Prairie Breeding Grounds Soaked, Duck Population at All-Time High

3178 Views 17 Replies 12 Participants Last post by IAtaxidermist, Jul 4, 2011

Todd

Discussion Starter · Jul 1, 2011

Prairie Breeding Grounds Soaked, Duck Population at All-Time High.

Duck hunters will find plenty to cheer about in the annual breeding population and habitat survey, which was released earlier today.
Conducted each May by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service, this year's survey reveals the second-highest pond count and a record 45.6 million ducks, the most since the survey was started in 1955. Blue-winged teal, shovelers and redheads soared to record levels, and if that's not enough, mallard, pintail, canvasback and gadwall numbers rose substantially from 2010.
But not all is well across the U.S. and Canadian prairies.
While water is great for ducks, excessive snowpack and heavy spring rains produced extreme flooding across much of the prairie breeding grounds. From the Canadian prairies to the Dakotas and eastern Montana, tens of thousands of homeowners have been displaced by swollen rivers, millions of acres of cropland remain unplanted and hundreds of miles of roads are under water.

Read more..... Prairie Breeding Grounds Soaked, Duck Population at All-time High

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1 - 18 of 18 Posts

IAtaxidermist

· #2 · Jul 1, 2011

Great news!

feathhd

· #3 · Jul 1, 2011 (Edited)

Though this report paints a nice picture based on pond counts do not let the increase throw you. At the moment because of water a lot of things became hard to get to so you still end up with marginal nesting habitat on the ground. A lot of water or increase in ponds has in a way masked the nesting habitat loss.

I have the whole entire native prairie conversion study that just came out and have read it. I am sure you will see a lot of those facts come out in future magazines.

What I saw scares the hell out of me when we talk about long term population trends based on what now is know to be or will be a serious habitat loss problem that effects the future of waterfowling not for some years but long term.

You guys remember to old days ( Point System? and how short that season was? )

The conversion rate in the prime duck production region vs the rest of the country will and should give everyone a hard SHOT of future reality as to what to expect from potential seasons. At least that is how I view it. However I think you will see this subject come up in some publications here very shortly.

Anyone who wishes to read the study file drop me an e mail and I will send it to you. USE my e mail addy to would you please. It is a very long read to say the least.

[email protected]

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Bassonjigs

· #4 · Jul 1, 2011

Sounds like great news to me! I tend to be more on the optimistic side of life in general so this news is great for the upcoming season.

Dean Downer

· #5 · Jul 1, 2011

Hope the ducks do not just shoot straight by here in the SW part of the state, no habitat will be left along the river and ducks will have to travel to find feed.
Dean

IowaFowlFever

· #6 · Jul 1, 2011

I don't forsee it being too great of a year for ducks in Central Iowa though with Saylorville and Red Rock having high water again there won't be any cover or food for the fall migration. Should be some good shoots on flight days but nothing will hang around too long. Thank god I am moving to South Dakota in a few weeks!

Dean Downer

· #7 · Jul 1, 2011

2

Got a spare bedroom for the house in South Dakota?

I can run the vacuum cleaner to help out if I can have the room!

Dean

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altrocker1

· #8 · Jul 1, 2011

well hopefully it means two things for the year...1) more birds and a longer migration...2.)the high water seems to have a negative effect on the food supply in the dakotas, hopefully pushing the migration a little east...i'm not very optimistic that that will actually happen, but here's to hoping.

TheDuckSlayer

· #9 · Jul 1, 2011

Great news, im pumped for duck season!

IowaFowlFever

· #10 · Jul 1, 2011

Dean Downer said:
Got a spare bedroom for the house in South Dakota?

I can run the vacuum cleaner to help out if I can have the room!

Dean

LOL might be tough to clear that one by the ole lady. It is amazing when I went up there that there is potholes everywhere filled with ducks and geese. I guess that is why they call it the prairie pothole region lol. Not to mention the pheasants. I will have to come back to Iowa to chase the late season honkers and mallards though. Sounds like we freeze up before Thanksgiving usually.

IAtaxidermist

· #11 · Jul 1, 2011

feathhd said:
Though this report paints a nice picture based on pond counts do not let the increase throw you. At the moment because of water a lot of things became hard to get to so you still end up with marginal nesting habitat on the ground. A lot of water or increase in ponds has in a way masked the nesting habitat loss.

I have the whole entire native prairie conversion study that just came out and have read it. I am sure you will see a lot of those facts come out in future magazines.

What I saw scares the hell out of me when we talk about long term population trends based on what now is know to be or will be a serious habitat loss problem that effects the future of waterfowling not for some years but long term.

You guys remember to old days ( Point System? and how short that season was? )

The conversion rate in the prime duck production region vs the rest of the country will and should give everyone a hard SHOT of future reality as to what to expect from potential seasons. At least that is how I view it. However I think you will see this subject come up in some publications here very shortly.

Anyone who wishes to read the study file drop me an e mail and I will send it to you. USE my e mail addy to would you please. It is a very long read to say the least.

[EMAIL="[email protected]"][email protected][/EMAIL]

SBEII=1POS

· #12 · Jul 1, 2011

IowaFowlFever said:
LOL might be tough to clear that one by the ole lady. It is amazing when I went up there that there is potholes everywhere filled with ducks and geese. I guess that is why they call it the prairie pothole region lol. Not to mention the pheasants. I will have to come back to Iowa to chase the late season honkers and mallards though. Sounds like we freeze up before Thanksgiving usually.

I doubt you will have to come to IA to chase late season mallards. You will prolly find a new meaning to "late season mallards".

Condn

· #13 · Jul 2, 2011

There were certainly plenty of waterfowl within site of I-90 coming across Sodak from Yellowstone this week. The James valley was the only flooding of fields I saw.

x2 on the not having a problem with late mallards. There's usually plenty of them still up the river when our season closes.

feathhd

· #14 · Jul 2, 2011 (Edited)

Special note as to high water in the region.

The water isn't going to drop out like you would find associated with other areas of major flooding. The river will be up into the big standing timber of acorn trees. We have plenty of open pockets and shoots that will be plum full come duck season and if you think Mallards & woodies dont like flooded acorns your crazy as hell.

I can say this, we will have plenty of water in the fields holding in the low shallow wetland basins. Many old ox bows far from the river haven't seen that much water since Clark came up river in a dam canoe and the food sources look great.

It has been a rebirth of habitat with in those old oxbows. It is unreal. There are plenty of fields that have not gotten soaked so with that being said, Eastern Iowa duck hunting could very well blow the big mahogany this year as the ducks come out of the Dakotas only to find all the water they need from here to GD
Arkansas .

I suspect the Arkie season to be one of the best they have had in many years. I dont think the early part of tjier season will be any good but wait until it gets late into the season. If folks thought we had late season mallards last year, wait until this season. My dam trigger finger has been spastically twitching ever since the river had come out of its banks and into areas it hasn't touched in 67 years.

No joke, it is going to be truly one hell of a season in the region with more areas for ducks to loaf and hang out than cars in a walmart parking lot on a blue light special sale.:25:

We may even be able to hold those early migrators and guys get in on some hot action.

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boathunter

· #15 · Jul 3, 2011

feathhd what your saying happened in 93 in eastern ia. water and ducks everywhere. same way in 65 for us old timers
boathunter

bullcan

· #16 · Jul 4, 2011

I hope this doesn't take the focus off of the need to preserve nesting habitat.

feathhd

· #17 · Jul 4, 2011

bullcan send me an e mail and I will show you or I should say give you a file on that issue. The conversion rate in the U.S. PPR is far greater than the national average. This water in a small way masks the real devastation taken place and like my good old friend IATX indicates. Complacency has no limits as does apathy.

Here is another good example. If anyone goes to waterfowler.com on the main page they show a guy in the plane looking out over the vast areas of flooded landscape. What do you see other than water?

How about black dirt. If we are lucky maybe the water will hold for a few years so that we get some type of cover back on the ground for nesting ducks. However I doubt it as they to have figured out how to drain the landscape as quick as possible.

Reports like this are good but if you haven't seen the waterfowler.com picture you should. I don't know of very many ducks being produced in dirt do you?

That is another reason why, as duck hunters we must ride the protection of key conservation programs, like WRP,CRP,WEP,NAWCA,CP37 AND CP38 and last but certainly not least do our part in pushing CWA protections of Isolated Wetlands.

Bill Smith

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IAtaxidermist

· #18 · Jul 4, 2011

feathhd said:
bullcan send me an e mail and I will show you or I should say give you a file on that issue. The conversion rate in the U.S. PPR is far greater than the national average. This water in a small way masks the real devastation taken place and like my good old friend IATX indicates. Complacency has no limits as does apathy.

Here is another good example. If anyone goes to waterfowler.com on the main page they show a guy in the plane looking out over the vast areas of flooded landscape. What do you see other than water?

How about black dirt. If we are lucky maybe the water will hold for a few years so that we get some type of cover back on the ground for nesting ducks. However I doubt it as they to have figured out how to drain the landscape as quick as possible.

Reports like this are good but if you haven't seen the waterfowler.com picture you should. I don't know of very many ducks being produced in dirt do you?

That is another reason why, as duck hunters we must ride the protection of key conservation programs, like WRP,CRP,WEP,NAWCA,CP37 AND CP38 and last but certainly not least do our part in pushing CWA protections of Isolated Wetlands.

Bill Smith

Not every duck has to nest waterside, they will adapt as they are not all dumb(ever seen photos of delta guys going through grass feilds looking for nesting ducks?). Your the biggest pessimist I know! For years and years anyone who knows anything about waterfowl has said if we just had more water in the Dakotas/PPR we'd produce more ducks and have better hunting. Now that we have it and seen the numbers have gone up, you have to point out something bad about a perfect scenerio. Why? When our lease floods and then recedes the habitat always pops right back up to the current water edge, and thats sandy soil.

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