"Do We Really Need Cold Weather"
November 2005

I am writing this manuscript in early November, before Arkansas' season opens. The conditions are as dry as I have ever seen them. We have one timber blind that we can walk to, without getting your feet wet. It's taking us three days pumping on our rice fields to get water equal to one day of pumping most years. Last week we set all time record high temperatures. It's not uncommon to carry mosquito spray with you on some of our early hunts, but temperatures in the mid 80's are ridiculous.

With dry conditions and the warm, almost hot weather, a person might wonder how our season will end up. In fact, I had an e-mail yesterday from a client in Wisconsin and he said their season numbers were way off. He indicated they had little to no water and warmer than normal conditions. Then he made a statement I hear too often, "With weather like this, the ducks have no reason to leave the breeding grounds." Even though I hear comments like that on a regular basis, it always shocks me. Of course it also opened the door for feedback and triggered my thoughts for this piece, so all in all his lack of bird knowledge was a plus. I immediately e-mailed him back photos Jackie had taken earlier this week and tried and explain to him a different thought process on ducks and their migration practices, which brings me to my purpose for this column piece.

Arkansas' Blue Wing Teal season opens in September ever year and it never fails, teal aren't the only ducks we will see at that time. This year we had reasonable numbers of gadwall, pintail and mallards and before someone jumps up and claims they were local ducks, I can assure you they were not! In mid October, several of my staff members and I traveled to Goodrich, North Dakota to film a segment for Waterfowler TV, an all new all waterfowl show that will air on the Outdoor Channel in 06. When we left for that trip, we had seen significant increases in our bird numbers. The last week of October, we started the first two of our deep-water wells used to flood the shallow rice fields. Over night we had ducks in both of those fields.

I'll be one of the first to admit, we're lucky to live in the part of the Mississippi Flyway we live in. This part of N.E. Arkansas and S.E. Missouri is now and for the past several years, have been the primary wintering grounds for mallards and pintail. This is where they want to be and this is where a large portion of ducks are going to end up … no matter what weather conditions we face.

To help make my point, have you ever-wondered why the leaves turn colors and drop to the ground? For that matter, have you ever wondered what makes a buck deer go into the rut or what makes the turkey start to strut and gobble in the spring? The answers pretty simple … it's the calendar and the calendar is directly related to the length of the daylight hours. Like the changing color of the leaves or the increase in hormone activity in a buck or gobbler, ducks migrate by the length of the daylight hours, more so than they do the weather. That is a bold statement, but why are we holding well over a hundred thousand ducks on our properties in early to mid November, yet many folks to the north are still waiting for cold weather?

To reinforce my thoughts on the subject, I took the liberty of asking John Devney, with Delta Waterfowl, for his thoughts. I've known John for many years and I have developed a lot of respect for him and he knows and live ducks. John's knowledge, with the combined knowledge of other members of the Delta Waterfowl staff, are working wonders toward keeping this sport alive. Much to my liking, here is what John had to say about the subject;

"The waterfowl migration is dependent on a number of clues. Dropping pressure, strong northerly winds, cold and snow are all well-known effects to cause a migration. However, while these weather events are major influencers in the migration, so is day length or photoperiod. Ducks and geese are very sensitive to the amount of daylight and like other animals, it influences their behavior." John went on to say; "As an example, many species have been known to migrate independent of weather events, but seemingly migrate on a specific calendar date. Many hunters will note species like redheads and canvasbacks exhibit this behavior, but it is not uncommon for all species to move based on photoperiods. Mallards arriving in Arkansas, despite mild weather and blue wing teal leaving the Prairie well before the onset of a frost are but a couple such examples."

Think about and compare this line of thinking to your particular situation. Have the ducks passed you by? If so, is it a change in agricultural practices that have shifted a part of your flyway or is it simply time for the ducks to start arriving on the wintering grounds? What ever the case may be, "Do We Really Need Cold Weather"?

Charles "HammerTime" Snapp

Email: snapps@arkmo.com

Website: www.arkansaswaterfowl.com

Click here for additional information about Delta Waterfowl and the work they do for duck hunters.