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Migration Mysteries: Are Flooded Corn and Weather Rewriting Duck Flyways? · DuckFellas Podcast

3:00
Welcome back to Duckfellas Podcast, episode 21.
3:06
Just me and you tonight, Cade. Yeah, my fucking headphones are ripping.
3:10
I know, mine are pretty loud too.
3:13
About blew my eardrums out. Not good.
3:17
Well, this week I think we're going to have a few things to discuss.
3:20
We've got a little bit of news that actually has popped out in the industry,
3:24
that kind of affects a lot of the people that travel for hunting and outfitters.
3:29
One of them was kind of surprising to me. The other one, I don't think it's
3:32
going to change anything. Right.
3:34
But then we're going to talk a little bit about some migration patterns and
3:38
how they've changed through the years.
3:41
And that's been a big argument in years past that it's not a real thing.
3:47
But then what was the last one? Oh, do hunters overharvest? and do we affect
3:54
the breeding population and kind of what our thoughts are on that and kind of
3:57
what we've researched here this evening about it because we were slacking all week.
4:02
Yeah, we definitely were. This was pretty thrown together, I feel like.
4:06
Yeah, but it'll be good though. We'll make it work.
4:09
We'll ride it out and see what happens. We actually did our research. A little bit, yeah.
4:13
Google is a great tool. Yeah.
4:16
Life saver today. Well, if you're listening to this and you're listening to
4:22
the podcast, the day after we were live.
4:25
I just want to remind everybody that we do have our giveaway live on our Facebook
4:30
and our Instagram pages.
4:32
The post should be pinned to the top of our pages, so be sure to go over there and read it over.
4:40
I think all you gotta do is follow both the pages and just comment what your
4:43
dream bird to kill is, I believe.
4:45
What do you mean I think all you gotta do? You're the one that made the giveaway.
4:49
Yeah, but that was so last week. I don't remember that stuff week in, week out. Jesus.
4:57
I'm supposed to have a PR guy for that, but he slacks big time.
5:00
PR guy's busy right now, dog. Yeah, I mean, I get it.
5:03
Busy being ditch digger. Yeah, someone's got to do it.
5:08
Well, yeah, so make sure you get entered in that drawing.
5:11
It's going to be going for a while here. We're second weekend and your second
5:15
podcast we do live in June is when we're going to do the drawing live on the podcast. Yep.
5:22
And then, yeah. I feel like we're going to have like a special guest that shows up and draws that.
5:27
We do. That'd be kind of cool. I want to do it. Hmm.
5:32
I don't know. We'll figure that out. Maybe make August do it.
5:36
I'm too busy driving. Yeah. Super trucking across the world.
5:41
Uh. And then there's Pookie. He's just always too busy for us nowadays.
5:44
I know, dude. He's too good. Two weeks in a row. Slacking. Too good.
5:48
Zach gets hired on. Comes to one podcast. Skips out. Yes, that's it. Unreal.
5:54
But, uh. Two reliable people.
5:57
That's all we got Two of them.
6:01
Chad, this weekend was a pretty good time. We had your, or you had your shop party.
6:07
Yeah, it was a blast. I actually had an excuse to clean the shop,
6:10
finally. It looks way bigger. I know, dude. It was wild.
6:14
Yeah, it was fun. The dildo races were a hit.
6:18
That was. Viber races. I've learned, I've learned more about these sex toys
6:23
in the past eight days than I ever needed to know.
6:28
Who, who ended up winning? One of the Dingaman twins. Oh, yeah.
6:33
You let us down. I got last. You let us down, dude. I'm pretty sure I got last.
6:38
Didn't you fall off the track?
6:40
Yeah, it did. Yeah, I got disqualified right away.
6:43
Just think about how good that little dick trophy would have looked up there.
6:47
No. Come on. There's no way.
6:49
Yeah. No. That would have been on the dash of my truck.
6:52
Not up there. All the jeep got out of the house. You just got a little dick hanging out there.
6:58
Oh, I didn't talk of the town, though. Oh, I know.
7:02
Problem is, nobody will be able to see it. I don't know. Windows too dark,
7:06
dog. It's a golden dick on a dash.
7:09
Driving into the sun. A black dash. It might blind some people.
7:14
And if I remember right, too, I came in through the, I barely made it into the
7:18
final race. You did. You came, you won the B. Yep.
7:21
Came in and then shit the bed Fred in the final heat or whatever. A-main. B-main Bobby.
7:29
That's right. B-main Bandit. Dang.
7:31
But no, so that was a good time.
7:35
Definitely was glad I was able to make it there. Drink too many beers per usual.
7:39
That will happen. Yeah. No, it's a, it's a going thing.
7:43
Got to get off that trend. As we're sitting here drinking beer.
7:47
Two. Having two tonight.
7:51
Let's jump into some of this news that kind of broke out here this past week.
7:56
Start with the North Dakota one, because it's not as big of a deal,
8:00
I don't think, to most people.
8:03
Really, the only people I think it's going to affect is the people in Minnesota.
8:07
Yeah. So it's always been the waterfowl season in North Dakota opens up.
8:12
On a Saturday for residents only. And it'll run for seven days consecutive.
8:17
That is only for residents season. And then the following Saturday opens up
8:22
non-residents and come in, they tear up the town. Just a disaster.
8:28
But this year they changed it. The last year they changed the zone structures
8:32
to six zones. And I get why they're doing it, but I hate it. Not a fan of it.
8:37
But now they've also made it to where residents get the first two weekends.
8:42
So the first nine days of their season, strictly residents only.
8:45
Which is great for the residents, I think.
8:48
Yeah, I feel like they deserve that. I mean, you're in one of the most highly
8:54
hunted areas. I feel like you get, and you actually live there,
8:57
I feel like you get the right to have two weekends.
9:00
I wonder what their, how many non-resident tags they sell a year. Oh, dude.
9:05
It's got to be unreal. Especially for I feel like it's got to be comparable
9:09
to Arkansas And Louisiana For just total tags sold But I feel like we've seen
9:15
a list not that long ago That North Dakota wasn't very high on the list either
9:17
though If I recall I'm looking at it So that's going to be interesting It's definitely cool,
9:24
Residents will get an extra weekend now To go shoot the local birds up And have
9:29
a good time before All the hooligans come to town,
9:33
Right up the fields and piss off the farmers That will happen, unfortunately.
9:38
That state's changed completely through the years. I mean, I went up there this
9:42
year, and it's a couple, I think three years ago.
9:47
It's impossible nowadays to get permission for stuff. Yeah. It's kind of sad
9:52
to see what it came to from what it was.
9:55
That's what happens when people tear shit up, dude. Well, it was really the
9:58
COVID year. Yeah. When Canada was closed and everybody went to North Dakota instead.
10:03
Yeah, it fucked everything up. And now, a lot of those people still go to North
10:07
Dakota that used to never go. And it's just wrecking havoc.
10:11
I literally cannot find this anywhere.
10:13
Unreal, dude. PR guys freaking sucks.
10:19
Well, while you're looking for that, I'll jump into the other one here.
10:23
And it is in terms of Canada.
10:27
Saskatchewan. For my... Whatever.
10:32
Can't stand it out.
10:34
You're done. You're done. Anyways, Saskatchewan changed their laws this year.
10:40
It used to be you could just go up there and hunt as long as you wanted,
10:43
as much as you wanted. Yep. For waterfowl.
10:46
Now you are only going to be allowed to hunt 10 days total in the fall And that's
10:52
two five day periods I don't know if it's back to back I got the link pulled up here.
10:58
But the reasoning for doing that was what they say is a cut down on the illegal outfitters.
11:04
And I don't know how that's going to cut down on illegal outfitters because.
11:08
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I would say most of your hunts up there are five-day
11:12
hunts. Yeah. And I mean, not many people go up there twice.
11:15
No. If anything, you're just hurting the everyday guy like us that would go
11:18
up there and freelance. Yeah.
11:20
And that's it. And they're hurting the farmers and the economy around their
11:26
areas. Because, I mean, imagine how much money is brought in during waterfowl
11:29
season of all these people coming there to hunt for a week or two at a time.
11:33
And now they're only coming to 10 days.
11:36
Yeah, because I've obviously never been. I don't know if you have. I've been once.
11:41
They're not like huge areas like towns, right?
11:45
No, not for the most part. Not where you're going duck hunting at. Yeah.
11:49
I think, did I mention that you can have one more five-day period in the spring?
11:53
You did not, but you just did. Yeah. for snow geese.
11:57
So, I mean, total 15 days is all you can hunt in Saskatchewan now.
12:00
That's kind of wild. Non-resident. Well, I don't know if that's for non-residents
12:03
or just like people like us coming from the U.S.
12:07
To hunt there. Well, that's non-resident.
12:10
Yeah, but non-resident, but like if you're a resident of Canada,
12:14
I don't know if that's going to apply to you. Right.
12:18
Canadian residents and non-residents. So, we'll limit non-resident hunters.
12:23
So, yeah, Yeah, pretty sure it's for even Canadian residents that are even outside
12:28
of that Providence, which is kind of wild.
12:31
I guess that's the same as the U.S., though. Like, every state has—well,
12:36
I shouldn't say every state.
12:37
Most states have a non-resident extra fee or whatever.
12:42
I mean, there's not really restrictions on it. Yeah, but I don't feel like there's
12:45
many people coming from Canada to hunt here.
12:48
No, but it's probably the same as, like, people going from Iowa to Arkansas
12:52
or North Dakota. Yeah, no, yeah, I get what you mean there.
12:57
You think of it like each area is its own state, so to say.
13:02
Well, yeah, I mean, more or less. I don't know.
13:06
I think it's kind of a dumb move on their part. I feel like there's a better
13:11
way to go about that. Yeah, correct. I mean...
13:15
I can see restricting down to something but i
13:19
i don't know that's that's a short time for people to go all that way to go
13:23
there because some people don't they're driving two days to get there yeah and
13:28
they're not going to do that anymore for five days most of the time they're
13:31
not going to turn a a five-day trip to make it a nine-day trip just to be able to hunt five days and,
13:36
because once your five days starts i'm pretty sure you only get those five days
13:39
consecutive executive.
13:41
And so if you've got the scout, you're just, you're missing a day.
13:44
Did you look up if you can have back-to-back periods? Mm-mm.
13:48
I have, it didn't mention it. I was trying to read that post.
13:52
Well, see if Google's going to let me down again. It probably will.
13:58
But here's a quote from it saying, illegal outfitters compound the hunting pressure on the landscape.
14:04
The cost and cost the province millions in lost economic activity each year.
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The term license is an important first step and will serve as a key tool within
14:16
a broader set of tools needed to significantly reduce the negative impact this
14:20
illegal activity has on the economy and the interest of law-abiding waterfowl hunters,
14:26
and Saskatchewan's licensed outfitters, which is wild.
14:30
I don't see how it's going to cut down on the illegal outfitters.
14:34
I mean yeah I don't know could be wrong hopefully it works out for them I don't
14:40
think it does I think it hurts the economy more than it helps it yeah I don't really feel like that's,
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do what they think it is no I mean I think they're I think they got the right
14:50
idea of trying to change something but,
14:54
there's always gonna be criminals there's always gonna be illegal activity I
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mean no matter what we do no matter how many laws we make yeah there's gonna
15:01
be people out there that break the law there's no way around it Unfortunately.
15:05
The Empire world is full of shitbags.
15:08
I don't know. Look at Pookie. Oh, damn.
15:12
He can't even defend himself. Nah, he can. He just chooses not to be here anymore. He hates us. Yeah.
15:18
I did find, finally, the North Dakota non-resident.
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They sold, this is in 2024, so it's a little bit outdated, but they sold 28,158
15:30
non-residents and only about 16,000 resident hunters for waterfowl.
15:36
Yeah, but think about that.
15:37
We sell 28,000 migratory waterfowl, whatever, whatever we call it here,
15:43
total between resident and non-resident in Iowa. And that's just how many non-residents
15:47
are going to North Dakota.
15:49
But that's smaller than I thought. It's still almost double.
15:53
What do you mean? Well, yeah, how many people hunt there compared to here?
15:56
No, their residents were only 16,000, and the non-residents were... Oh, yeah.
16:00
But the whole number's smaller than I thought. I feel like Arkansas and Louisiana
16:05
are way higher than that. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, they gotta be.
16:09
Okay. Your chair's squeaking over there. I know. Squeaky. Get some grease.
16:15
Oh. wish I wish we had some WD-40 in this garage dude there's some somewhere we'll find it next year,
16:23
oh just kidding I just have the spray graphite it's better WD-40 anyway oh 10-4,
16:29
don't ask me obviously you don't use it.
16:36
Bitch please um well I mean I don't know that's about really all the news we
16:44
got here I think yeah Shall we jump in to this migration topic?
16:52
Let her rip No, I'm too scared,
16:57
This is something that my dad talked about as I was growing up a lot was that
17:03
he felt like the migrations were shifting farther and farther west at that time.
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That was back early 2000s because we were seeing a decline in ducks.
17:15
And we had the duck numbers back then were high and we were seeing less ducks every year.
17:18
Now, I don't think that the duck counts are necessarily accurate by any means.
17:23
I mean, they have to go off of that data point that was built in the 50s.
17:27
That way they don't mess up the whole data set. Right.
17:31
But I do think, I think wind has a big driving factor in how far west or east
17:37
these ducks will come down the flyway.
17:40
Yeah. I think if, like, I feel like every year that we get more of a west wind
17:44
in that north, when it starts kicking up in October, I feel like every year
17:49
we see more ducks here and on the Mississippi River.
17:52
Yeah. Than on a year where we see more of a north-northwest wind.
17:56
Because I feel like they go straight down that Missouri.
17:58
And cut us out of the picture. Yeah, it was funny. A couple years ago,
18:02
I can't remember who I was talking to.
18:04
But they were getting all giddy about a north wind. It was like,
18:08
time birds should be pushing down.
18:10
I was like, man, I don't get too fired up by a north wind. You give me like
18:13
a west-northwest, fucking amped.
18:17
Anytime that we're getting a cold front and we have like a ripping 30,
18:21
40 mile an hour west-northwest wind. Yeah.
18:23
I'm jacked because we are generally going to get some birds or our birds that
18:28
we have are going to be moving around, getting ready to peace out. Yeah.
18:31
And that's, that's just a fact. I mean, that's, there's, I've never gone out
18:35
on a strong ripping west, northwest wind day in November and had a bad day.
18:41
I don't think ever. That's very fair.
18:45
But we did a little looking into it and we'll, we'll do this first. so what do you think,
18:54
The tough one. Do you think weather, like nowadays, it's weather or part of
19:00
this crop manipulation, a.k.a.
19:03
Flooded corn, that is affecting the migration patterns nowadays?
19:08
It's hard to say. Like, you see, ever since the whole crop thing came up,
19:12
you see people speaking out from Minnesota and Nebraska that it's fucking 10
19:19
below zero outside and these ducks are still sitting on the water.
19:22
They just don't move anymore.
19:24
Which I agree with to an extent but the birds that do push down to those areas
19:29
that have all the flooded corn they're not fucking leaving.
19:32
Right. Well think about it this way. It's how I look at it because those guys
19:37
always talk are going to say that stuff which I do think that is a problem in
19:40
our flyway because of the what gene is it in these ducks now the farm duck genes,
19:46
that's affecting I think I think we've killed off a lot of the migrating ducks
19:49
like the natural migrating.
19:51
I think we're losing that gene compared to the farm duck gene no science behind
19:56
that on my behalf just guessing yeah but.
20:00
If you listen to these Louisiana boys talk and the guys in Arkansas,
20:03
it never took record-breaking blizzard to push ducks.
20:08
Or it didn't even take weather at all. Like, ducks migrate off the moon phase. Yep.
20:13
It's every year. That's why we get the same push of ducks every year. Every single year.
20:17
And around Halloween, like within two to three business days of Halloween,
20:21
you're getting the business flight of ducks.
20:24
Yeah. And it's the first real migration of big ducks.
20:27
You'll have your teal come through and yeah like the shovelers maybe a few gaddies
20:32
and pendails but your first big push is always Halloween the other thing is too like,
20:37
even in the northern states if you look at the number of like city ponds that
20:43
have come up oh yeah they don't freeze because they have too many fucking birds on,
20:49
those but what I don't get is like those are all natural refuges yeah like you
20:53
can't hunt them so you'll never build a hunt them the only thing you'll do is
20:56
go out there with a little punk gun with a net,
20:59
catch them, and then take them off somewhere else and release them and they're
21:02
going to go right back. Yep. They're not done.
21:04
So, I mean, like people talk about the loss of habitat, which it is a big thing,
21:10
but you know how much habitat has been gained for them birds in just city ponds?
21:15
Yeah, they know they're safe there. People walk by them all day long.
21:18
They just say, you got a cracker?
21:21
What's up, my dude? Oh, don't run me over just crossing the road real quick.
21:25
I don't even want bread. Just give me a cracker. Yeah.
21:28
Can you put out a pile of corn? I don't feel like flying to the cornfield today.
21:32
Oh, our next AI-generated image. Dang.
21:37
Goddamn. Where were we at on that? Thinking about the pile of corn.
21:42
Talking about city palm. Yeah.
21:43
Trying to think of what my next step there was.
21:46
Oh, back to ducks migrating. So these Louisiana boys and Arkansas boys talk about it.
21:53
They'd be killing these mallards and gadwalls and pintails in a t-shirt and
21:59
it'd be 60-70 degrees and you can go back to those days.
22:02
Some of those guys keep records of it like I try to on like this year. I was about to say.
22:08
Emphasis on try. I do pretty good about it. This year was terrible.
22:12
Non-existent. Yeah, it was not good.
22:14
But they'd look at like the weather in St. Louis and it's not, there's no snow.
22:19
There's no major cold. Like it got colder ish. Yeah. Just that time of year
22:23
where you get colder and they're killing ducks.
22:26
They didn't need no major weather, but now if it's not negative 20 and two foot
22:31
of snow on the ground, it's, they just don't move like they did.
22:36
And it's very rare that we get that anymore. We don't, we haven't,
22:40
the last time we got a bunch of snow was four years ago, but it was within a
22:45
week and it was in January. Yep.
22:47
And the duck season was already over. It didn't matter. Yep.
22:50
But man, did we have some honkers. Holy shit. I was killing them every day by myself.
22:56
That was a good time. Then Cody came up and we smashed him for, I think, four days.
23:02
That's good here. But, um. R.I.P.
23:08
Where's I going with this? Oh. But I do personally think the flooded crops,
23:17
not just flooded corn, but just flooded food in general, like everyone's like
23:21
well rice is in there just get rid of the rice Arkansas and Louisiana floods rice,
23:25
that's a natural farm practice though it's not,
23:29
flooded corn is the biggest one it's the main one when you look at it the amount of days that.
23:35
It's I can't remember the exact numbers on it but the days that they can eat
23:41
in that cornfield is insane like the amount of,
23:45
duck feeding days or whatever they called it is crazy crazy
23:49
wild compared to like moist soil or ripes right
23:52
did i i'm pretty sure that
23:55
i heard that like the the number of rice fields
23:58
is going way down too it has yeah they're not probably playing that shit anymore
24:02
compared to what they used to no it's way less it's dying really no good no
24:09
good mr george but so like what we're talking about it before the podcast here i'll pull it back Uh,
24:16
one weird thing that like the study was released in 2024 and it was a 60 year
24:22
study starting in the 60s.
24:24
But I found this odd that blue winged teal since nine, between the years 1960
24:29
and 2019 has started migrating farther south by like almost 500 kilometers farther
24:37
than what they used to in the 60s.
24:39
How far is that in American terms? No idea.
24:41
Would you say it was 500? It's like, it says 486. Google again.
24:51
310 miles. That's a pretty drastic increase. Yeah.
24:56
And that's, if we, if we're going by what everybody says, we don't get the weather,
25:00
why are the blue-winged teal migrating farther?
25:03
Then, so like the next one here I got's the northern pintail,
25:07
which they've moved farther north by about 350 kilometers, so I'm guessing that's
25:13
probably like 275 miles, roughly, give or take.
25:17
Maybe 260. 350? Is that what you said? Yeah. 217. Hmm. It was a little off.
25:25
But they also used almost two times more area compared to what they did in the
25:30
60s. So they just spread out more. Mm-hmm.
25:33
Which I wonder if that... I wonder if it's because the pintail numbers weren't
25:36
as good in California back then, maybe? That could definitely be.
25:39
Because I don't... I feel like their pintail numbers have just skyrocketed compared
25:43
to what ours have done. Yeah. It's just decline.
25:46
So that could be part of that. But no, I don't think it is because it doesn't
25:51
even show California on this map.
25:53
It just shows, like, Illinois, like, all the southern Midwest states.
25:58
Interesting. Kind of what I thought.
26:01
Now, the mallards, they have also shifted about the same as the pintails,
26:08
and that's about 350 kilometers to 450 kilometers, so 215 to 300 miles,
26:15
which is kind of wild.
26:17
That is quite a bit when you think about it like in a straight line. Yeah.
26:22
That's quite a ways in a straight line. The way the crow flies.
26:26
The way the teal flies. The teal flies fast as fuck south.
26:30
Yeah. He don't give a fuck. He's going to the Gulf of Mexico and getting his margarita.
26:35
Oh, I don't win. Shit. The Gulf of America.
26:38
Damn, dude. I can't say much. I didn't even catch it. I fucked up.
26:43
I fucked up. And it was canceled. That's all right.
26:47
But, I don't know. I definitely think that it's proven that the migration patterns shift.
26:54
And I just think our weather goes through cycles anyways.
26:59
I don't... yeah we're warmer than we were back in the 80s and 90s but I think
27:04
in 20 late 30s and early 40s we'll be back in that rotation of where we had
27:11
cold winters again could be wrong but if you look at the data of like the temperatures
27:16
we're breaking they're all from,
27:19
before then like the 60s and 70s every record high we break is from way back
27:25
in the early 1900s yeah and now everybody's like well global warming is like What was it back then?
27:31
Yeah, no shit. The caveman had too many fires?
27:36
Or August was having too many fires, I guess. No shit. That dude was lighting
27:40
bonfires everywhere he went. Yeah.
27:43
Every truck stop. Every truck stops back then. He made his own.
27:48
Oh, yeah, dude. He is like the grandfather of trucking. Yeah. He invented the wheel.
27:52
What a guy. What'd he do with all his money?
27:56
Spend it all on Ducca. Fucking idiot. What a loser. Who would do that? That's.
28:05
But all in all, I mean, it's that article that I pulled up is kind of wild to
28:11
read just because it does say that they shift east and west through the years.
28:19
And it doesn't really say on wind, but it does say waterfowl adapt.
28:25
So like right now we're in droughts. So the waterfowl will go to where there's
28:29
water. So their starting point is going to be different.
28:31
They're probably not going to migrate the same line or the same path.
28:35
So the droughts could be why we're having lower years too and down south in
28:41
Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, you know, those areas.
28:45
Probably not. Probably all the flooded corn. It's 100% flooded corn's fault.
28:50
At least I hope it is. Yeah.
28:54
You know how much time and effort these guys are putting into fighting the flooded
28:57
corn? I know, dude. If they're wrong, I'm not saying they're going to be 100% right.
29:01
I mean, I hope they're right if it does go through and they do a study on it,
29:06
which would be limiting the flooded corn or just canceling it for three years.
29:11
But man, if they're wrong and they get rid of flooded corn for three years, do that study.
29:15
Sorry, boys. Go back and flood all the corn. My bad. Have at it. Let's kill them all.
29:21
Can you imagine? That would be a shitstorm, dude. It's going to be World War III. Yeah. For sure.
29:27
Yeah. You think waterfowl hunters hate each other now. Yeah.
29:31
It's going to get so much worse.
29:34
So much worse. Sounds like so much fun. I'm here for it.
29:38
I'm looking forward to Facebook or maybe MySpace is back by then.
29:42
Maybe we can do the full rotation.
29:44
Maybe. It's kind of cool because I could change my top friend list.
29:46
I'd be rotating all the time. Jeez.
29:51
My profile song would definitely be Bananas by Gwen Stefani that suits you does,
29:57
I don't know you seem more like a frugalicious kind of guy it's a good song
30:00
too solid choice might be top five,
30:03
definitely not number one though I think it's Bananas what's your what would
30:07
be your top song I don't know depends on the day I can see you being like a
30:12
T-Swift kind of guy no like shake it off no,
30:16
at all I'm out on that one I can see it I'm out Come on I listen to Too many
30:25
different genres Of music though I listen to everything And it's like everyday
30:28
It goes in a different phase Like I'll go from,
30:31
70s 80s rock To Punch the fucking Windshield out Oh boy To 90s country,
30:37
Big X the plug Yeah I like it It's everywhere Big X is some pretty good stuff
30:43
Pretty solid Yeah You can not go wrong,
30:47
wild times we're going to live in one day. You know what's even more wild?
30:50
I never head to MySpace. What a loser.
30:55
I'm not fucking 50, call me that. I'm not 50 either.
30:59
What did we say last time? You were 76. I can't keep track of the numbers.
31:03
You guys are throwing crazy numbers every day out there.
31:06
That's legit every day. I know. I hate the good text.
31:11
It's been pretty quiet lately. I know. We got to get Zach added into there.
31:15
We do. then it would be non-stop shit talking.
31:18
Man, dude, I need to start saving his morning Snapchats when he's on his ragers
31:23
in the car on the way to work.
31:24
We can start posting those reels on our Instagram page.
31:29
You could just save all of them and do one a week. Or we could do a compilation
31:35
of them all, like mix them together at the end of the year.
31:38
Just a whole 365 crash-out days in the car for Zach. Well, it would be wild.
31:44
This would take a lot of work for the PR guy.
31:47
But that's not going to happen then. Eat shit. I'll make you the PR guy. How about that? No.
31:52
I'm busy. We'll take all of his morning Snapchats.
31:58
We'll pull words out. And we'll make him sing a different song.
32:02
That could be good. Dude. I know.
32:05
We could take a DJ remix of it all. Yeah. He's sick. We could probably drop some bangers. I know.
32:12
Hmm. I'm sure Zach's about it we'll find out yeah coming soon unlike the Pokemon
32:18
cards they got cancelled I did snag the perfect Pokemon card picture this weekend I'd imagine so,
32:27
it's not surprising do you remember it?
32:30
I think it was late in the night what were we doing?
32:36
Sitting at the table getting ready to leave what did I do?
32:40
Let's see it I'll just show you now I'm curious I remember the end of the night yeah there it is solid.
32:52
That is perfect for a card. Yeah, no, it'll be great. It's going to be awesome.
32:57
It'll be made by 10 minutes after the end of this episode. Yeah, 2037.
33:04
Anyways, let's go ahead and move into the next topic. I think we touched on
33:07
migration patterns as well as we can for now with the short studying of it.
33:13
Yeah, it was quick study too. I mean, we did find some interesting stuff,
33:17
I feel like, and we touched on a few things that were a little bit interesting. Yeah.
33:22
But, Now let's move into, let's kind of shift our focus into cracking that bush light.
33:29
Anyways, we're going to shift into harvest numbers.
33:33
And if maybe these harvest numbers are, I know that the science says that it
33:37
doesn't matter, but then it also
33:39
says it matters because they lower limits whenever the numbers get so low.
33:44
So they kind of contradict themselves on this, but how much does harvest kind
33:49
of play into a fact of it? And I know you found some interesting facts here
33:53
right before we got on the podcast. Let you touch on that.
33:58
Yeah. So I got this piece of information from the Delta website.
34:04
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Report showed that 14.34 million ducks were harvested in 2024-2025.
34:17
And that was a 2.2% decrease from the previous year.
34:22
That's a lot of ducks. That's a shitload, dude. Is that the math that I did
34:26
off of this year's waterfowl survey, that's a 42% kill rate.
34:34
That's wild. That's a lot of ducks. Yeah. I wonder how many hens died. I don't know.
34:43
Because evidently, it doesn't matter how many hens you kill.
34:46
It doesn't affect them going back.
34:48
But I was listening to a podcast yesterday, And Dr.
34:53
Brasher Who works for Ducks Unlimited I believe He Clearly said that There's
35:00
too many Pintail drakes And that The drakes are Like overrunning the hens And
35:06
that's why The numbers aren't growing Because they're just not Breeding Yeah,
35:11
And that's poor hens. Man, I'll tell you what.
35:14
He was talking about there's like times where there's like 15 drakes going after
35:17
one hen. It's like, oh my God. Robin.
35:21
Swim. Do something. Get away. Dive. If you can dodge a pintail drake,
35:26
you can dodge everything.
35:27
It's actually really funny. Before I came out, you were dodged all the time. Was it? Classic.
35:33
Good movie. But that's kind of wild to me that the pintails are in that kind of state.
35:39
That there's that many more drakes and hens. And I believe it because when we
35:43
see the pintails here and they're plumed out where you can tell what they are
35:46
for sure because they're in an early seed in like October. That's hard, so.
35:51
Pintails are really hard to tell. Like mallards, in low light situations,
35:56
they're hard to tell too.
35:57
But once it's light out, even if it's cloudy or sunny, they're pretty easy to
36:02
tell because you can see that the chest is always naturally darker on even an
36:07
immature drake and where it looks like a hint.
36:09
Like, it's not the... Like, if you shoot into a flock of 30 of them.
36:14
It's hard to tell then, kind of. Yeah.
36:16
But if you got, like, five or six coming in, I have never had a problem other
36:19
than when my contacts fall out, which has happened.
36:22
Picking out anything. Yeah. Yeah, early season, it's always tough to pick out.
36:27
I feel like any species, honestly. Yeah.
36:31
I don't... I couldn't... That's the only thing I don't like about Canada.
36:34
Most of them birds are ugly. Yeah. Especially these guys go up there and kill them in like September.
36:39
They're all gray ducks. Yeah. Like it's, I mean, it's mallards,
36:41
but they're great. They're no color to them.
36:44
And like, I think, I think it was Dr.
36:47
Brasher was talking about it, or maybe it was the other one,
36:50
Dave Rave or something like that was saying that hens aren't fully plumed,
36:57
until like September, because after they have their ducklings,
37:02
after their ducklings grow up, then they go through their cycle of their feathers.
37:06
So they don't start the cycle till August.
37:09
Damn. Like end of July, August is when they start getting their feathers.
37:16
Is wild. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's crazy. And they start killing them
37:19
in Canada in September and they're not. Nowhere near ready to rip.
37:24
They ain't even ready to migrate yet. No. Let's just kill them all.
37:29
That is another thing when you think about teal season. I've caught myself a
37:34
couple times like it's hard to tell because the wood ducks are so like they're
37:40
obviously not plumed out very well.
37:42
It's pretty easy to pull up on a duck and be like, oh fuck, that's a wood duck.
37:47
The shovelers are the ones that get me Really? I don't know why Dude,
37:50
they got a fucking lip the size of Texas I know, but when they're coming in
37:53
at Mach Freaking Jesus Where all you hear is,
37:57
When you pull up And then I'm like, I won't I made the mistake once when I was
38:02
younger I shot a shoveler during teal season And I got caught for it,
38:05
I got a ticket Paid my ticket, did my time, did my dues We're good,
38:09
I gave the game warden a ride back to the boat ramp that day Yeah,
38:12
they still rate you a ticket Yeah, fuck, jack off I hope he doesn't.
38:19
But I mean shit happens I mean honestly during teal season if if it's a pure
38:26
accident there just take the bird with you don't don't get rid of it,
38:32
just be honest with the game board and sometimes they're going to be more forgiving
38:36
to you if you tell them like hey i messed up yeah yeah like and there's times
38:40
too where i've shot in the group of teal and there's shovelers with it and it's
38:44
like oh okay well i'll be real careful this is weird yeah i passed up on shots
38:50
in groups of teal that had four or five shovelers in them because,
38:53
sometimes when you're shooting teal you're just spraying and praying yeah because they're.
38:59
I see Bill's giving me shit for mistaking a wood duck and a teal.
39:04
In my defense, every time that I've ever teal hunted, I'm in the willows.
39:09
So when those things just come ripping at, like you said, the shovelers,
39:12
mock fucking Jesus. Yeah.
39:14
Yeah, we ain't hunting on the flooded corn, Bill. It's like a defense shot.
39:18
Like, I'm fearing for my life at that point.
39:22
This mob of 30 might just pick me up and take me with them. Yeah,
39:26
no, I mean, Like I said, it happens. Everybody's, nobody's perfect.
39:29
Right. You're going to make mistakes out hunting, whether you mean to or not.
39:33
I mean, some people just go out to deliberately kill wood ducks or mallards.
39:36
Like, I've seen guys just wrecking mallards in September during teal season.
39:39
I'm like, this is why, this is why you're going to ruin it. Yeah.
39:43
Like that, the people that go out there and abuse the system,
39:46
and also how not everybody knows this yet, but you can't shoot 30 minutes before
39:52
shooting time during early teal season, blows my mind.
39:56
Yeah. because it's as you can't see shit well right and you can only kill one
40:00
freaking or two species of ducks green wing and blue wing teal yeah.
40:05
Every year, 30 minutes before shooting time, people would just go to ripping on them.
40:10
And I did it one time. One time back in Illinois.
40:15
And the game board would come walking up. Oh, I heard you shoot earlier this
40:18
morning. It's like, yeah, but I was like the last one to shoot out of the 20 parties here.
40:23
I didn't get a ticket. That was lucky. Mm-hmm.
40:27
Well, I was pissed. I was like, bro, the teal were going to be gone out of here
40:32
before. If I didn't shoot, I shot like three minutes early.
40:34
Yeah. And those guys were shooting 25, 30 minutes early. I'm like, oh, come on.
40:38
Give me a break of that Kit Kat bar.
40:43
Your autism is fucking ripping today. Absolutely. I'm running on like two hours
40:47
of sleep. I love it. Yeah.
40:49
I did see on that article I found and shared the mallard numbers,
40:56
the Drake to hen ratio on those are getting badly out of hand.
41:01
Like the difference. difference let's see where's it,
41:06
Bill says, fucking Illinois, you're lucky they didn't get your bank account
41:10
number. Oh no, they got that on file, Bill, don't worry.
41:14
I got auto pay turned on. Maybe it's on the computer. Found it.
41:20
Yeah, it's right here. So like, right here, the sex ratios in mallards.
41:31
It's significantly different in adults compared to the juveniles.
41:37
And it's like why like why are we having that
41:40
problem because other than
41:43
is it one is there a limit to where we can
41:45
kill one pintail hen or is it i think it has one hen i
41:48
think so like mallards you could kill four drakes and or two hens yeah and two
41:53
drakes like with everybody just shooting their two hens and then getting their
41:58
two drakes which i know is not the case because no i get dogged every time i
42:01
put a post on facebook and there's a hen in the pile oh you shoot hens. What the heck?
42:08
Like, yeah, there's 99.9% of Drex and you're going to pick out the one fucking hen.
42:13
Yeah, dude, there's been, I've posted numerous pictures where I'll have,
42:16
in a pile of 30 mallards, I'll have like three or four hens.
42:21
And they're like, whoa, Susie Slayer. No, get the fuck out of here. Like, for real.
42:26
This year, in Iowa, there was no specification on your pintails.
42:33
You could kill three hens? so like the mallard it says of which no more than
42:37
two may be hens right just has three pintails sick just go out there and just
42:42
start wrecking the hens we'll just finish off the pintail no,
42:46
finish off the pintail species for good oh they're my favorite to take pictures of they're so pretty.
42:52
Oh, yeah. So Bill's got a good point there, too. It's like hens are more susceptible
42:59
to getting attacked by predators just because they're on a nest and protecting
43:03
the nest while the drake's out in the middle of the lake just cruising.
43:06
Yeah, that makes sense. And he's able to, like, he'll just get up and fly away.
43:10
Yeah. But the predator comes, and the hen's going to stay there to protect her
43:12
eggs or her babies if she has babies at that point.
43:15
So, I mean, that does make sense that the breeding grounds are what's knocking the hens out badly.
43:22
Yeah. need to get some of these predator hunters up in that area.
43:26
Let them just fucking protect the ducks. Yeah, no shit. Just take them out there. Yeah.
43:32
Don't leave. I don't know. I think I think hunter numbers and hunter harvest
43:40
have more to play than they lead on because obviously we wouldn't have the adaptive
43:46
harvest program or whatever.
43:50
Like there's gotta be a I mean, we do have a portion, like I know they say it's
43:54
a small portion, but when we're harvesting, what did you say, 14 million ducks a year?
43:58
Yeah, 42%. I mean, that's a lot.
44:02
There's 30 million ducks. Yeah.
44:05
And I think it's the Mississippi Flyway?
44:09
But another thing I found out yesterday or was it this morning I was listening
44:14
to that podcast, which I should have known because I've read it before. It's the May pond count.
44:18
But like those numbers that the U.S. that well, DU and Delta post,
44:23
but it's actually coming from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
44:27
They're the ones that conduct this with outside parties.
44:30
That's not so that that's the counts before the breeding happens or like before
44:36
the actual like there's no fall count.
44:39
As far as I'm concerned that tells us how many ducks were successfully hatched
44:43
that year and what we added to it.
44:46
They go out there and they look at it, but I don't think they put a number on it that I've seen.
44:51
I've never seen a count come out that says, oh, we've got this many.
44:57
But it's like really those numbers that come out are a year behind.
45:02
That kind of shows you what last year's hatch was, more or less,
45:06
is what I'm gathering out of it.
45:07
And I'll agree with Bill there like the AHM is so far out of whack it doesn't
45:13
make sense like how we're at numbers what we were in the 90s and we're still
45:19
on a 60 and 6 liberal hunting season yeah.
45:24
Me i just feel like we're giving into the market hunting too much too much money in the game,
45:30
happened oh we got a lot of money in it too but not as much as some of those people,
45:33
no shit but like
45:37
think about it if we went if we went to a 30 and 3 how many guides outfitters
45:43
hunting clubs do you think are gonna actually close up or how many do you think
45:48
they that survive it i i feel like you'd see a big hit i do too but at the same point like the,
45:55
the guides I like we're all fucking idiots we're gonna do it we're gonna go
46:00
duck hunt anyway the people that are paying for a guide I feel like they're
46:02
still gonna pay for a guide to shoe,
46:04
less ducks yeah but that's like their only I agree like I'm not saying that,
46:11
can they make the same money though only having a 30 day season,
46:15
no obviously not because they'd have to double their hunters to make bring in
46:18
the same money or just double their price there's that too I guess fuck around
46:23
dude could you imagine spending twelve thousand dollars to kill,
46:28
nine ducks compared to six thousand
46:31
ducks to kill eight or six thousand dollars to kill eighteen ducks,
46:35
that is true but like that's wild that's also the people that are paying for
46:39
a guided pond don't really give a shit with prices no I get that,
46:44
I'm just saying on their end they could probably make it work I wish I had that
46:47
kind of money to throw the fuck around dang it's not fair.
46:53
School kids will they take a hit absolutely will they find a way to price gouge it absolutely,
46:59
yeah i mean you definitely i mean still
47:03
like but like bust a duck guide services you
47:06
heard of him out of arkansas no the bad duck
47:08
club he he he
47:11
sells most his hunts to like the everyday guy
47:14
like he has more everyday people that come
47:17
in bring their kids and hunt compared to like vandemore where
47:20
it's all government people and yeah big
47:23
wigs that make millions a year buckers yeah like
47:28
i i heard a rumor that dive bomb outfits all their clients too all their big
47:32
wigs that's wild which i mean i i believe it kind of surprising though because
47:38
he's tied in with cabela's or bass pro pretty tight too but the dive bomb guys
47:44
have really stepped in with them here in the past probably two years.
47:48
Yeah. I don't think it's been three. I think it's probably closer to two that
47:51
they've really started out there quite a bit.
47:54
And that's where half their footage comes from. Their duck club in St.
47:57
Charles, Missouri, and Tony Vandemars.
48:00
Yes, sir. Bill's got a point. It is a tax write-off. Yeah.
48:05
I need more of those. Go on a garden hunt. Can't afford it.
48:12
Somebody just want to give me their receipt so I can write it off?
48:15
Too big of a writer oh come on,
48:18
can't get that what is the limit like what like 10 no cause you gotta hit a
48:25
certain threshold before it even matters anyways,
48:28
that's about my I can't remember what it is it's wild,
48:32
what do you got what else do you have to say on that kind of topic for the harvest,
48:39
I think it's kind of wild obviously like it goes into,
48:44
number of hunters I feel like but Arkansas Louisiana and California are the
48:48
top three leading states for killing ducks isn't that wild California yeah like that,
48:56
a lot of people don't I know like it'd be fun to go hunt out there I've always
49:00
heard great things about it but,
49:02
Nobody believes it either at the same time.
49:04
Like it's not, nobody really, well, not that I know of, talks about,
49:07
let's go to California and hunt.
49:08
And I also don't really want to go to California. I don't either, but.
49:12
I would go to California just to race or hunt ducks. That'd be it. Yeah, Northern Cali.
49:20
Otherwise that state. Southern Cali can break off. From the middle of California
49:24
down, you can just break off and go floating out in the oceans.
49:27
I see a later, I don't think it hurt too many people's feelings other than people
49:31
that are on the island. Yeah. Yeah.
49:36
Me i can't swim that fucking sucks yeah no shit build a boat you better figure it out real quick,
49:45
oh man no i mean
49:47
all in all between migration patterns
49:52
and harvest i think i
49:56
think the difference in migration patterns is some
49:59
years why you see less ducks and makes you think that there's less
50:02
ducks out there when there's maybe not they just didn't
50:05
come down your your part of the flyway like we
50:08
see that here where but last
50:11
year we had ducks everywhere similar weather to
50:13
this year it wasn't last year and this year i don't think we're very far
50:16
off no i mean could be wrong but i don't the temperature didn't seem like they're
50:21
that that much different in fact i think it was actually warmer year before
50:26
than this past year it was for sure i think the average of november was higher
50:30
then yeah but even like when we were goose hunting we were,
50:35
in fucking long sleeve shirts every day that was a whole different ball game
50:38
there we fought the fog every single day yeah stupid but,
50:44
right there like we didn't see half the ducks we seen last year right well this
50:47
past year we didn't see half the ducks we seen the year before and,
50:50
that could have just been because the way the winds were and they went down
50:54
the Missouri or they went farther east to the Mississippi and went down yeah
50:57
and that is something that.
51:00
We, as a group, need to get better about tracking our hunts.
51:05
I know you've been good about it, but this year we fucking sucked.
51:08
But that is something that I really want to pinpoint. Like, go through at the
51:10
end of the year, count how many days you had a specific wind.
51:16
Like, how many days you had a north wind and northwest, yada,
51:18
yada, yada. I bet you people would be surprised.
51:20
If you actually kept track of it, and you compare the years you have more north
51:25
in the winds than you do west, I think you'd be surprised on where the Ducks I mean,
51:31
obviously Central Missouri Eastern Missouri Arkansas you got like that Bermuda Triangle where,
51:38
going to be a fuckload of ducks go there no matter what yeah i mean even if
51:41
they get rid of flooded corn those are just natural busy areas where ducks go
51:46
to and it's a pit stop farm that would just naturally always been there stop
51:49
in the quick start you do the print stick.
51:55
But i don't know there's a there's a lot of variables to it weather is definitely
52:00
one weather is a major one but,
52:02
the moon phases are the biggest one i think that's your biggest driving factor
52:06
to duck migrations you mean you got the stubborn-ass ones that don't want to
52:10
leave until there's a foot of snow on the ground, but,
52:13
even those ones don't fucking leave anymore. No.
52:15
They're like, yeah, we're just gonna sit on the river and eat fucking crawfish.
52:21
Like Bill said, though, like, three days prior to a front or storm that,
52:25
I mean, it was always, like, the days of the storm were usually not always the
52:31
best days. It was always either the day before or the day after.
52:34
Zach calling you out big time.
52:38
I don't care His shit ponds are fucking up the fucking geese too Attracting
52:44
all them freaking geese If they don't leave them,
52:49
I've never seen a wind turbine affect a duck or a goose.
52:53
Unless they hit the fucker. I've never seen a dead duck or a goose around one
52:57
that hasn't been dead because it got shot. That is wild, honestly.
53:01
Yeah. Dude, I used to... I mean, I've worked on the wind horns the past 10 years now almost.
53:06
And I've been working when there's somebody goose hunting in the field right
53:10
next to where we're... Or duck hunting, you know.
53:13
Happened a lot in Oklahoma. Yeah. Down there in Texas.
53:16
Like, their sandhill cranes, they don't give a fuck. I think they timed it right,
53:20
and they flew through the blades as they were going around. Probably.
53:25
56 degree composition.
53:30
Yeah, you smart-ass remarks there, Zach. Anything else you want to say before
53:34
we get to closing up here?
53:37
He's got something brewed out. Yeah, he does. He's probably busy petting his
53:41
dog right now. I don't blame him.
53:43
And ignoring Molly. Poor Molly.
53:46
The Mexican dog gets no attention. The black dog gets all the attention Damn
53:51
dude I know Gotta pay attention to the nexty,
53:54
Poor Molly Got old and forgot about He moved on He says no comments for this
53:59
week Unreal He already had a comment I'm really disappointed in that I really
54:04
thought he could do better than that Same.
54:08
For everybody that has tuned in today that wasn't here for the beginning of
54:12
the podcast or whatever, don't forget to go get entered in our giveaway that
54:17
is live right now on the Facebook and Instagram pages.
54:20
Pretty simple. All you got to do is comment on your dream bird,
54:23
and it could be any bird, not even a legal bird, your dream bird to kill,
54:28
and like and follow both our pages on Facebook and Instagram, and you'll be entered.
54:33
We're giving away two of the Alps blinds with one's going to be to anybody over
54:39
the age of 18 and one, well, it could be, could even be under the age of 18.
54:43
They could both go to you. Anybody.
54:44
But one is no matter what, go into somebody that's 18 or younger.
54:48
So even if you don't want to get entered, but you know someone that's 18 or
54:52
younger, tell them about it, get them entered or just enter yourself for it and give it to them.
54:56
Yeah. I mean, that's, it's a free blind and they're in great condition.
55:01
Yeah. So they've been very, very lightly hunted compared to my other ones.
55:07
But you don't want to miss out on that. I mean, I like free shit. Who does? I don't know.
55:13
Some people, there's not a lot of shit that's free anymore. Nothing's free anymore.
55:18
There's a price to pay for it.
55:20
There's usually certain people that are paying it instead of the other ones. Yeah.
55:24
What do you got? What do you got? Anything else you want to add here before we, uh, uh.
55:34
Uh, uh, uh, uh, going to bed. yes anyways uh we appreciate you guys tuning in
55:40
this week to another episode of the duck fellas podcast um this week wasn't
55:46
much going on but we got some news to bring you so hopefully,
55:51
next week should be interesting i think what we talk about we're gonna talk about next week,
55:59
It'll be a surprise. We'll figure it out next Monday. Anyways,
56:02
go like and follow our Facebook and our Instagram pages and be sure to subscribe
56:05
to the YouTube at some point. I mean, come on. Please.
56:11
But that's it for this episode. Until next time.