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Duck & Goose Hunting
on the
Tennessee River
& Kentucky Lake
"A great
guide and hunting setup" -Tony Accerano, SPORTS AFIELD MAGAZINE
a Ducks
Unlimited
Sponsor
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Waterfowl
Forecast
Click on the Weekly Waterfowl Report icon (on
your left) for recent duck counts, hunting reports, and updated
information.
DUCK NUMBERS UP THANKS TO WET SPRING...(see
chart below)
By Steve McCadams
It was a wet spring in much of the prime nesting
area up north and you know how much ducks love water!
For waterfowlers the news is good as it is an
impressive fall flight forecast. Now that numbers are up it’s the weather and a few other factors that enter into the equation for
southern duck hunters, namely accessible food and water here too for the
winter guests.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its
preliminary report on mid-continent breeding ducks and habitats, based
on surveys conducted in May and early June. Total duck populations were
estimated at 42 million breeding ducks on the surveyed area. This
estimate represents a 13 percent increase over last year's
estimate of 37.3 million birds and is 25 percent above the
1955-2008 long-term average.
"The increase in duck numbers in relation to
the increase in habitat conditions is consistent with what we would
expect to see in U.S. and Canadian breeding grounds this spring," said
Ducks Unlimited's Executive Vice President Don Young. "History has
repeatedly shown that when water returns to the breeding grounds ducks
respond with a strong breeding effort."
While numbers are up, DU Chief Biologist Dale
Humburg explains that hunter success will still depend heavily on
weather, which will dictate migration patterns.
Among the other most popular species, gadwall
numbers were up 12 percent to 3.1 million; green-winged teal rose to an
all-time record of 3.4 million; blue-winged teal rose 11 percent to 7.4
million; northern shovelers climbed 25 percent to 4.4 million; northern
pintails were up 23 percent to 3.2 million; canvasbacks were up 35
percent to 662,000, and scaup rose for the third straight year, up 12
percent to 4.2 million, the highest level since 1999.
The only species to show a drop in breeding numbers were redheads,
which were down one percent to 1.0 million, and wigeon, down one percent
to 2.5 million.
The Prairie Pothole Region constitutes only 10 percent of North
America's breeding habitat but annually attracts two-thirds or more of
all nesting ducks. The surveyed portion of the region includes North and
South Dakota and a sliver of eastern Montana in the U.S., and prairie
Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada. About 75 percent of the
PPR exists in Canada, which historically attracted 75 percent of the
ducks that nest there.
During the wet cycle of the 1990s, duck production on the U.S. side
of the border increased dramatically thanks to 5 million acres of grass
nesting cover provided by the Conservation Reserve Program.
"Things look great right now," Delta Waterfowl’s John Devney says,
"but hunters need to remember we've lost more than a million acres of
CRP just since 2007 and more contracts will expire this year. On top of
that, we’ve been losing native prairie at an alarming rate and several
million more acres are at risk. If we can’t find a way to preserve
existing upland cover, we simply won’t enjoy this kind of production in
the future."
Steve
McCadams
Professional Guide Service
Crappie and Bass Fishing ~
Duck and Goose Hunting
on Tennessee's Kentucky Lake
655 Anderson Drive
Paris, Tennessee 38242
Phone: (731) 642-0360
E-Mail Steve
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Fishing on
Tennessee's
Kentucky Lake
"America's
Best Known Crappie Fisherman" - Nick Sissley, FISHING WORLD
MAGAZINE
Steve's
Casting for a Cure
Kids Fishing Rodeo
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