How rice industry might be influencing duck hunting
Published 7:38 pm Sunday, February 4, 2018
Duck hunting season is closed in the state and most hunters did not characterize the two splits as one of the better ones.
The preferred ducks, like the mallard, didn’t seem to be as numerous as in the past, or at least hunters who had success with the duck in the first split didn’t find many during the second go-round.
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Was it the weather that kept them away from certain areas, lack of food or something else? Some hunters had theories, others just didn’t know.
One who has his own theory is Buzzy Brunot, who grew up duck hunting and was almost a daily participant during seasons until a falling tree anchored him to a wheelchair.
You may have read about Buzzy a couple of weeks ago when the American Press ran a feature story on him and his paintings of old Lake Charles landmarks.
Now closing in on 85 years, Buzzy was renowned as one of the area’s top fast-pitch softball players during those decades and is a member of the state Hall of Fame.
He was also a rice inspector for the federal government for 30 years and was often called to Washington D.C. and other areas in the USA for his expert opinion on anything dealing with the grain.
That, along with his many years as a hunter, he feels, qualifies him to offer an opinion.
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“I talk to hunters every day and from them I’m finding out that the number of ducks in our area is just not what they used to be,” Brunot said. “I can remember shooting mallards in a pond where Memorial Hospital stands right now. And one of the area’s biggest rice mills was on the northwest corner of Sallier and Ryan streets.
“When I first started with the grain division (1954), the rice that farmers in the area were planting were short grain and medium grain,” he said. “Later, farmers found that they could get a better yield with long-grain rice.”
Statistics show that in the state in the 1980s, short and medium grains accounted for 65 percent of the rice grown in Louisiana while just two years ago long-grain rice made up 85 percent of the rice grown. Also, different varieties of the long-grain rice have been developed that gives a better yield and works better in the state’s climate. Louisiana is listed as the third-largest producer of rice in the USA.
Brunot said mallards, as well as other ducks, prefer the short- and medium-grain rice.
“The long-grain rice, when it is in the rough stage, has a hull on it that has a sharp point,” he said. “This point gets into the ducks’ craw (opening part of its digestive system) and sticks.
“Ducks don’t like that so they begin to eat other food.”
Brunot noted that Arkansas farmers have continued to plant short- and medium-grain rice, and therein lies his theory.
“I think that this is helping Arkansas keep the ducks up there because we’re just not getting near the number that we used to.”
That’s his belief and some hunters think that he might be right.
