Latest / Ducks Unlimited Podcast / Ep. 533 – South Carolina Ducks, Habitat, Hunting, and Research
Transcript
- Mike Brasher: Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I am Dr. Mike Brasher, and I'm going to be your host on this episode. We have a first-time guest coming on, joining us today, and we're going to visit and talk about sort of a habitat hunting update in the Atlantic Flyway. We get some comments every now and then with people asking us to deliver more content for that part of the world, and we're going to try. We're going to do so, actually, here on this episode. I am happy to welcome in Molly Neese. the State Waterfowl Biologist for South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and a friend and colleague of mine. Molly, it's great to have you on. Thanks for joining us. Molly Kneece: Hey, thanks, Mike. Appreciate y'all having me today. Mike Brasher: Yeah, like I said, we do have people chime in and say, hey, don't forget about us over here in the Atlantic Flyway. I'm sure you hear that a lot in your job, you know, like, hey, we have ducks over here. We have duck hunters over here. Ducks Unlimited actually does a lot of work in South Carolina. throughout the Atlantic flyway, uh, honestly, and we're trying, we're continuing to do our best here on the, on the podcast to get more content from that part of the world. It's, it's a bit of a struggle sometimes just with our hectic schedules. And here we are, we've got you lined up. We connected with you last year, I guess, by way of email and wanted to add you in sort of our. revolving list of guests to talk about happenings in different parts of the waterfowl landscape. South Carolina, the South Atlantic portion of the Atlantic Flyway is certainly one of those, and so we're happy to have you join us here. And to start with, given that you're a first-time guest, we're going to ask you to introduce yourself to our audience. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you came from, and what you do for the department. Molly Kneece: I'm a South Carolina girl through and through. Grew up in the sandhills of South Carolina, but on a farm, so I love to run equipment and learned the hard work ethic and all about getting dirty and to accomplish jobs at a young age, but spent a bunch of time on the coast as well and really developed a passion for birds and natural resources at an early age. I ventured off to undergrad at Clemson and got a forestry degree, but somewhere along the way decided that I wanted to count things that moved. But it took me a four-year degree to kind of figure that out. So after I finished my undergrad, I had a real unique opportunity to go and intern with a private nonprofit organization in coastal South Carolina called Nemours Wildlife Foundation. And through that opportunity, I really had a chance to get involved with waterfowl research, which led to me going to graduate school at Mississippi State to continue a project on breeding and brood-rearing ecology of mottleducks in South Carolina. And so, at Mississippi State, I worked with Dr. Brian Davis and Dr. Rick Kaminski, which I know you all talk about occasionally on the podcast here. So, a great opportunity to work with those guys. Eventually made my way back to South Carolina, worked in a field position with SCDNR, kind of revamping a waterfowl management area in a tidal region of South Carolina for a number of years, and then progressed on to state waterfowl biologist. I've been in this position for about two years, so a lot of fun. Gives me an opportunity to do a lot of day-to-day habitat consultation on public lands and with private landowners. I do a lot with the Atlantic Flyway technical section. So I get really involved in kind of the rig setting here in South Carolina, a lot of research as well. And so I wear a lot of different hats with my job. But my favorite part is the part to be in the field. I like to get my boots dirty every day and really just opportunity to manage habitat and do what we can for birds here in the South Atlantic. Mike Brasher: I appreciate that, Molly. I'm going to ask you to help me with the geography of South Carolina a little bit. You said that you grew up in the Sandhills. What part of the state is that? I don't have a lot of experience over there in South Carolina. Molly Kneece: Yep. So, Sandhills, kind of right in the middle of the state, right near the state capital of Columbia. So, really a drier portion of the state, somewhere where ducks are a little more difficult to come by, but that was where I first got into waterfowl and wood ducks and really kind of made me fall in love with what we do in our day to day. Mike Brasher: Yeah, and so wood ducks are going to be a prominent part of kind of your experiences growing up and even now, I'm sure, in waterfowl hunting. And I grew up in north central Mississippi and that's a similar type of deal for me. Matter of fact, a few weeks ago, no, a few days ago, the opener for Mississippi, I went on a wood duck shoot, and I've said wood ducks are probably my favorite species because, I mean, they're beautiful, charismatic, they're local, and they've saved many a hunt and many a duck season for me. I suspect you're the same way. Molly Kneece: Absolutely. I made my way out this past weekend and hunting some public land. The more that I hunt, I really enjoy the simplicity of a wood duck hunt sometimes. It's a lot of fun to get out and chase after those birds and really takes me back to what made me fall in love with waterfowl in the first place. So definitely bread and butter for waterfowl hunters here in South Carolina and myself as well. Mike Brasher: Yeah, for sure. Uh, the other thing I want to talk about a little bit, I, we had the video going here as we're recording and I was able to see in the background, uh, all of the, the ribbons, orange ribbons, maybe some black ribbons. And I recognize those immediately, uh, because I used to do a little bit of this, but I also follow you on social media. And so I know you are pretty big into dog training and, and trials, field trials. I don't know if it's field trials or hunt test. But tell our listeners a little bit about that. You have a passion for dog training and competition, or at least testing against hunt standards. Molly Kneece: Absolutely. So yeah, I have, uh, I've got two dogs that I personally, um, have hunted with, one that I continue to hunt now. And, uh, when I made my way back to South Carolina, I really fell in love with, uh, AKC hunt test game. I've got a little, little black lab female named Kate. She, if you see me running around in my work truck, she's often with me and she hunts as well, but she's been really successful in the hunt test game. Really proud of her. She's got her master title and we just recently passed our first master national attempt. So, really big accomplishment for her. So, now we're ready to get out and chase after some real birds. Mike Brasher: Yeah, that's right. I mean, so that's, uh, you, you do the training and kind of the off season, if I'm sure you were, you were like, like me, whenever, whenever we had a lab that we, that we put through the hunt test, it gave us the opportunity to train in the off season, kept us polished, kept us honed all ultimately kind of leading up to that, that hunting season and make sure we've got, A very effective duck retriever and a great conservation tool helps find those wounded birds. And of course, just if you love dogs, I mean, you just try to find as many things as possible to do with those, right? Molly Kneece: Absolutely. You know, a dog makes the hunt for me. And like you said, excellent conservation tool. You know, if I can't hunt with my dog, you know, I'm going to find something else to do. It just really makes the whole experience for me. If anybody's never had a chance to hunt over a real good dog, you know, it definitely, definitely takes the experience to another level. Mike Brasher: It sure does. I don't have a dog right now. We've been on a list for a while and, you know, but I travel a lot and so I'm, I am at that mentally conflicted stage of, You know, do I, do I take the leap? Do I not? Do I have the time? Of course, if you, if you take the leap, you'll find the time, you'll make the time. So anyway, I'm still kind of at that mentally conflicted state. Also, a lot of different variables run through my head whenever I'm trying to make that decision. And, uh, so anyway, we'll see my wife and I are continuing to talk about that. So. Stay tuned. I'll do it, Molly. I did want to kind of move on here real quick. Talk about the main reason we wanted to have you on, which is to provide a habitat update for South Carolina. Also a little bit of a hunting update. Let us know where y'all are in terms of the season. We're recording this episode in late November. It's actually November 29th for people just to kind of give you that timestamp. But yeah, give us a habitat update and to the extent that you can, what have you been hearing in terms of hunting reports? Molly Kneece: Yeah, you know, we checked in with a number of guys across the state here in the past couple days to kind of compare what I was seeing versus what other guys are kind of seeing on their hunts. And, you know, generally across the state right now, it's really dry, but guys that have water have been really successful here during the first part of the season. Like I said, I got out myself and did some public land hunting this past Saturday and got into some wood ducks. But, you know, just rivers are kind of low and so birds are kind of concentrated it seems. If you're in them, you know, things are really well. But otherwise, guys are really having to work hard to kind of find water if they don't have permanent water available to them. But, um, you know, we're optimistic. We got some, some rain coming our way this weekend, and hopefully that'll improve our habitat conditions a little bit. The guys have really good habitat on the ground and a lot of our, uh, plant and flood, um, properties, they're public and private. Um, it's been a decent year for moist soil. So I think we've got some good moist soil on the ground across the state. And so, uh, pretty optimistic to see what happens when we get some more water on the landscape, hopefully this, this weekend. Mike Brasher: Molly, for folks that may not be aware, I could take a stab at this and I'm sure I could get close, but hopefully you have this kind of off the top of your head. When we're talking about duck species that make up, let's say, the top three to five species in the bag of South Carolina hunters, what are we looking at there? Molly Kneece: Absolutely. Wood ducks are first and foremost, they make up about 60% of our bag here in South Carolina. It's probably pretty representative of the South Atlantic. Our number two bird in the bag is going to be a green-winged teal. And then follow that up with ringnecks and blue wings have been becoming really more predominant here in the last five or 10 years in South Carolina. So, gadwall falls right there, rounding out the top five as well. Mike Brasher: So, this time of year, late November, because when did the hunting season start there in South Carolina? Pretty recent, right? Molly Kneece: Yeah, pretty recent. We were open the week of Thanksgiving and we're closed for about two weeks before we'll open back up. Mike Brasher: Okay, so this time of year, if you're a hunter in South Carolina, what are you looking at weather-wise? Yeah, weather-wise where they're talking temperature, snow in northern latitudes or over into the Mississippi Flyway, northern portions of the Atlantic Flyway. What do you look at in anticipation of the systems and the conditions that you get excited about if you're hunting in South Carolina? Molly Kneece: Yeah, absolutely. If you're on the coast, we're really looking at calendar birds that are going to pass down the coastal region. Right now, if you're an inland guy, you're kind of looking at some of this weather that's going on around the Great Lakes and even the Midwest right now. We get a lot of our birds out of the PPR and from the Great Lakes area, so good front pushing birds this way. I heard some guys over the past two days talk about starting to pick up some mallards in our upstate midlands of South Carolina region. And that really falls in line with typically timing wise for our inland guys when you start to see some mallards and some black ducks filter down. And so it looks like we're right on schedule with average here, but coastal has really been looking good. And I think that we've got a new push of pintails and some teal here in the past couple of days as well with some of these weather fronts that are pushing through. Mike Brasher: You know, we recorded a species profile episode the other day. I'm not sure which of these episodes is going to come out first, probably this one if I had to guess. But we were talking about sort of the wintering distribution of pintails like current and then also a bit of a reference towards historical distributions. And they're closely tied with rice agricultural landscapes. Mississippi, Louisville Valley, Gulf Coast, Central Valley. But South Carolina has a long history, or if when you go back 150 years, it has a rich history, let me put it like that, of rice production in those coastal portions. As a matter of fact, I think South Carolina was probably the first place in the U.S. where rice was produced. You can correct me on that if I'm wrong. But is there still some of that rice production there in South Carolina? And what can you tell me about any relationship between, any connection between pintails and having a strong attraction to that particular geography in the state? And is it because of that, maybe historically, was it because of those rice fields? Is there, what's going on there now? Kind of fill in some of the story I'm trying to tell there. Molly Kneece: Yeah, yeah. So, 17, 1800s was, you know, rice culture was booming in coastal South Carolina, even, you know, as far inland as Columbia, you know, the Midlands of the state, rice culture was everywhere. If you had fresh water, people were growing rice. I mean, it's up to 1860, South Carolina produced 90% of the nation's rice. So historically, you know, rice has been culturally very significant for the state. And as you know, largely historically, while we probably had as many waterfowl as we did, Currently, there are a number of people that are still planting rice, mostly for waterfowl. You'll see a little bit of rice grown on the coast, but a little bit more as you progress inland just because of ability to grow rice in a mechanized type setting or coastal marsh, places where maybe historically rice may have been grown. It's just really, really soft and really difficult to grow rice in those areas anymore. Then you've got an increased salinity regime going on in some of those areas. Some areas that maybe historically lent themselves to rice don't so much anymore. And so what we see in those old rice fields where we've got more of a salinity gradient now, you see more of a production of widgeon grass and dwarf spike rush. And those pintails really like those areas too. I was actually looking at a group of a couple thousand pintails yesterday feeding widgeon grass. And so if you've got these big kind of open coastal marsh areas that are what we would call a managed tidal impoundment, you know, pintails can be pretty prolific in those areas. So they kind of hold, hold close to the coast here in South Carolina, but occasionally you'll see a pintail pop up inland with a group of mallards and that's always a good surprise as well. Mike Brasher: Molly, we're going to take a break right now and we're going to come back and pick up by talking about some of the other, some of the other Well, a couple of things I want to talk about. One is sort of like talk about the management areas that you have across the state where there are waterfowl hunting opportunities. And then also maybe a little bit about science, research, waterfowl surveys, if you're doing any of those. So stick with us, folks. We're going to come back. We got a few more things to talk about with Molly. Everybody, welcome back. We're here with Mollie Neese, the State Waterfowl Biologist for South Carolina, Department of Natural Resources. Mollie, thanks for joining us here, and we're going to… We just concluded prior to the break talking about pintails and that historical rice culture, and I'm tempted to ask you a few other questions, but I'm not going to. We'll save that for a future discussion that is, I think, a part of our waterfowling history and waterfowl habitat history that not a lot of people are aware of in terms of South Carolina leading the nation for a number of years in rice production and it being a big reason why that state, those regions traditionally supported way more birds than probably what we're seeing of certain species there now. The decline of that rice agriculture there is a story as well. We'll come back to that at some point with you on a future episode. But right now, I want to give you an opportunity to talk about the different waterfowl hunting opportunities on your state-owned public lands in South Carolina that your hunters in your state have access to. Molly Kneece: Absolutely. So yeah, waterfowl hunting is extremely popular in South Carolina. On public lands and on private lands, there's a lot of private landowners that really put a lot of time and a lot of effort into their habitats and public land definitely complements that. South Carolina DNR has about 25,000 acres that we really intensively manage for waterfowl across the landscape. Of that 25,000 acres, it's part of what we call our Category 1 or our lottery hunt system. So that's a system where hunters apply They may accumulate preference points to hunt on various WMAs, but these are all hunts where you're really looking for a quality bag and just excellent opportunity. And for a lot of folks, myself included, it's that opportunity to harvest a model duck or a pintail, just where maybe your day-to-day hunts maybe don't provide those opportunities. And so you're looking at habitat that's brackish managed tidal impoundments. We're really promoting widgeon grass, dwarf spike rush, and other kind of salinity type species there. And you've got good moist soil areas, and we've also got some plant and fluid that's mixed in in that 25,000 acres. And so In addition to that, South Carolina has a lot of public land that's in our WMA system. Some of it is national forest land. Some of it is other named WMAs where hunters have the opportunity to go in on certain days throughout the week and hunt there, you know, scout and hunt on their own. You don't have to be drawn. It's just kind of first come, first serve. And those are some places where you're kind of limited in the days that you can hunt. So we can provide birds some refuge in certain places throughout the state. But in addition to that, South Carolina has a multitude of tidal creeks and rivers and other places that are public waterways that hunters can go during the season and scout and hunt birds as they please. So lots of opportunity. Takes a lot of footwork here in South Carolina. It's really popular. And a lot of folks really look forward to waterfowl season as much as I do. So, it's always a lot of fun to get to this time of year and really see what our habitats can provide with some help from the weather. Mike Brasher: So, most of that waterfowl habitat and waterfowl hunting opportunity on public land is near to the coast, right? But you do have places and management areas, let's say, in the central part of the state. How far west would people be able to find opportunities to hunt waterfowl? Molly Kneece: Yep. You can find a part of our, um, you know, just kind of go and hunt as you please, or part of our lottery hunt system all the way to the Northwest corner of the state. We really, we really scatter from, from the sea to the foothills. And so, um, yeah, hopefully that's something that we can continue to expand and provide quality opportunities, uh, as the years come. Mike Brasher: Good deal. And I also wanted to ask you about any type of waterfowl survey that y'all might conduct. I know there's been some research conducted there a few years ago. Dr. Rick Kaminski was involved in some of that. Nick Masto was, I think, the master student involved in some of that survey work. What's the status of any of those surveys? Are y'all still doing those? What's the timing of them? What can you tell me about that? Molly Kneece: Yep, so we have just this year decided to kind of transition to what the Fish and Wildlife Service, Dr. Heath Hagee, is calling a modified aerial survey approach where they're flying during the typical midwinter period and kind of integrating that survey data with kind of migration curve data out of eBird or maybe consistent counts that are being conducted from the ground throughout the season on specific WMAs. taking a little different approach from what Nick Masto and Dr. Rick Kaminski did here a number of years ago, but partnering with Fish and Wildlife Service again and Dr. Heath Hagee to kind of reinitiate aerial surveys on our coastal WMAs here this coming season, so pretty excited about that. And we're kind of coupling that too with some habitat assessment data that we gathered this fall. Both of these will be used in the years to come. So assessing habitat and coupling that with aerial survey data. So pretty exciting stuff coming back to South Carolina. Mike Brasher: Yeah, that is cool. I do want to ask you a little bit more about that because people may wonder sometimes, like, well, what all do we do with the survey data? Some of this, there's a variety of states that can conduct these surveys, whether they be ground-based surveys or aerial surveys. One of the reasons that some of these states conduct those surveys is to provide a communication, point of communication. to a very important constituent, that being waterfowl hunters, wanting to know what they're seeing in terms of the number of waterfowl across different parts of the state and how do numbers and estimates in a given year compare to historical trends. It's sort of satisfying an interest of a core constituent, but those data oftentimes can inform other studies, other analyses that folks like yourself and your agency use to evaluate things that you're doing or to keep track of I guess, trends in waterfowl populations. And so, talk a little bit about that. What is it, like if you're talking to some of your constituents, what is it that you're telling them that you're doing with that data? Why is it important? Molly Kneece: Absolutely. Hunters are always interested in the surveys as to where birds are and hunting in certain areas. And so as a scientist from this position, I'm really interested in trends. Are birds starting to shift further north up the coast? Or are we maybe losing some of our coastal birds to more inland habitats that have arisen here in recent years? really studying those trend data, also looking at what habitat specifically these birds are using. So as we approach habitat work and securing grants for revamping managed areas or maybe securing new managed areas, what habitats these birds seem to be using that are important to them. You know, those trends can be really important from a policy perspective and also, you know, just from a land management perspective as a state agency. There's a lot of good trend data that comes along with those surveys. So, you know, we're really using this habitat data too to really you know, take a hard look at what's on the landscape and how many duck energy days we're providing here for birds in South Carolina to really make sure that, you know, with the number of birds that winter here, you know, we're doing our part to make sure that we've got enough food on the ground to send healthy birds back north in the spring for hopefully a fruitful fall flight the following season. Mike Brasher: Thank you for that, Molly. And that kind of provides a nice transition to the other thing that I wanted to talk to you about is research and science interest of the department. I know Model Ducks is a species that has been of interest to South Carolina DNR for a number of years. I know in the past y'all had conducted some research on that species. I think you told me that much of that has wound down and so you're now kind of shifting some of your attention to some other priorities. Talk about some of those. What's on the science and research agenda for SCDNR? Molly Kneece: Absolutely. So yeah, in recent years, we've kind of wound down our model duck research, but I mentioned that 60% of our harvest here in South Carolina is wood duck. So it's an extremely important species for us here in South Carolina and across the Southeast. In the early 1980s, South Carolina established a free wood duck box program for the constituents of the state. People can apply and receive a number of wood duck boxes every year. And so since the early 1980s, we've distributed about 55,000 wood duck boxes across the state. A number of those are really maintained and monitored very well every year. had a lot of questions just related to wood ducks and recruitment from those boxes and so a number of state agencies came together about five or six years ago with Nemours Wildlife Foundation that I mentioned previously and decided that we really wanted to pursue a wood duck recruitment study based on boxes across the southeast and so We're wrapped up the last year of data collection for that study, and we're really excited to see what recruitment looks like out of that data. Of a female wood duck that's hatched in a box, does she return the following year? And if she does, what is her contribution to the population? That's something that we're getting into the latter stages of here. We're also involved with the big Atlantic Flyaway Eastern Mallard Research Project. We're kind of at the southern range of mallards in the Atlantic Flyaway here in South Carolina. We get some birds out of eastern Canada, some birds out of the Finger Lakes in New York. A lot of our birds come out of the Great Lakes region as far as mallards are concerned and so we've joined in that effort and they're trying to get out a number of transmitters here each year. It's also a pretty unique effort in South Carolina. We had a number of private landowners really interested in the study and have really, really supported that effort just from providing trapping access and contributing money for for additional transmitters and so really excited to kind of see what mallards that winter in South Carolina, you know, what they're doing on the long term and what their production is. I'm looking at wintering site fidelity here in South Carolina and then I know our private landowners are really interested in breeding site fidelity. A lot of interesting things going on there we're actively involved in. And then looking down the road, I'm really interested in, related to these aerial surveys, looking at some winter habitat use for birds, not just on the coast, but really across the state of South Carolina. You get further inland, our beaver swamps become really important for our inland hunters. And there's a number of honey holes of wood ducks and mallards and the occasional black duck. So I'm really interested in kind of some habitat connectivity and habitat use of what's going on with birds on the coast, but also really across the state. So hopefully we can pull a big habitat use project together here a few years down the road. Mike Brasher: It sounds like you've got a fair number of exciting things on your plate. How many other people do you have kind of working with you on some of those things and how does that work? How does that work get done? Are you partnering with some universities on that? What's it looking like for y'all there? Molly Kneece: Absolutely. Pursuing these big research projects, there's always a network of people. We work closely with Clemson University. We've got great relationships with Mississippi State as well. Fish and Wildlife Service, like I said, Nemours Wildlife Foundation is a big supporter of waterfowl research here in South Carolina, and they've been a great partner of the agency here for for almost 20 years, if not more. And so all of these projects really bring in all of those partners. Ducks Unlimited is also a great supporter of all our research here in South Carolina. So all these things, they don't happen in a vacuum. So they definitely happen with the help of a lot of people. I've got a network of about 40 staff or 40 to 50 DNR staff that do something related to habitat management or banding or really anything waterfowl related here in South Carolina. So when it comes to really deploying research projects across the state, you know, I've got a vast network of DNR staff that really chip in and like to contribute as well. Mike Brasher: Yeah, that's all great. And it doesn't really surprise me to hear you say how much energy and enthusiasm there is behind really every aspect of what we've discussed, whether it be habitat management, research, and support for that research, and providing access to researchers on private land. We talk a lot about how hunters are some of the largest supporters of conservation through the financial contributions that they make. But they also support this community and this enterprise in so many other ways. And we're increasingly seeing private landowners, waterfowl hunters wanting to get involved and wanting to contribute to some of the ongoing science that we're doing, whether it's just through providing access to the properties or whether it be helping to fund some of the research or collect some of the data and some of the new citizen science projects that are ongoing out there. That's another thing that we try to talk about. We probably don't say enough about it. And it's kind of, I think we underestimate how much actually goes on. And that's in addition to all the historical contributions from band recoveries and participation in harvest surveys. And South Carolina has a stronghold for waterfowl hunting there in the southern portion of the Atlantic Flyway. There's a good culture of waterfowl hunting all throughout the Atlantic Flyway, make no mistake. But we're particularly proud of the work that we've done there in the Ace Basin and collaborated with y'all and researchers at Clemson and elsewhere to help study some of those important landscapes. So, it's great to bring a little bit more voice to that work. I appreciate you being part of that here, Molly. Anything else that you wanted to talk about relative to where we are in the season? Anything else that's going on within your agency before we close out? Molly Kneece: Hey, you know, we're just really optimistic and looking forward to what the last 50 days of the season here holds for us in South Carolina. So we've got a lot of new, or I say new, a lot of recent big renovation projects, properties coming back online. So we're excited to see those and to really see that beneficial habitat, you know, provide for waterfowl here in South Carolina and also provide opportunity for our public land hunters. A lot of that is NACA grants and coastal wetland grants, stuff that big projects we work closely with the South Atlantic Field Office here with. And so I know we're all excited to see what comes out of those recently renovated areas, but just looking forward to what's to come. Mike Brasher: I appreciate that, Molly. We'll keep an eye on the calendar. We'll keep an eye on weather conditions, and I'll check in with you periodically, and we'll try to get you back on an episode sometime in January. Not really sure what all that will look like. We might try. We're always experimenting with new ideas, whether those new ideas actually get implemented. That kind of depends on how many… How many other things we have going, you know, and whether we can fit them in. But it would be good to reconnect with you at some point, just kind of get a recap of how the season went. Hopefully you'll get some ideal weather systems to move some birds into that part of the flyway and give people a good chance at them. I've seen mixed reports from up and down the Atlantic flyway. I think your earlier statement at this point is that if you've got water in much of the southern, southeastern portion of the U.S., you're set up to do pretty well because it is so dry in so many places. We need a lot of rain. We need a lot of rain just to kind of get out of drought status. I think the fear would be that we would get too much rain, it would spread the birds out, and then tilt things in the other directions. But every year is different. It varies from region to region. We'll just work with whatever Mother Nature gives us. Molly Kneece: Certainly, certainly. Yeah, just the right amount of rain, not too much. Mike Brasher: Not too much. That's right. We'll dial that up. Well, all right, Molly, thank you so much for joining us, and we look forward to catching up with you sometime in the future. Molly Kneece: All right. Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it. Mike Brasher: A very special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Molly Neese, the State Waterfowl Biologist for South Carolina DNR. We appreciate her coming on, being a first-time guest. It won't be the last time we hear from Molly. She provides great insight and information from the South Atlantic. As always, we thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the terrific job he does with these episodes, and to you, the listener, we thank you for your time. We thank you for your support of Wetlands and Waterfowl Conservation, and we encourage you to make other friends, make your other hunting partners aware of the Ducks Unlimited podcast, and help us spread the word of all things waterfowl that we bring to you here on this platform. Thanks, everybody.