Blair

[Bgoodman30]

Finally a named storm. Calling for 12 inches of snow and single digits around Habitat Flats golden triangle. Also where all the ducks are holding. West TN has the water and certainly the food. I have high hopes that this will be THE big push...

 

[Smashdn]

I am keeping my expectations low. Any weather event after the winter solstice has to be incredibly severe and long-lasting to create a good migration.

That said, a perfect storm in a sense would be to blow a bunch of ducks down for two weeks then a warm-up and reverse migration for the last part of the season. No complaints from me if that were to occur.

 

[Bgoodman30]

Yeah I have a little higher hopes due to the conditions up north and especially being its hitting where they say all the ducks are holding. Around North MO its supposed to be over 1 foot of snow with temps falling to single digits/sub zero and not showing any highs above freezing in the 15 day outlook. It will be locked up harder than a wedding pecker!

Another positive is the conditions are right around here with backwaters out and still rising in our neck of the woods.

 

[Bgoodman30]

Seeing a small push today. Maybe more in the rain clouds. Spread out I believe

 

[Bgoodman30]

Mixed reports. Some good some bad. I know ducks moved down but maybe there really are just less ducks…? Maybe they kept going. Betting still plenty to the north

 

[Smashdn]

Mixed reports. Some good some bad. I know ducks moved down but maybe there really are just less ducks…? Maybe they kept going. Betting still plenty to the north

I know we are into the storm after this one but post-mortem report it seemed to me that all it did was scatter around the ducks that were already here. There must be a pocket or swathe way on up north where the (fewer than "normal") mallards are stacked up. Iowa or northern Illinois or the like. This storm dumped on missouri and central illinois and indiana and I haven't seen mallards and black ducks like I would have expected if it had really blown them out of the "golden triangle" area of missouri.

The Forbes report I last saw for Illinois River and Central Miss river was a drop in ducks from the previous survey by a significant percentage but mallards were still more than what they normally should have this time of year.

 

[Hawk]

Talked with one of the better guides on Reelfoot yesterday. Twenty is a good day for that blind this year and that was the number they pitched out of their boat at Keystone ldg. Total for the blind this year was around 600.
Hunting everyday of the season to get that many. That is slow!

 

[Andy S.]

Talked with some seasoned guys hunting a hole along MS River in SW TN. 8 guns produced 41 ducks yesterday morning, same hole produced 2 ducks this morning. Ducks would not finish today. Per them, the continuous white snow cap on the decoys did not help today. Seems they fought the snow this morning more than they anticipated.