greenheads...it's not even close (mallards)
- and we see far more drakes than hens while hunting

So, what's happening to most of the hens? I'd put more stock in those red foxes if I were you. (and coons and skunks)


Look, I agree we have a problem. I think its a combo of things, and I also believe we as hunters are not the big problem here. Duck production is the single biggest problem by far and its not even close.

Its where we go from here. I've not had a chance to pick johns brain again but I wil.

We may disagree on why there are more drakes, but we agree that there are more drakes than hens of the 30 some odd million counted in the late summer/early fall count. 8-10 million of those are harvested during the winter. How does the remaining population of low 20 something million ducks lay billions of eggs? Sounds like you and John are in a pickle with your numbers.

So many numbers and professional theories don’t add up when it comes to these topics. Hunting has no effect on the population, but when the population falls below a threshold number, they shorten the seasons and/or reduce bag limits. Why do something that has no effect? That’s something an oversized government would do.

There are some things we can control and some that we can’t. Whether the nesting grounds are in A+, B, or D- conditions, the more ducks that return in the spring at least gives us that many more chances at a successful nest /broods. The 8-10 million that got shot will lay 0 eggs. Duck hunting in Texas will end up being another thing you get to “just tell the grandkids about”

BDB, just take what John says with a grain of salt especially about mortality due to nesting ground predation. Predator control on the nesting grounds has been the main platform that Delta has used to differentiate itself from DU. Right or wrong Delta will push that forever because that gets them donations.

One farmer in the prairie pothole region will plow up more hens and clutches in a day than you can imagine. Successful nests beside a pothole that has modified or tile drainage and goes dry in mid May instead of late June or July is responsible for more lost hatchlings than direct predation.

Maybe the entire clutch of eggs or brood gets eaten by a skunk or a fox but it is the change / loss of habitat that is responsible. Predator control mostly treats the effects and doesn’t address the cause.

Just my 2 cents.
Big Hutch

Not many duck hunters have laid eyes on the “duck factory”, they just listen to what the biologist says. In addition to what hutch noted, it takes more consecutive wet years to boost duck numbers. Everybody, biologist included, chants”hopefully the snow melts and they get big rains to fill the ponds”. I have watched with my own two eyes farmers/ranchers baling cattails and other vegetation around ponds that was dry enough in the fall. I have also returned to a pothole(45 acres) I hunted the previous year to find it dried up, broke and planted in canola. We need a prolonged wet period of a few years to promote cover, while staying wet enough to keep farmers out....and that is a lot to ask in that part of the world.