2014-15 Duck Season in Review
The year started strong with the early arrival of a blue northern cold front pushing through in mid November. A good many birds were harvested in north Louisiana during the first split due to this and the Duckmen’s optimism was through the roof. Predictions of a hard winter and good survey reports had everyone anticipating a banner year. The first couple weeks produced higher than average mallard numbers and the action was steady. Ducks decoyed on a consistent basis and troop moral was sky high. But as fate would have it the November push turned out to be the best migration of the season for us. But true to form, the less ducks there were, the harder we hunted. Some people might call it insanity but P.R. calls it testing your manhood. Mid-way through the season numbers were down substantially and if it wasn’t for Si’s antics and legendary story telling some of the hunts would have been unbearable. But around our place there’s always something going on that keeps everyone on their toes. This year P.R. had a grand experiment he was conducting throughout the entirety of the duck season. Hand carved hand painted decoys vs. Higdon fully flocked decoys. This led to much discussion and theory to help pass the time (and a few arguments) and livened things up a bit. And after all the smoke cleared it was impossible to determine which worked best due to too many variables. Final verdict: both are effective. We also added a new addition to our spread in the form of vibrating duck butts made by lucky duck. In true fashion just a few wasn’t enough for Jase and P.R. so we ended up adding 30 to the spread. It made quite the difference on calm days and definitely helped us harvest more birds. Mid season trips to Kansas and Arkansas helped take the edge off and were very productive. I’ve heard rumors of an invisible barrier that runs from south Kansas through the middle of Arkansas and from what I saw this year there may be some truth to that. The late season weather gave us a couple pushes and the hunting improved just enough to help us get through the final weeks. The last day of the season we needed 13 ducks to reach 700 and P.R. offered a crisp 100 dollar bill to the man that got #700. And of course the preacher took home the “hondo” as Si calls it on a bush whack. Al had to cross a 7 foot drainage ditch to retrieve it but it was worth getting a little water in the waders as it turned out. All in all it was another successful duck season and another I will cherish for eternity. Thanks to all of our partners for your support!
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