Ducks not plentiful in all areas

Published 6:08 am Sunday, January 15, 2017

The sun was in its early morning rise and as he peered out from his four-man duck blind, Ronny Breaux had the feeling that it was going to be a good day.

That feeling, though, would be gone by good sun up.

In front of him was 10 or so acres of water that encompasses Lake Huit (French for the number eight) in the White Lake marsh area.

The water in the lake is good so that’s not a problem and the food (mainly duckweed) is just as healthy.

Two other hunters were in the blind that day this past week, but by the end of the hunt the count was barely 10 birds (a mixture of teal, widgeon, gadwall, scaup, ringneck).

“Why? I don’t know,” Breaux said about the lack of ducks in the shallow lake. “It’s been that way the entire season. The area that I hunt is between Highway 82 and La. 14. It has been a prime area for hunting in the past. In certain sections of that marsh we haven’t seen a lot of ducks this year. Two years ago it would be nothing to have your limit by 8 a.m. Now, we hunt until 9 a.m., but the birds are usually gone by 8 a.m. And we don’t get a limit.”

Breaux is not the only hunter who is confused about the situation with the ducks this year.

Some areas have the ducks, others don’t. And it’s a lot of “those that used to have ducks, no longer have ducks.”

A recent aerial survey by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Division reported more ducks in Southwest Louisiana now than in the past seven years. And a bunch of them were sighted in the Lacassine Refuge area, which is just west of where Breaux hunts.

“The concentration is just not as it was. Also, this used to be mallard country and we now see very few mallards. Gadwalls and teal are the prominent birds and we do see a few wood ducks.

“We had a good year last year. Then we could go out and shoot a box of shells in a hunt. Now one box lasts you two or three trips.”

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Breaux said in talking with other hunters, some of the rice fields around Kinder and Welsh are holding birds and some aren’t.

“You have water and you have food but you don’t have the birds. I just don’t know,” he declared.

With the season closing in seven days for the coastal and west zones (the east zone closes on Jan. 29), Breaux said he plans one more trip to his blind in the marsh.

After that he said he will probably make a run to the east zone and hunt in the Atchafalaya basin at least one time before wrapping things up.