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The Standard Sportsman
Lifelong Arkansas waterfowlers Brent Birch and Cason Short discuss duck hunting's past, present, and future with various thought-provoking leaders in the duck-hunting community. The guys will discuss days afield, waterfowl conservation, and stewardship with the goal of leaving the sport of duck and goose hunting better than they found it.
Presented by Yeti, Tom Beckbe, Lile Real Estate, Sitka Gear, Purina Pro Plan, and Ducks Unlimited.
The Standard Sportsman
James Callicutt
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James Callicutt leads Mississippi State’s Waterfowl and Upland Game Bird Extension program, working alongside the Osborne Lab, Cohen Wildlife Lab and Five Oaks Ag Research Center, among others. A dedicated waterfowler himself, James breaks down mallard movements, food preferences, the importance of water on the landscape and much more. He has a knack for translating complex waterfowl science into practical information everyday duck hunters can understand and use.
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Welcome to the Standard Sportsman Podcast, where duck and goose hunting's hottest topics meet a mission to leave the resource better than we found it. Lifelong Arkansas hunter conservationist Kasten Stork and Brent Burch bring you thought-provoking conversations with insightful guests before, during, and after the season. Glad you're here. Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_03Hey, it's Brent and Kasten back with another edition of the Standard Sportsman Podcast. And it appears we're once again dipping into the Mississippi State Bulldog pool of guests that uh seem to somehow frequent this show. We can't get a U of A grad on here for anything, uh so I have to hold down the fort. But uh but yeah, we're gonna we're gonna dig into some some science stuff again. It's been a little bit since we've talked all this.
SPEAKER_04It has been, yeah. It's been uh I guess a busy summer, but we haven't haven't really dipped our toes in the water of research here in a little bit, but it's time to get back into it. And look, you can blame the Mississippi State thing on me all you want, but it's just the hidden gem of universities like you keep putting out great people, and uh, you know, this is what happened. So, but yeah, joining us today is uh James Calicut, MSU Extension Waterfowl and Upland Bird Specialist. Uh James, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me, y'all. I'm glad to be here. And uh I don't know what it is, but the waterfowl research world is full of bulldogs. You know, we just it is we just pop a lot of a lot of folks out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And we were talking just before we hit record, you know, my intelligence self uh have a business degree from Mississippi State. So I didn't I didn't make that right hand turn to Thompson there. I went the other way, but uh should have should have done that. I do have uh I do have a couple boys who have their sights set on coming down there and uh maybe taking some of your classes one day. So I'm trying to steer them, steer them a little better than than I went. But uh anyway. So tell us a little bit about yourself, uh background and and how you got started.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So um I'm I'm Mississippi native. I grew up in north, north Mississippi uh in Union County, and um just from a young age, like most of us, got involved in hunting, and then once I went duck hunting, that pretty well was it for me. Like that I was just captured by ducks and crazy about them, and uh and it became my prime, you know, I hunt a little bit of everything, but waterfowl hunting is always my top choice uh and has been since I was about 12. So uh at some point along the way I found out that there was such a thing as a as a duck biologist, and uh that Mississippi State had a program for it. So uh, and I liked science in school. Uh, and so I I headed to Mississippi State, did uh undergrad and grad work there, and um wound up my first job out of school was kind of like a dream job. I was a state waterfowl migratory game bird biologist for Mississippi Department of Wildlife, fisheries and parks for several, several years. And then I was a private lands biologist for Ducks Unlimited. And now I've come back full circle back to Mississippi State. So my road to academia is quite a bit different than than most. Uh I've spent, you know, the first 16 years of my career out working state agency and and NGO type of work, doing conservation delivery and science. And and so I'm coming back to the university system. And for me, I think extension is the perfect place for someone like me because I still have that passion for connecting what we do as far as research here at the university to the people that can use it on the ground. So our habitat managers, uh our land owners and land managers, uh, our public and land managers as well, providing you know updated information on how to manage habitat through the research that we develop here. So and uh I'm guilty of kind of leaning more towards the waterfowl end, but I I I collaborate a lot with Dr. Mark McConnell, our Upland Game Bird uh research uh uh faculty member. And uh he and I were roommates in grad school, so we go way back, and so he lets me uh do a lot of extension on his quail and turkey work, and so uh I do get to dabble into the other side of things a good bit. Uh, but yeah, I've worked with Brian mostly on my research. Brian and I collaborate a lot together, Brian Davis, and uh I lean on my research program that I lead, the portions I lead are way more lean towards waterfowl, but uh I love every bit of it, whether it's quail, woodcock. Not too many people jazzed up about woodcock besides me and a handful of others. But uh yeah, so uh what this is the dream, this turned out to be the dream job uh for me. So I'm I'm I'm very blessed to be uh back at Edmunds City State, getting to do research and extension and do work that I think is meaningful and impactful to waterfowl and upland game birds, and then connecting that to the boots on the ground folks that actually put habitat on the ground.
SPEAKER_04Well, I want to touch on that in just a second, but I'm gonna give you an opportunity since you mentioned Woodcock for the second time since we've been on this call. You you mentioned earlier that you've got a special guest coming on to talk about that on y'all's podcast. One, I think that's pretty remarkable because that is a very niche audience. Yes. Um, but I want to listen to it because I think that'd be cool. But tell uh tell our our our audience about your podcast.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah, our podcast is Game Bird University, and we talk about, I mean, if it's got feathers and you can pursue it legally as a hunting season, it's on the table for discussion. So uh we talk about everything from from bobwites and woodcock and turkeys to waterfowl. And uh, you know, I'm sure I'll do a podcast episode on galanoles at some point, you know. Uh we we try to we try to hit everything and uh we try to get you know researchers and conservation uh professionals um that are experts in those areas that got cool work going on, uh or you know, just trying to help landowners think through habitat management so it's not all research driven. A lot of our conversations are very management oriented. So it's a fun podcast, just a bunch of folks that uh mostly co-hosted between Mark McConnell and I, and then and Brian joins us on a lot of the waterfowl episodes, and it's just guys crazy about birds and more importantly, bird hunting, uh talking about science and habitat management.
SPEAKER_04So, yeah, that and that ties right back into what I was gonna say. That's a very important point. Uh I love that podcast and the Deer Labs podcast, and it comes from hunters. And I think, you know, Brent, we've talked about this on the show before. You're starting to see kind of a big shift in the student side. A lot of people are going into biology that aren't necessarily hunters. So hearing you talk about your background and and and where you're at and what you're doing gives me hope, you know, because I think to really manage, to really manage waterfowl for the hunters, you need to understand hunting and that culture.
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SPEAKER_04Yeah, if so if you would talk a little about your research. Let's get into that and how you what questions you wanted to answer and how you're going about it and everything you got going on there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And I'll mention one thing to your point about shifting and kind of student interest and and and backgrounds. It definitely, you know, uh there's some there's a lot of that happening. And it's important to Mark and myself that whether our students that don't come here as hunters, um, whether they continue like are recruited into the hunting community, we want them to understand that and experience it. Because they need to, they're serving a stakeholder group that is mostly hunters, you know, they need to understand that. So we do uh we participate, of course, in Delta Waterfowls University Hunt program, and we take a group of students doing that. All of my um, and Mark and I do this a lot with our our graduate students and and research associates. So uh we take them out hunting, you know, at at any opportunity we can. So um I introduced um several of my research associates this year during our field season. If we weren't going off banding and and putting transmitters on ducks one morning, I was taking them duck hunting, you know, and they uh and it was it's been so cool because to some of them I really saw that pilot light turn on for it, you know, and just watching that happen, you know, it's it's it's it to me, I could have not shot a duck the whole day. But seeing that that switch go on, like this is at one point one of my students turned to me and was like, this is the coolest thing I've ever done. And I just I was like, that's uh I'm gonna be riding this high for a while. So it's super important to us to whether they become lifelong hunters or not, to expose them to hunting and they understand how important hunting, the role of hunting in conservation is. So uh I just wanted to comment on that. Obviously, yeah, I can start talking about my research now, but uh yeah, so our research program right now, uh we've got a few projects going on uh with with Mark on the upland side, on the waterfowl side, the ones I'm I'm currently leading. We have a really large telemetry-centric kind of uh project. We're marking mallards, gadwal, and pentails uh in in Mississippi. And our real goal with a lot of that is to address how we can improve how we deliver habitat for these birds. So uh get an idea of how they use wetland complexes, what uh how they're spending their time, what are they doing while they're in those, uh, what are the differences among those three species? Because I think those are three really good ones where you got the the generalist of the mallard that'll do can can just live in any environment almost, uh, versus you know, a very shallow water seed specialist in the pentail and a more herbivore in the in the gabwall. So it really helps us understand how some different species use the landscape and help us find those missing components. So if you understand how what landscapes are providing what these birds need for all the different biological needs they have, not just focused thinking, we get to tend to thinking mostly about foraging, but with all the accelerometry data and such that can actually tell us behaviors, what they're doing in those wetlands uh uh that they're uh that they're currently in. It helps us paint that picture better of how they use the landscape. And so then we can come to the end of the day and say you could look at a property and say, hey, I've got this portion of the property I can change things up on. What do I need to do? You can start thinking about what is the missing component of the landscape for you, not just looking at your property, all the properties around you, what's missing. Because maybe you know, scrub we may find that scrub shrub wetlands are like super critical or something. You know, this is just an example right now, but uh you know, maybe that's a missing component. Maybe you need to try to provide that. Or maybe we can find out you can pull back on some of some hot crops and increase moist soil, whatever the results show us, that's what we're trying to address is like how do we build the perfect landscape for this broad spectrum of dabbling ducks? So there's a lot of different angles to that. I've got students, I've got a student focused on like the body condition side of it, student focused on guidewall, uh, students that are going to be focused purely on the pentail part. And so there's a lot of questions beyond that, but the overall goal is kind of thinking about how do we shape habitat delivery, not only from the from the scale a lot of times we think of, like we get caught up in as conservation professionals of how we do conservation planning, where does habitat need to go and how much of it. Not only is it going to refine how we think about that, because it's going to go beyond just how much food's there and duck energy days, but just really based on how birds use the landscape, what should that look like? But all the way down to when's when a landowner says, Hey, this is what I got, what could I do to improve? You could start looking around the landscape and say, Oh, well, I feel like you need to add this, because that will that could certainly change how birds interact with the wetlands on your property. So we're mostly just wanting that snapshot over enough years of variation to get a better picture of how they utilize our landscapes and how do you make those landscapes better?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that's huge. Uh you know, talking about your neighborhood, and and I'm a I'm a definitely an advocate of that, mainly because the farm that I hunt, I can't compete with my neighbors. Uh, from what from what they can do from a volume standpoint, from a variability standpoint, all these things. Uh I I just can't compete. So I try to look for things I can do a little bit different that offer you know the duck a little bit something different. And I can get the subset that, hey, today I want to go eat this or I want to go sit in that. Um and and it and it's good, it's really it's worked pretty well considering uh you know the volume of acres uh stacked up against two very, very large, one very notable complex that everybody on social media is, everybody's heard of Five Oaks, everybody knows that place and what they offer. Not that I'm next to every property that they uh work on, but uh right around the corner from the from the lodge and and all that. And then I've got another uh landowner just to the east that is not broadcast all over social media and and holds an incredible amount of ducks. I can't compete with those guys. So I have to look for something different. I think it's a very underrated effort. Everybody wants to do, well, you know, so-and-so's got 600 acres of corn they're leaving. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put because I went over there at sundown and I saw all the ducks go in there. So I'm gonna do my volume of corn. And they don't think through the variability aspect of it.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I think that's most of the time when I meet with landowners, uh, that's kind of the angle we I've always kind of tried to think through is like, what can you provide that's missing around here? Because at some point ducks have are gonna have to go to that resource. And you know, where ducks go and what they need shifts throughout our duck season. So, you know, we can anticipate some of those forested wetland shifts and things like that. But I mean, like you to your good that's a great example of like they are holding a ton of birds and that's standing corn. Well, uh I don't know that you're gonna get a lot out of you adding some of that, you know.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00And too, I mean, if they're all going piling in there in the evenings, that's not when you want to shoot them either. Uh so definitely something that you know a lot of uh, you know, ducks do is they find those places uh that maybe they're not using it for food. Maybe they eat a lot of them are eating at night, uh, which we're seeing a lot of that emerging in some of our data is birds sitting in in places with abundant food at night and then going to places that are a little bit more uh uh secure and have more maybe invertebrate uh community uh and forage available to them. And probably some, you know, we haven't looked at this yet, but this is one of the projects we're gonna be looking at is kind of some of the the thermal environment of these wetlands, you know, how much uh warmer is it in a scrub shrub than being out in an open agricultural field or something like that? So actually getting some information on how that could help them conserve energy and and and uh and make things easier on them. So there's a whole lot of reasons ducks select wetlands, and the more we know about that, the better it can help us pick out. In your case, uh, Brent, is what do you need to add that could be value added to you and not just do the same thing as your neighbor?
SPEAKER_04The Ducks Unlimited National Trip Auction is live. If your perfect trip starts before sunrise and ends with a full memory card, this is where you begin. Explore waterfowl trips, upland fishing, big game experiences, and more, all in one place. Head to ducks.org slash NTA. The DU National Trip Auction is presented by Google. In case you've been living under a rock lately and you hadn't noticed, Sitka Gear has launched their new line of fishing gear. Everything from the radiant sun hoodie to riser active shorts, even Sitka sandals. Look, I'm a pretty big fan of flip-flops in the summertime. I got those last year when they first came out, and legitimately, like legit good sandals. Love them. Go check it out, man. From rain gear, sun shirts, you name it, uh, even fishing waiters, their line is expanding greatly and definitely deserves checking out. I I think that's something that's probably overlooked a lot, you know, especially here in Arkansas, timber is the gold standard, right? Like everybody wants to GTR, but you know, we've got some really secessional stuff, some CRP that's in its you know, 10th to 15th year. And it's amazing when that understory is thick, the the ducks per acre that use it, and I don't know if they're feeding in it, I don't know if it's invertebrates or if it's the thermal cover or just the the vertical cover that they get, you know, survive predation from raptors, but man, they get in it, and a lot of times they get in the right time of day. Um everybody wants to chase hot crops and food sources, but there's so many other tools in the toolbox, uh, pressure being one of them as well. So this is probably a multi-part question here. Um, one, I want to ask, you know, you mentioned body condition. Uh, do you notice any changes in body condition based on where a bird is using? Like, is there a habitat that overall is better for body conditioning? And then two, you know, do you with the telemetry stuff, are you able to draw any conclusions about maybe if if they're preferring uh the dense understory versus mature timber or any anything like that that you see?
SPEAKER_00So uh I don't have a lot of analysis uh that we can draw a lot of inference from just yet because we this we got a pilot year the winter before last, and then this past winter was our first full-blown uh effort. Of course, it was a great year to have it too, because we got weather and we got ducks. We even got some of y'all's ducks, which we rarely get. Um birds leaving Arkansas usually doesn't happen. Um so uh we don't have, but I can I've at most of what I would have is anecdotal, but I will say uh, and then this coming year is when we're really gonna hone in on the body condition. Right now, all I have is kind of body weights and some measurements. Next year we are gonna be doing some much more intensive ways of measuring that. Um and so that will really help us tease out that question. Uh a lot of the older data from you know previous research would would say, you know, that most of the time uh that a lot of birds are coasting through winter. You know, if you're alive at the end of duck season, what you've done is you've been able to survive. You probably showed up, bulked up once you got here to replenish whatever you had, and then you just chilled throughout winter unless a weather event or something happened that needed you to increase your foraging, and then you bulked up and you left for spring. So uh those that are successful, I'm sure they stay in kind of you know moderate you know, body condition throughout, you know, healthy but not super fat or anything like that. Usually uh fat ducks, I think a fat ducks is it's it's uh if you're fat, it's because you you're kind of you know you're not sure where your next meal is coming from, kind of thing. You know, uh whereas when when you know where you're gonna go feed and all that sort of thing, you can afford to not be super fat. So this year with the weather the way it was, we had I put some transmitters on some super fat ducks, you know. Um which was nice uh because then you felt better about it, uh that that they would have a better, better chance out there. Um and uh but yeah, so I I think we're gonna tease some of that out as we start doing some more reliable body condition measurements is how does that shift through winter and how is that shifting for the through Like maybe juveniles versus adults and things like that, and how you know it can we relate that to some of their the landscapes that they're in, you know, is a duck that because we are already seeing that that landscape context makes a difference. If I trap birds and mark them on a property that's large, so it's an it's got enough waterfowl habitat to be a a uh a source that birds will actually stop there and use. You know, um, it's attractive enough that birds will be in that landscape, but there's just not a lot of options around. You will see those mallards have much larger home ranges having to travel around to get meet all those needs, versus if I'm marking one in the western side of Tallahassee County where there's high density of duck clubs and public lands that are well managed that can literally not move any more than two miles in a day. It just does a triangle every day. Like I go to these three places and that's all I do. Uh so there, and there's there's some in-between there. There's a spectrum there of that. And so it will be interesting when we have body condition then to see what's the difference in body condition if you're in this type of landscape versus everything's right there readily available to you, you know. And and too, like I said, you might have to tease out the fact that maybe you're not fat when you're in that awesome landscape because you don't have to be. So that makes the complex part of it, you know. Uh we might be they're fat over there, man. That's better. Like, well, maybe not. Maybe that's because they're not real sure, you know, where their next meal is gonna be at, you know.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, that's a really interesting point, and I hadn't thought about that. You know, uh with Whitale, we we kind of base our herd management on what our doughs weigh, and and we weigh everything we harvest, you know, and you're able to kind of from a management perspective, you know, we know through the season, hey, you know, body weights are up five pounds. We did good this year. We had good management, you know, a lot of food. So I was gonna ask, and I think I know the answer now that you just said that, but on the waterfowl side, would would it benefit a manager or landowner to weigh their ducks? Would it give any insight to if their practices are beneficial?
SPEAKER_00I I'm not that's that's a tough one because you when you do that, you have no idea where that bird was exactly before you shot it. You're also probably biased heavily to two juveniles, and you're biased to birds that are in really rough shape. Uh because we're gonna that's who we're gonna mostly shoot is the ducks that are young of the year or those that are just not doing. Yeah, definitely. Uh so we're kind of uh we're we're biased a little bit in hunter-collected birds just from the start, but the big thing is it's kind of like the same thing too with uh um you know, doing diet analysis or or whatever from hunter-collected birds. It's like I don't know where it got that from. Could have been nowhere near your property. You know, I've shot ducks at daylight that had crops full of corn or or millet or whatever. Um so they could have been eaten all night long somewhere else, and it may not tell you much about what you're doing on your place because you just don't know. And so hopefully that's what the telemetry will help with is that we have you know a better idea of the landscape the bird's using. Uh also too, limited limitations of body condition are gonna be like I measure that body condition when I put that unit on. Unless I re-catch him or I'm not gonna, you know, necessarily know. Uh, but it would be helpful for trends and overall body condition in relation to landscapes uh and that sort of thing. But really the important thing is at the end, at the end of the season, what are they what are they like in that last week of January, those first two, three weeks of February, because that's when they're getting ready to, you know, this first few weeks of February, uh, and into late February, the whole month pretty much, is is getting ready to to book it. My most of my mallards leave about March 11th is their average departure date from the birds last year and the year before. Um I think Ryan and them over at Five Oaks, their birds are like March 15th. Um so you know, our our mallards are hanging out way after duck season. So probably that's the key time to be thinking about body, you know, how good are the is their body condition, because that's that's what they are before they leave, and that's what's gonna matter during that spring migration.
SPEAKER_03Oh, no question. No question. Uh yeah, that makes a a great point to to not drain your water, you know, as soon as February 1st hits. Uh we see that quite a bit. And we we also have the contingency that begs to keep hunting until end of February. So you got all that, and we all uh we logical folks know why that's not a good reason to to keep doing it. But uh but you mentioned you know some telemetry uh and you you talked about some birds that left Arkansas and went to Mississippi um and how that doesn't happen very often. Maybe talk about that instance, uh, you know, was that a weather related, what time of year it was, and um you know what you're seeing in situations like that because everybody associates movement or migration with north to south. And we see ducks bounce. And I I wouldn't call that a migration, leaving Arkansas going to Mississippi. Uh that's just a uh uh avoiding some weather, finding some open water, you know, whatever the case may be. But maybe talk about that a little bit, you know, how these ducks kind of behave in those those instances, because we did see some jump. I know there were some that jumped from Arkansas to you know, Louisiana, northeast Louisiana. You know, they didn't push way into Louisiana. Maybe talk about these birds that that jumped to Mississippi and and what what caused that and how they acted.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So um, you know, most most of that is me, you know, uh, or birds that I didn't mark, uh, just you know, because I work closely with Ryan a lot on some things and and then Doug as well. And so having knowing what their birds are doing, you know, Ryan and I are always texting during these big weather events and stuff and checking in on what our birds are doing and uh probably pontificating on why for everything that we're looking at. But um, so it was definitely associated with that big ice storm, you know, that we had. And I can say from my mark, a lot of those birds, um I had oddly enough, I did have one pair of birds that went over to like what a little bit uh west of uh West Memphis and hung out there for a while. They actually left Mississippi early in January and moved up there from like Kahoma County, and then that ice storm hit and or and they right before it hit, they moved down to around Stuttgart, and then the ice storm really hit that area, and the Drake just stayed put, and the hen flew over to like Greenville in Mississippi. So I think uh that was the demise of their their pair. They they divorced. Uh I'm not sure what it was, probably because it's like you took me all the way up north, and then you took me here. I can't do this anymore. Uh now you want to go back further south than where we came from. Uh, but no, um, so I just know that Doug and Ryan had a lot of birds that that, and and I think Brad did as well out of out of western Tennessee, had a lot of birds during that ice storm pushed down into Mississippi and north northeast Louisiana. I my birds kind of had seemingly three different strategies, and I'm trying to run through the data now to see if we can really kind of solidify this. I had ducks that I'd marked in the North Delta that got got out of Dodge when that ice storm hit. They went down to the south delta. They so they went from you know from Clarksdale to to Vicksburg, you know, kind of movements. And then I had some birds that just seemed to move around more looking, they expanded kind of their home range looking for open water. And then I had birds mostly on properties I knew that had pumps running and things like that. They would sit in that same wetland for 72 straight hours. So there was like a couple of different strategies there. I hunker down or I move around trying to make longer movements than usual, trying to find open water, or I get the heck out. Those were the kind of the three ways that that the that my marked birds kind of dealt with that ice storm. And uh, like I said, we need to do a little bit more robust analysis on that. But it was interesting to see those different strategies kind of pop up. Uh and and so and I think that's the that's so much of what we we we think about. There's all with telemetry, we see these really cool, crazy movements and stuff, but that's like that one individual. And and that's cool that it did it, but was that a smart thing to do? You know, is that duck gonna survive down the road? Um so that's kind of the th the beauty about these different strategies is if everybody did the same thing and everybody did the wrong thing, that's gonna be a pretty good population hit. But having you know, these different strategies, whoever's successful, okay, we got somebody that made it through this. So uh it's inter it's always fun to see these different strategies to these very harsh events, uh weather events and things uh play out and interesting to see like how those how those birds have done since that point, you know. Uh as long as they didn't get disturbance. I imagine even those that just sat in that same wetland for 72 hours, they probably had food and cover and everything was fine. Uh but some of those birds might have been like, man, I can't, it's cold, I can't find any all the scrub shrub and forested stuff's frozen. I can't get escape this. There's food here, you know, who knows? So there's there's risks to every every one of those strategies. But uh it's pretty interesting. And I do know that it seemed like a lot of birds that moved down into Mississippi from other latitudes, uh, there was a lot of harvest of some of those birds, and that's that's what you would expect if they're not familiar with the landscape. So I have I thought when that thing hit, I was like, we are going to have a lot of transmitters die from hunters this during this period. Yeah. And interestingly enough, I had during the ice storm, I probably had like 60 birds, uh, 60 or 70 birds on air, and I had two get shot. And that really surprised me. Um but then I got kind of made to think about it, and again, this is just me throwing out a hypothesis. Uh, I don't have an analysis on this, but it's it it's like, okay, well, if some of Ryan's birds come down here and get shot, you know, maybe they're just not familiar at all with this landscape. And these birds, they've been moving around this landscape for a while. They know where they need to be and where they don't need to be, you know. And so maybe that's just helped them avoid that risk because they were more aware of what that risk is in these different places. And so um it's maybe helped them avoid that that that harvest potential. But very, very interesting stuff to watch. But I was really surprised that I only had I think I had one pentail and one mallard get shot during that ice storm, and I didn't have any die naturally from the ice storm. So it was pretty it surprised me on both of those accounts because I certainly thought we would have some that just died because of the you know, the storm was so harsh and they made the wrong decision or they'd get shot, but surprised me they didn't.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we uh we shot one of Ryan and Doug's uh two years ago during that January freeze-up. And that duck, uh based on his movements, had never set foot or checked in on our farm until the day he got shot. Uh he flew over it a lot, uh, but but it never never put his feet in the water there. And you know, like you said, he messed up. Um and and that's what happens. They get desperate and and their behavior uh really changes. Lazy, lazy refuge ducks get get uh real active when the when the weather turns like that.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And even rainfall events when they just kind of get that like I'm gonna there's a lot of new water out there, I'm gonna spread out and take a look at this, you know. And uh that's probably a good time to get shot too. I mean, it's a great time for them to find new fresh food resources uh and and exploit those for that limited time that water's out. But yeah, that's another good time for for birds to to get shot. Uh, because I know that's I've got two places on my farm that I know if it rains a certain amount, I'm like, there's gonna be mallards in that hole. You know, because they're gonna find it within the first couple hours after that that rain dumps out and the quiver gets out and floods out into that area. So uh that's one thing too that uh that's neat about the telemetry is we find we see a lot of these little, for lack of a better term, hidey holes, you know. There's so many little pockets of water, you're like, why would a duck go there? And a ton of ducks go there, you know. And uh it's just because they they figure the landscape out, they figure out how how can I get everything I need and and still avoid uh disturbance and and pressure, things like that. So it's cool to cool to see all that play out for sure.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's exactly what I was gonna say when you were talking about your your ducks survived Mississippi pretty well during that freeze. You know, I would it's anecdotal at best, but I I would argue that rain kills more ducks than cold fronts. Uh obviously an extreme cold front is different, but and a lot of times rain is associated with a cold front, but you're you've got more water in the landscape. These ducks that have gotten really good at surviving, they're now getting out of that pattern, they're going places they hadn't been before and they get shot. And yeah, I'm gonna assume those Arkansas birds that shifted down there weren't weren't ready for that side of the the river and caught up with them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely, because uh wherever, uh especially in the in the north delta, wherever there was open water, you know, it's probably open if it wasn't a deep permanent type of thing, if it was shallow open water, it was because somebody was running a pump, you know. Yeah, which nobody'd be running paying that money just to not many people would be paying that money just to have hold some ducks uh without the intent of hunting those ducks. So uh yeah, not knowing that landscape definitely can be detrimental to them. And like you said, those those rainfall events that create new habitat, you know, increases exploration by even these savvy ducks that can get them get them shot.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, this will be an unpopular opinion. Uh I'm used to those in the show, but I there's a part of me that after so many days of a hard freeze like that, I almost wish we would close season. Like we close the year season depending on river levels, you know, because it you you harvest increases, it moves them out of their homeland. You know, when it locks up that hard for that long and everyone's running pumps to keep water open, it's just uh I don't know. I love hunting a cold front on the first day or two because it's amazing. But after 10 days of being locked up, it's not I'm not sure that's fun. For me, that's just my opinion. So I'll keep that for what it is. Somebody'll somebody'll complain about me saying that. But uh anyway, it gets tough on the ducks, you know, when they stack up there and they're just trying to survive.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And uh oh, go ahead. Sorry.
SPEAKER_04No, no, no, I was I was gonna change gears, so I don't I don't want to take you away from that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was just gonna circle back to our our our conversation uh about uh this kind of goes along, but that forcing ducks into to to less habit available or usable habitat uh is that whole postseason thing we were talking about, leaving water on the landscape and how important that is, because that's what causes that whole the ducks get here in February. It's because you're holding water and they just concentrate in there. And I and I try to be a huge advocate for that because I know there is some degree, certainly, of ducks coming out of hiding, so to speak, but a lot of it's driven, I think, my my uh hypothesis is driven by what I the board pulling effect. Yep. You just you just went from the peak habitat availability you're gonna have this winter to probably somewhere closer to what you had in December or November. And you know, you're getting back to whatever managed water is on the landscape, not you know, uh not flooded field, as many flooded fields or anything like that. So these birds are just stacking into what's left. And it appears like they just showed up. And it's like, no, they've been in the landscape probably the last month and or longer, and they're just now using your place because it's the only show in town. And I know people are probably gonna get tired of my analogy of this, but it it it's it's it's one that sticks. Is you know, if I'm I live in a small town, there's three restaurants, and I always like going to the fish and steakhouse, and I always walk straight in and get a table, there's never a wait, and then every those other two restaurants close down, and then I wait an hour at the steakhouse to get in. I don't think a whole bunch of people just move to town. I know it's because then nobody in town has another option, but that's steakhouse now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. No, I'm I'm really glad you brought that up, Brent, and I harp on that all the time. You know, everyone, everybody that wants to hunt till March and begs for it, that's always their their comment. Man, the ducks are just now getting here. Like, man, you know, to your point about November, December, you know, equivalent of water, I would argue it could be closer to late October, early November, because at least in my neck of the woods, uh, I mean, I can look around peak flood, you know, you put a drone in the air and it's water everywhere around me. And on February 1st, it is I mean, some of those guys are pulling water before season ends. They're getting a head start on getting it off of there. And by the second day of February, it's down. And I mean, I'd be scared to put a number on or a percentage of decrease, but it is significant.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And I will say this, uh there were when I was at the uh at Wildlife Fishers Parks, Mississippi, in the waterfowl program there, uh, it's only like two times that I did this, but I was asked to fly February waterfowl surveys two different times because of this kind of perception. And I was like, I know what we're gonna see. We're not gonna see any more ducks, I can tell you that. But it was, yeah, I'm glad we we did it because it gave me that actual you know bird's eye view of that change in the landscape. So I left in my GPS, I left all the points in there that I'd counted ducks in late January, y'all. And I can't tell y'all how many how many places I flew over, and I'm seeing these little X's on my GPS unit, and I'm staring at dry ground. You know, and from that view, I told I was texting Houston, uh that Hay Havens, who's a waterfowl coordinator, there now. Uh he and I were, you know, working together in the waterfowl program back then. And I texted Houston, I was like, man, this looks like November, like the first survey we flew as far as how much water's out here. It's I mean, we didn't we actually saw a little bit of a decrease in total ducts uh in February, uh, but some of that is probably because when you've taken that much habitat off the landscape, it you might have missed some big concentrations, but you also probably lost birds that are like y'all are just off the bat. Arkansas is much better about winter water culture than Mississippi is anyway. Y'all, y'all still held on to some degree of of you know a lot of fields flooded where we I feel like we've just kind of declined in that over time. Uh but maybe they hop over the river to y'all or you know, because I haven't I do see a lot of my my and of course this is anecdotal, but some of the GPS ducks that that do hop over to Arkansas for a while before they initiate spring migration. Um, so there could be some moving over from Mississippi to y'all, but overall it's just like they lost every like 80% of that's a swag. Uh it's not scientific, but a tremendous amount of habitat, and they just cramm it into what's left. And it's uh it's the same thing like when we uh when I was in grad school and I was working on this project with a PhD student in my lab, uh Heath Hage, and Heath was trying to figure out the giving up density of moist soil. So, what density of moist soil seeds is there too, so little food that it's not energetically profitable for the duck to continue to feed because they're burning more energy than they're taking in. And we found like towards the end of hunting season, like it was like it was pretty high for what we thought. It was something like 250 or 300 uh you know kilograms per hectare. I'm not even gonna try to put that into pounds per acre right now, but uh but it was higher than we thought. Uh and then in February, they were right back in there with their heads in the mud. So it was like it was relative to what. Was available to them. There's plenty of water out there, they're like, ah, it's not worth it. I can go over here and feed. But then February hit and it's like back in there, heads in the mud, and it turned and that that switched to like a hundred from three hundred or two fifty or whatever it was down to like a hundred. And so it seemed to be very relative to the landscape and what was out there available to them. You know, so a lot of things that that we've looked at over time that really pointed that that board pulling effect is a thing, and it's certainly not new ducks coming in from the north for sure.
SPEAKER_03No, yeah. It shows up every every February. Uh, you know, that kind of that topic comes to the to the surface again and and try to try to explain what's going on because a lot of people uh you know real focused on what happens around where they hunt and they leave, maybe go back down there to get their stuff, kind of close up camp, and they they see they don't know all the landscape changes that have taken place, they just see a pile of ducks sitting somewhere. So um that's that's always an interesting point. But I had a guy call me uh this week, friend. Uh he's in a long time traditional club in far northeast Arkansas, and he called me and said, you know, our neighbor is offering to plant some corn next to our woods and leave it for the ducks, but wanted to have us participate in the expense of that. And I just thought we would just fly on corn after the season and and not mess with whatever he's doing. So uh maybe talk about that a little bit because you talked about those ducks bouncing from Mississippi to Arkansas, probably because Arkansas had some water on the landscape, because people pay a little more attention to that. Maybe talk about that revolving door of ducks and and that imprinting effort, you know, by just scattering corn about. I mean, is that does that really work? Or or is what is is even just water itself more valuable that time of year? It's it's kind of an interesting topic that a lot of people are real narrowly focused on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, and we we don't have a lot of you know actual analysis of any of this or data on this. My first off thought is just having water on the landscape is the number one key thing to keep, you know, if you're holding water later and birds, new birds are finding your property because other people drained it, that could be creating some opportunity for those birds to to have that in the memory bank that hey, this is here. I might need to come back here again. Because they might spend a whole month on your property that they never set, you know, set toes in the water on for the last two and a half months that were there. Um, so I think just that uh holding water gives that opportunity for imprinting. That's uh we don't really have a good grasp on uh well we know that they that obviously they have high homing back to places where they've experienced success and things like that. Um but as far as being able to say, yeah, this this this really solidifies that that that uh imprinting, we really don't have a lot of scientific information on that, but we know that it does happen. So we don't know is flying on corn helping you or not. But we but I can I feel confident to say that if you're just holding water and you've got new ducks that have never been on your property before, that that has to be value added for you in subsequent years. Um it might be it's tough to evaluate, but it might um because everything's kind of anecdotal and hard to tease out the the myriad of other things that are also contributing to to that as far as like is is applying corn own additive uh value added for you or not, it very well may be. Um uh and but I just we just don't know. We don't have like hard numbers on that, but for sure I think just holding water is gonna be got to be helpful in some regard. If nothing else, you're helping taking care of those ducks, getting them better and ready for spring migration, and and the fact that we know birds return uh to places they've had success. That's gotta be that's gotta be good for the property.
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SPEAKER_04Yeah, you're taking care of well, you're taking care of the resource, even if it doesn't benefit you in the long run. So it's a absolutely it's a great conservation idea, you know, that we should all get behind. And you you mentioned the moist soil and the kind of the give up threshold and that they would return this again anecdotal. But a lot of times um the stuff we flood first in the year, you know, we're we're sitting here cutting rice right now, and I'm about to stop a field up and put water on it. As soon as they get combine out of it, we're putting water back on. But with our rotation, a lot of times that's going to be a bean field the following year, which gives me a much longer window to hold water in it. So we've seen the stuff that we'll we'll call it sacrifice early on, because the stuff we flood early, we typically don't hunt during season. Um they'll get to it, they'll use it, we'll they'll congregate. It's a great tool for having ducks on the farm. But through the prime hunting season, a lot of times they're somewhere else because there's fresh food, fresh water, more availability. But man, come February or even January sometimes a lot after Christmas, they'll start coming back to those fields. Yep. And they start using them again. And I'm gonna assume either it's hunting pressure elsewhere, the decline in food availability elsewhere, but particularly in February and March, when there's no water, they love those spots. And I know you've got invertebrates, you've got other things going on, but it's like a whole nother life cycle just because we left the water on it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. And and and a lot of those females are really hitting invertebrates heavy and things like that. So maybe at that time of the year, you know, because that they're they got a pretty high protein demand, you know, as we're starting to change, you know, biological seasons for this bird. And so, um, yeah, I mean, even drawing down some of those, like don't drain it, but drawing kind of concentrating up, you know, those invertebrates in a smaller pool than going from 80 acres to 60 or something like that. Uh that a lot of folks do do some of that uh hoping that that helps, you know, improve the the resources in that that wetland. So, but yeah, even those those things that you flood early to have the water footprint to just get birds to um because sure bird a lot of this telemetry we're real focused on uh that wetland selection. This wetland. Why did I choose this versus all of these other options? But there's another that higher level of habitat uh selection, that higher order of that is what landscape am I gonna settle into? And so having a bigger water footprint, I feel like is a lot goes in a lot to that second order um selection of I've got I'm coming to the Arkansas Delta or the Mississippi Delta, now where am I gonna settle down into? Now, prior experience and all that plays in. But just like um just like the prairies, you know, you may be planning on going to the prairies, but it's dry, so I'm gonna go to the Parklands, you know. So I'm same thing could happen in the winter, you know. Well, I usually go uh to Kahoma County, but I don't look that good this year. I'm gonna I'm gonna go on to some other place. I'm gonna pass over that and look look further south. So um having that, that's a good reason to have all that early water. And like you said, you'll see like a quick, especially if it's beans, you'll see that quick drop off, unless you have a high hunting pressure elsewhere, which I take full advantage of that on my farm. I've got one field that I flood every year, and it's more often than not in in beans. Uh and I kill ducks on it because the hunting club next door hunts more frequently than I do. And they start just piling up on that, they're feeding on them at night and sitting on my bean field during the day. And uh I go in like every maybe at most, you know, seven days apart in a hunt, you know. Rarely, rarely hunt it very more frequently than a week from the last time. So plenty of plenty of temporal sanctuary there. Uh so those wetlands can, but for whatever reason else that's going on in the landscape can increase in use at different times, but certainly postseason, those become super important again. Like they're super important early on to give those birds that are just arriving a place to get down, get some water, and and and and and get settled into the landscape. At times it may increase because of hunting pressure or whatever, but postseason, it's the only show in town. I gotta get back in there. So those types of that flood strategy, an incremental flood strategy across your whole management area is is really something I push a lot, is really think strategically about when your pulses and migration might occur and create make habitat more available as there's more ducks. And you know, instead of flooding the whole place, you know, the for opening weekend, have enough water footprint, you know you're gonna draw some birds, but save some stuff that you're not gonna flood till the first part of January or the or around Christmas or somewhere to get that fresh food. And and but keep all that other stuff flooded because then postseason that's become important again. So I think flood strategy has a has more plays more of a role than a lot of folks think.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, 100% agree. We we've shifted over the years, you know. My grandfather and father would have the whole place flooded for opening weekend, and we've shifted away from that, you know, kind of a I don't want to say minimal acres, but in a sense, like minimal. Like what we're how can we achieve this goal with as few of acres as possible? And now, mind you, we start flooding in September too, so it's it's not nothing, but we we want to put on water at different times. We want to keep fresh food available and ducks in fresh habitat throughout the year. But duck dogs work hard. Help yours perform at his best with Purina ProPlan. Outstanding nutrition with real meat as the number one ingredient, ProPlan Sport is made to feel hardworking dogs like yours. For increased endurance, joint support, and muscle tone, it all starts with ProPlan Sport.
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SPEAKER_04We spent a lot of time there talking about postseason water, and you touched on it a little pre-season, early fall, you know, water in the landscape. And I want to hit on that a little bit and see if you can say any more because I I, Brent and I both kind of I wouldn't say lobby the game and fish, but we we bring up the point about you know our 10-day split here at Arkansas. We get to hunt for seven days and then we're closed. And you're seeing this trend amongst managers to not have not have a whole lot of water right then because if there's 10 days that that food's available, you know, ducks and geese are going to hammer it, and I can't do anything about it. You know, yeah, it's good for the resource, but it also is not rewarding me as a hunter. So I've kind of made the argument, you know, all these people that want to hunt later in the year, you know, we go on this long run through December and January of just consecutive day, consecutive day. I'd almost think that if we opened earlier or if we had more opportunity earlier, you'd see more private clubs flood early water and in turn catch more ducks in that early migration. So I've long since been a believer that early habitat is pivotal to our success throughout the year, or at least gets us started in the right direction. So if you can add any more on that or have anything else you'd you'd like to add to that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Uh yeah, definitely uh unpopular opinion, it seems, because I'm kind of in your boat on like I'd love to see us start like in November have a longer period in December that you're not shooting, because we do tend to go through a big lull during that time, at least in Mississippi, maybe different different in Arkansas, but um back, you know, that early season, you are not only getting, you know, birds that will remain here through the whole whole rest of the season, but you're also getting a lot of birds that are a lot of gagwal, a lot of pentail, uh that are making their way to South Louisiana. Yeah, too. So they're kind of passing through the MAV um on with another destination on their mind. And so the and they come through, you know, starting to show up last week of October and are hitting all what waters available in that landscape through most of November. And then we lose some of those, and to the ones that are staying in our neck of the woods, wherever we happen to be, they're they're figuring that landscape out and they're figuring out how to be how to how to become stale ducks as quick as they possibly can. Um and so we go through this like typical December lull. So unless we get a weather event that pushes some new birds in or or or what have you, we you know, at least in Mississippi, like I know those last that that pretty much first part of middle to to and sometimes all the way to the end of December, it's just like, man, we are slugging through this thing trying to trying to kill ducks, and then get into January and and things uh change a lot of times. Some years it doesn't change, but that's the nature of of weather and and duck migration. But um I've always said, you know, I remember I was talking to one of my neighbors years ago. It was when I was still working for the state, and he was saying what his ideal duck season would be. I was like, my ideal duck season would be like November 15th through like December 4th, and then we have like a two-week split, and then and then we start hunting again, you know. Whatever days we added into November, we just take out of December. And that did not go over well in that crowd. Uh, but I was like, I like the thought of of timing the season. Like I said, we've got to, we're kind of in the terminus of the migration, so we kind of look at seasons as the later, the the better. And really, when it comes to that early part of our season, it's not a lot different than a mid-latitude state trying to figure out when their season would be best. Because I feel for those guys. When the whole time I was on the flyway, I was like, it's in the technical section and stuff. I was I was like, dude, I do not want to be in y'all's place trying to figure out how to split my state into zones and capture you don't know when the migration's really gonna blow through Illinois or Iowa or wherever. And so, but we kind of could think of our early part of our season in that same similar term because we do have birds that are likely passing through, you know, headed to southern latitudes uh beyond us, and so it would allow us to capitalize on that. But there's gonna be that one year that we get weather during that two if we did that during that December two-week split, and then it'd be all over with. Everybody'd be like, no, no, we just missed we we missed Mallard's to to shoot more dad while I got my happening.
SPEAKER_04So this is really interesting that we're having this conversation. Um, so my my grandfather had this theory, he called it the midpoint theory, and his idea was that basically if you count the days, you know, the the middle point between the equinox and the solstice was usually the peak concentration of birds on our farm. Now your species composition, all that would change throughout the year, but like we would we would never pass that number, we never it would exceed that number. We may rival it again later, but usually we don't rival it again. Like it's it's you know, you get a good look at the year at that midpoint. And I know we know we talk about Halloween mallards and early movement and all that stuff. Um, so that's interesting to hear you say that because I feel the exact same way here in Arkansas. We get into that lull. I would say maybe a week, I think maybe a week later in December, but sometimes it strikes earlier than that. You know, it can be really tough. So I I view it, the migration kind of like a like a boomerang, right? Like when it leaves your hand, man, it's traveling really fast. All right. So the days are getting shorter and they're getting shorter at a pretty high rate of speed. But as we approach that winter solstice, generally 20 some odd of December, the the period, photo period is slowing down. The change per day slows down a lot. So now you're at the end of that boomerang's circle, right? So I always feel like that's why hunting slows at that period because the days aren't really getting shorter and they're not really getting longer. So we're not in spring migration, we're not really in fall migration, we're just in the doldrums. And it's hard to kill ducks then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because then you're waiting on weather. That's that's that's what you're doing.
SPEAKER_04And we yeah, we get that weather in January, and that's when it kind of picks back up when everybody wants to hunt them. But we I think probably everybody in the flyway, you know, they set seasons based on opportunity and when people want to hunt. And I know if you hunt public here in Arkansas, you want to hunt all the back end because I get it, you don't have water in November. I totally understand that. But I don't think we've really tried to evaluate what's best for the resource and habitat, how do we attract more ducks and hold more ducks, and when can they actually go and kill them? Because I've said it before, all the opportunity in the world is worthless if you can't kill ducks. If you don't have them, you can't kill them, no one's going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's a it's an interesting approach to think about, you know, like season structure associated with, you know, uh when, you know, when that migration, you know, six times out of ten typically occurs, you know, across you know, the window of time, uh, and what are you know, whatever data we have available to kind of measure that. Uh it'd be an interesting approach. So, like I said, I think that's how a lot of mid-latitude states kind of view it is looking at, you know, okay, how do we set this up to maximize opportunity, but also that that opportunity is quality, you know. And us just being at the terminus, it it's always been log seemed logical since to just say the later we can go and 60 days back from that. So the one calendar year where Thanksgiving Day is 60 days from the from January, you know, well, at those times, the last Sunday in January or whatever, before we went to the end of January, we might have a 60 day straight season, you know.
SPEAKER_04Um which that was a Mississippi Senator too.
SPEAKER_00I'm not commenting on um on any political views whatsoever uh as an extension professional. Um but uh the I can just give you the biological background. Uh but but it is interesting too when you look at a lot of this data that comes out now and how like we think about my how it's shaping our understanding of migration. And it's so interesting to me that you can have states so close together and have uh seemingly different timings in peak migration. So uh y'all we just finished, we just published a paper, uh me and Brian and Houston Havens, Brett Leach, Luke Naylor, all uh, and Mel Boudreaux on uh the 20 year analysis of the aerial waterfowl surveys from both Mississippi and Arkansas. And so it's so interesting too that like to me that y'all do on most years peak in y'all's uh Midwinter count, which is in the first part of January. So towards the end of December to January, it's like that's when the survey numbers peak. In Mississippi, 19 out of 20 years or whatever, we peaked in late January. And so there's num a number, you know, and that then of course Brad and Doug and several pulled some of their data together, and we're showing like a lot of the birds are coming to that T'all's latitude weren't showing up past you know December 31st ish time frame. But in Mississippi, we definitely have birds showing up um in later part of January. And I think from our standpoint, it's tough because the one thing we couldn't tease out in that paper, because the surveys are done four times a year on these dates. And if you know at the beginning of the study period, we were hitting peak abundance five days after that early January, and now we're hitting it three days before the late January, we can't tease that out. So we may still at the end of the day have pretty stable peak abundances in January, but we can't detect when that peak abundance happens. So overall, to a waterfowl numbers trend, it's like it's pretty slow, it's declining, but it's not really significant. Our maller numbers seem to have been stable over the last 20 years. Uh a lot of variation, obviously. There's some banger years and some just abysmal years, but no real super discernible trend. But and and everybody that I tell that to is like that's freaking false. That can't be true, as you can imagine. I was like, well, the one thing it doesn't do is we can't tell when that peak occurs. We just know that by the time we do the survey in late January, the peak number isn't changing much. But to a duck, as a waterfowl hunter myself, if that peak used to occur January 10th after the midwinter was flown, and now it's not occurring until January 25th, that's a huge difference to me uh as a hunter and as my view of now how many mallards are out there. But at the end of the day, as far as how many numbers are we wintering, it may be similar. But to a duck hunter, that's great. But you want to be able to have opportunity to shoot at those mallards and those other duck. Um, and so it's just cool to me that in trying to think through do we have birds that just hop from Missouri over y'all to us, or are y'all getting some from them and then some of y'all are leaving? How does it how does it all shake out? But um, you know, 20 years of very uh rigorous uh aerial surveys that account for shifts in distribution and everything, it's pretty cool to see. Uh and Louisiana's kind of piloting some aerial waterfowl survey stuff now, transect surveys in their delta. So hopefully we'll soon start getting some data from them as well. But it's really interesting to see that difference in when peaks occur and trying to figure that out in your head. Like, so how does that work? I don't think it's that no ducks leave Arkansas or y'all don't get any new ones. It's just there's got to be some give and take there, you know, and like like if we're peeking after them, where did those ducks come from?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So that's uh if y'all haven't uh I'm trying, I need to get an extension kind of publication out that has that paper and uh you know in a more easily digestible format, but that's uh that's an interesting read uh for sure, because it it's it's a head scratcher.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00It's a lot of data, a lot of years of data, and a really robust survey framework. So it's it's one of those that's not what I expected to see. And then just left me with okay, well dang, that's a hole in how we figure that, because now we don't know in between those two time frames, you know, if that peak is shifted at all, so or when that peak occurs. So pretty cool, pretty cool stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that yeah, because I think it it the influx of new ducks is is mixed up with weather that caused the ducks already here to be more active and move and in the blurry lines in between those two things. Because like you said, hunters will tell you you're crazy. Yeah, yeah, we gotta be hunting until the end of January. That's when all the ducks get here. Well, not really. They were here, you just didn't see them. Uh the weather didn't make them get up and move. They they found some place of refuge and and everything they wanted. So they sat tight and then we had some weather and they got active and they got moving. And and that's uh that's a whole different whole different deal. Uh so that paper, uh, that'll be a really interesting read, especially if you're able to put it in a digestible um digestible uh context for us uh just plain old duck hunters to read it. Uh sift through the science, uh the the hardcore science stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you definitely don't want to sift through the statistical part of that thing because I don't even want to sift through that. Uh I still have I still have too much of my boots on the you know, on the ground biologist in me to I'm like, this hurts my head. Yeah. I'm getting better. I'm getting more analytical, but I mean I've had a very long hiatus of that, obviously, before coming back. So uh I enjoy getting to turn that stuff. Having to understand it helps me be a better scientist, but it also helps me translate that to your your everyday duck hunter, landowner, land manager a lot a lot better.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, well, I think that's key. And I think that's key to maybe maybe slow down some of the you know, Joe Duck Hunter really questioning the science, uh, because it's it's hard really hard to consume some of it. Uh and and maybe be able to for your side to be able to you know be better at conveying, okay, what is this really telling us? What does this really mean? Versus here's a here's this 45-page research report with all these charts and graphs and terms. Uh they're like, well, I'm not reading that. That that's not I I can't even begin to decipher that. So I think that's a that's a deal to to work towards, and and that would that would go a long way. But um, yeah, as we kind of as we kind of wrap up uh you know our our episode here, is there anything we we haven't touched on that that you would like to? Anything you're working on this coming season? Because this this coming season to me is gonna be a little bit interesting if the El Nino thing plays out, that's a lot different than we've seen the last time. There's ducks that are gonna show up here that weren't alive the last time we had the rain we could potentially have. It's so that's gonna really throw some some variability in there that we haven't seen lately.
SPEAKER_00It definitely is, and and the the thing I I I always hate about El Nino years is it's gonna feel cold here and it's gonna be warmer north of us, you know. So the where we need it to be cold, it's not gonna be, and we're gonna be sitting in cold weather thinking we should have ducks, and it's uh and then on top, so we'll have fewer ducks, and then on top of that, it's gonna, you know, it's gonna rain like crazy, and there's gonna be m all this habitat available, and those what few ducks we have are gonna be spread out. So I know it is uh I've already I've told my my team of uh of extension and research associates, I'm like, y'all, it's it's gonna be it's gonna be a year for trapping ducks. We are gonna work. Yeah, we worked hard for it last year because we didn't just there wasn't a ton of us, but we we marked like a hundred and uh a hundred and fifty-ish, four hundred and forty something ducks with GPS transmitters and banded sever, you know, a couple of thousand. Uh and we worked hard to to make that happen, but this year to get that same similar kind of sample size out there, it's gonna it's gonna take a lot of work for sure. Um, I hope that we get some surprises and we get, you know, get some birds. Uh um I'm sure we can track them down. But yeah, from my hunting standpoint, I'm not I'm just like, ah god, because dry years are awesome on my farm, but wet years, it just I can just bet I'm not gonna shoot very many ducks. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I think a lot of people are are kind of excited about that. You know, oh, we're gonna have water, we're gonna have ducks. You know, it's an automatic assumption that what with one comes the other. And and given the past couple dry years, I get it on public, you know, they haven't had a lot of water recently, but I'm with you. I think it's gonna be low overall numbers. They're gonna get spread really thin. There'll be some hot spots, no doubt.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Um, but it it could be could be thin. And then I think to really add insult to injury, you know, cool and wet down here, but could be dry where we really, really, really need some moisture.
SPEAKER_00So it's not and we might get a little bit of that, you know, because we've seen the opposite happen. Uh, you know, when it's been dry everywhere, was it three two three winters ago? Whenever it was, we had that really historic drought. And um Illinois was reporting like, you know, a hundred percent increase in their mallard numbers for that time of the year. It was just like, yeah, it's dry as hell right here. I ain't going any farther south. So maybe, maybe if we get it, uh, if they're not getting uh as much of the rain, maybe there'll be some like, hey, it's rough. I gotta start moving south trying to find some water. Uh, maybe we might see the opposite of that happening, but who knows to what extent that could happen. But I like to try to be optimistic. If I wasn't optimistic, I would have quit duck hunting a long time ago.
SPEAKER_04I think that's all of us.
SPEAKER_00If you could bottle that and sell it, you'd be rich. Exactly. I don't think they're, you know, for most of us, there's it's always the the glass glass is half half full, hopefully.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's plenty that have the opposite view, though.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. And they get louder every day, it seems like. Especially, especially when duck numbers are poor, they get really loud.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, well, I get it. I mean, when it look, when it stinks, I'm I'm more opinionated too.
SPEAKER_00So oh, yeah. No, we get that. Definitely get that way. Sometimes we all fall into that glass, it'sn't even half empty, it's full of poison. Uh yeah. Uh well, James, I oh go ahead. Oh no, I was just gonna say the only other thing that we do have uh that I didn't mention that we might that we're gonna be uh doing this year is uh we are going to be uh putting some transmitters on some snow geese as well. And uh there's several questions that are kind of coming with that, uh, but what I really am excited about is just getting a better understanding of how they move around the landscape. But maybe that'll inch us closer to better understanding some of that duck goose competition and you know, we're geese in this place, and you know, because that that's a lot of you know what we're you know, every landowner gets inundated with snow geese at some point and is is furious, it's eating all their duck food. And so hopefully that'll help us uh tease out some some of that stuff as well. And so uh we had another uh question in particular that we were looking at with uh that with the snow goose trapping, but I think that that's where my interest is really kind of shifting towards what that data is. Hopefully it'll be useful and in being a part of our snapshot of how dunks interact in this landscape. Because beyond your hunting pressure and everything else and water, you know, all that, the other component out there is the fact that you do have the competition with geese. And uh that competition's growing increasingly. Now we have some. I mean, I love white fronts. I'm I'm super happy they're in the MAV like they are now, because you know, not that many years ago, if we saw one, we're like, oh my god, that's so cool, and now they're everywhere. Uh, but that's another added level of of of competition there uh for ducks. So they're you know, it's just like anytime a new thing enters a landscape, whether it's black-bellied whistling ducks or or or uh or white fronts or snow, and with the white front shifting, more snow has shifted our way too, you know, uh out of that Texas landscape when their habitat changed. So um it does change how we need to think about you know that that's another contributing factor to how we think about managing the landscape. And so I'm excited about it. I'm not overly excited about the long nights of trapping snow geese on the roost, uh, but I'm uh uh or doing a lot of cloacal examinations, but uh but uh but I I am excited about what that means for the overall broader picture of the work we're doing. And uh so uh that's the only thing I think I left out of our original, you know, kind of what we're doing on the waterfowl front as far as our research program.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you'll have to come back on after you trap and let us know how it went. Uh I'm curious to see what what you get from that. Because to my knowledge, and I haven't asked anybody, but I've just based this on encounters, there hasn't been a lot of snow geese research in recent, maybe in the recent decade. At one point, there was a lot of research going on. You saw color mark birds and encountered a bunch of bands, but I haven't seen any lately.
SPEAKER_00So I think it's yeah, and we don't I don't think we have a I mean, there's been fair amount some telemetry work, you know, marking them on uh on the breeding grounds, and um, you know, a lot of there's some movement analysis out there, but no one's marked, I don't believe anyone's really marked them down here yet. Uh certainly it marked white fronts, but not snow geese, and um really at least had the question where they're interested in the winter period with them, you know. Um it's been a you know a much different uh kind of question that has been addressed with snow geese uh in the past. And so it's a little, it's it it is a little bit different than what most of the because there's a lot of great work out there from Ray Alasas and and and Frank Baldwin and a bunch of other folks. Uh a lot of uh uh Jim Leafle, a lot of my my Canadian goose friends, they're all retired now, I guess. But um, but yeah, uh this is gonna be at a little different angle to it. And so excited about it. That's what my my extension associates keep saying, no, no, you keep saying we have to mark snow geese. We get to mark snow geese. So it's like you say that now.
SPEAKER_01Wait till wait till it's 2 a.m.
SPEAKER_00and we're still doing this out in the dark somewhere.
SPEAKER_04I'm sure having trapped white fronts before, snow geese are no different. You know, ducks scratch pretty good, but they're relatively tame. I mean, geese start biting you when you have them. Like, there's that's a whole different level of pain in your rear end.
SPEAKER_00It definitely is. And just the nature of snow geese during the day. You all we all see it, you know, they're here one day and gone the next, or if they're in that field for several days, you don't know which side of the field they're gonna be on. So so trying to get them set up to catch them in the day is gonna be extremely difficult. So the most effective way is if they're returning to the same roost for no more, even if they're shifting their their their uh where they're feeding in the day, if they're coming back to that same roost at night, that's the most effective way probably to catch them. I think that's how Paul and others have done when they've done the white front stuff up up Y'all's way and in Louisiana. Even the same with white fronts easier to catch them maybe on the roost, but damn, it's gonna be make for some long nights.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, so we with with Paul, we caught him right at daylight. Um, but yeah. And I was thinking about that too, man, like having to deal with the nets, get them out of the nets in the middle of the night. Like let me let me know how it goes. Uh don't call me if you need help.
SPEAKER_00I was just about to say, if y'all want to come down and help, we will we will have y'all on the hotline, you know. We'll just call call you out of the bullpen. Come on down.
SPEAKER_04Uh if I if I told my kids they would demand we show up. So uh yeah, they they would be disappointed if I if I turned down the opportunity. But yeah, that's fascinating. I'm I'm curious because that's on a you know, on a managerial side, the snow geese pose. I don't like to say a problem because they're they're waterfowl. I know people chase them, but it's uh it's a whole nother dynamic to trying to manage habitat, especially when you're managing four ducks. It's it's something you've got to think about and consider. So I'm interested in that study.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And uh and I hope we find out some some more stuff that helps be more effective on that because trying to harass snow geese is harassing your ducks too, a lot of times. And and and it's you know, you got managers out there that are trying to get snow geese off the place and and you know how how much is that helping versus maybe potentially hurting you. And I think having that understanding of the behavior stuff on the accelerometry from the ducks and things, we might find out a little bit more about what these ducks are doing in some of these these uh wetlands, like help. We might find out they're just you know, snow geese come in and deplete flooded standing corn, and ducks are in there for the thermal cover and the and the uh screening cover. It's probably a pretty safe freaking place to be during the day if you're you're in there. Uh so we may find out they spend very little time foraging in some of those. I'm sure some they they're eating like crazy, but uh that's the kind of things we want to tease out and find out. And so anything that can help you make smarter, more informed decisions is what all this research program is about. Because, like I said, I spent before academia 17 years of being a boots on the ground habitat delivery kind of person, and that's where my passion is, and that's the kind of work I want to do.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Oh, that's a good point. 30, 40 years ago, we would use propane cannons to keep geese out of food sources, and then lo and behold, you kept your ducks out of it too. And I've I've long since given up trying to run them off. I mean, because if I'm successful, I've run everything off too. So it's just you try to manage around them, try to, you know, allow them access at certain times and try to deny it others. It's just a juggling act, but uh all right. Well, we'll have to get you back on because I'm I'm interested in that. So I appreciate your time today. Uh thanks for joining us. Thanks for everyone for listening. You can find us online at thestandardsportsman.com or anywhere you can podcast.
