John K. Flores: Dry weather reduces duck numbers

If you go back a few months, when the weather was in triple digits, it was then the matrix of data began to come together that revealed this year’s duck season was going to be a tough one for some. Particularly, for those living in southwest Louisiana.
While I was driving home from the Gueydan Duck Festival the last weekend in August, the countryside looked like a parched desert. Clouds of dust rolled up behind the bed of my truck as I traveled along Maree Michel Road heading to a field trial event.
In the nearly 40 years I’ve lived in Louisiana, never had I seen drought conditions like these. In just a few short weeks, the September teal season would be opening. The region needed water and lots of it, if there was going to be any kind of season at all.
The rains never came prior to teal season and what water was available in the southwest Louisiana canals had high salinity, making it inadequate for agricultural purposes. Only those who had the capacity and means to pump fresh ground water would be able to flood their fields for when the teal arrived.
This wasn’t the only concern waterfowl hunters contemplated during the late summer. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service published the results of their annual Waterfowl Breeding and Habitat Survey in August. Total duck numbers were 9% below the Long-term Average at around 32.32 million ducks estimated, which was 7% lower than the 34.2 million ducks estimated in 2022, and 19% below the 2019 38.9 million estimate. Due to COVID, the USF&WS didn’t conduct surveys in 2020 and 2021.
Reports from Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl seem to downplay the estimates and take a “let’s wait and see” approach to the numbers since winter snows and spring rains provided moisture to the prairies. Moisture is everything when it comes to duck habitat.
When the first week in November rolled around just days prior to Louisiana’s West Zone Duck Season opener, aerial surveys estimated 584,000 ducks in Louisiana’s coastal region and Little River Basin. This number was the lowest on record.
It was 27% lower than 2022’s November aerial survey (802,000), 36% lower than the recent 5-year average (915,000), and 61% lower than the most recent 10-year average (1.5 million). Essentially, Louisiana’s November duck survey numbers have seen a steady annual decline that seemingly coincides with national breeding numbers.
What do all these estimates mean to duck hunters? It depends on whom you ask. First, split hunting reports have varied across the state.
Brent Sawyer, a Sulfur native who predominantly hunts southwest Louisiana, put it bluntly saying, “Klondike to Grand Chenier is dry. No birds.”
Hathaway resident Damon Hebert, owner of Hebert’s Custom Decoy Rigs, said, “Grand Chenier to Klondike in certain areas I’ve hunted are doing good where water stayed or was pumped in early. We’re seeing some mallards, teal, grays, pintail, widgeon, ringers, blue bills, and tons of spoonbills. But, overall, the hunting is tough due to dry conditions.”
“We’re praying this front coming through brings a good 7 to 10 inches of rain for us,” Hebert continued, “and brings lots of snow and ice up north with lasting cold temperatures to keep the ground covered. Mother nature is in control. You just have to make the best of it.”
Duck reports improve as you move further east along the coast, particularly in and around the Gibson area.
Mike Arcement of Lockport hunts the Gibson and Bayou Black area. Arcement says he and his partners have been averaging over 5 birds per hunter per hunt.
Arcement said, “We’ve been killing mostly ring-necked ducks and teal with a few grays, cans and redheads. There are tons of birds in the area but are very concentrated in specific areas. There’s also more coots than I ever recall seeing on our place.”
Not far from Arcement, Chauvin resident Britt Cavalier also hunts the Bayou Black area.
Cavalier said, “The first split has been awesome in Bayou Black. There are tons of ringnecks with a few teal and big ducks. Hunt-wise, cold days with no wind have been the worst. Warm and a good wind has been best for us.”
Bill Lake, owner-operator of Bayou Guide Service, also hunts below Gibson in the marsh.
Lake said, “We’ve made eight hunts so far this year. We killed wood ducks and ring-necked ducks mostly. It’s the most wood ducks we have ever seen. Maybe drought has them in the marsh rather than the swamps as most are dry. We limited on every hunt except three. There seems to be lower teal numbers than in the past two years.”
Further east, Baton Rouge resident Darin Digby hunts the Delacroix-Hopedale area.
Digby said, “We’re way down on birds. My log says it’s the worst first split on record for me so far and this weekend’s weather isn’t going to do it. We didn’t get a tropical storm this year, and the drought raised salinity way up in the marsh and burned the grass. There’s less food this year than during a storm year.”
From central Louisiana, Dale Bordelon hunts an area that neighbors Catahoula Lake, Dewey Will WMA, and the Spring Bayou complex.
Bordelon said, “We’ve had a very good duck season so far, killing our limits about every hunt. Lots of teal mixed with spoonbills and gray ducks. Due to the low water situation, we have been killing a good number of wood ducks also. As the season goes, ducks are getting more and more wary by the day. We need cold fronts to keep fresh ducks coming down for better decoying. Mixing mallard calling with teal calling has been the ticket — very soft calling.”
In north Louisiana, Johnny Wink, owner operator of Megabuck Duck Guides, says the duck season has been a good one.
Wink, summing up the drought conditions and first split of duck season said, “North Louisiana is on fire right now. There’s lots of new birds and if you have water, you got the birds.”
The first split of both the east and west zone seasons closes Sunday at sunset. The season reopens in the west zone Dec. 11 and the east zone Dec. 16. As we get into the heart of the 2023 duck season in mid-December, duck numbers should improve, as colder temperatures push ducks further south.
John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net.