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Waterfowl seasons tougher than expected
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A line of geese builds on the horizon as seen from a Panhandle decoy spread.
Waterfowl hunters are hopeless optimists.
The glimpse of a single greenhead drake swooshing onto an icy stock pond or a gaggle of chattering Canadas fluttering into a grain field is enough motivation to make them rise early and subject themselves to often abysmal conditions.
And though the forecast for duck and goose seasons seemed on par with those of the past few years, time spent in the field likely tested the positive thinking of a great deal of waterfowlers as a number of things stacked the odds against hunters in many areas.
Dave Morrison, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department waterfowl program leader, said Mother Nature certainly didn’t do hunters any favors.
“This wasn’t a good production year in the breeding grounds and then you had Ike hit and we’re still in the throes of this drought so there’s no doubt it was tough in a lot of places,” he said. “Down on the coast, the tides were some of the worst they’ve had in years. Guys have told me that it was just hard to hunt in places where you’ve had water in the past but now you couldn’t get in there. And the overall impact of the hurricane is still yet to be seen. Then in East Texas there was drought and that certainly didn’t help that area that usually has water.”
There are a number of areas that get a great deal of waterfowl hunting pressure, including the prairie west of Houston and the marshes of East Texas and the coast, but there also has been a shift in recent years as birds move out of areas near population centers. For the most part, the birds have shifted their attention to West Texas and the Rolling Plains, which no doubt helped hunters in that part of the state this season.
Morrison said that especially with drought conditions taking hold, birds concentrated in areas with easy access to food and water as is the norm.
“If there was a bright spot, it has been in playa country,” he said. “We’re so far below where we ought to be (in moisture levels) that if you had access to water in that area and did your homework, you could find birds to shoot. In years where we’ve had lots of playas, we’ve had lots of ducks. However, when there’s that much water you can kick them off in the morning and they’ll just go sit somewhere else.”
Morrison said that when midwinter counts come in he’ll know for sure how the season shaped up, but said that overall it likely will be average, which isn’t that bad when you consider how tough the hunting was in a wide swath of the state.
While outfitters to the south struggled to put clients on birds, guides in the Panhandle and Rolling Plains reaped the rewards of hunting over or near crops and keying on waterholes. A number of outfitters reported having good to excellent seasons with consistent limits of Canadas and cranes with good duck shoots mixed in.
Michael Sanford of North Texas Waterfowl said he had few complaints.
“We’ve had a really good season,” he said. “The warmer weather kind of slowed things down when we got it but when it was colder there was some good hunting.”
Sanford said almost all the birds he and his hunters harvested were concentrated around water.
“We’ve got a lot of snow geese up here, but the hunting for them has been kind of spotty,” he said. “We’ve been below average on our snow goose harvest.”
When it comes to snow geese, Morrison said a strange trend has surfaced in these parts and to the south.
“Snow geese are starting to be a real problem for me,” he said. “People just aren’t seeing snow geese. It started out in November with some pretty good numbers but as the season progressed the birds just evaporated. Our midwinter numbers have been declining for the last several years so we’re actually taking a long, hard look at this and trying to figure out where we go.”
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