Don't complain about ducks...

[Quackaddict9]

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such as flooding feilds that had been drained to be farmed??? that sounds like duck habitat to me....

if you could hunt it you would, don't lie.

I just said that I have never heard of anything of flooding fields to create duck habitat, and I was stating that the hunting is good if a field is flooded. not for habitat-wise.

last fall was good, lots of sheet water in bean fields. Geese and Ducks loved em.

[Tyler23]

yes i agree if a crop feild is flooded the hunting is good. we got snow instead of rain this year so back the the marsh i went... u hunt up by bemiji right quackaddict9??

[Musky Buck]

If we have to flood cropland to help things out we are in trouble. Trying to get this 5,000 acre marsh figured out because that is about the size of West Battle Lake. So what did this farmer farm before he drained it ? Or if other property owners own part of that 5,000, dnr seems touchy on altering wetlands so did they call ? Must own a heck of a bunch of land, no wonder he wants money, if you own however many acres this marsh drainer owns he has major bills and land payments and taxes. Why isn't there a CRP water program ? I think the problem is even bigger than some farmers choosing to drain, all of my uncles and grandfathers farms have the same ponds as 30 years ago. Hasn't made a difference, rarely any birds since the mid-90's. Ok, I apologize for taking the farmers side, it doesn't make me feel good to hear about more habitat loss. A few years ago I hunted a lot right behind the Morris Waterfowl area east of town, shot zero ducks, the headquarters ponds, these are ponds that I would think have had great care and etc. but I hardly saw any birds there either. But here's the deal, farming is a business and in our economy lately, I can't blame anyone for trying to maximize their income. Most farmers today seem to have a regular job that they fit into there farming just so they don't get foreclosed on or so they can make the payments. It isn't much different than the way the rest of us work, we're looking to make the most we can too. If they are operating under our current laws and regs., then our laws and regs are a part of the problem. They should be aware or told up front about land they buy and what is off limits to drain or something. Each duck season that goes by I can at least be thankful i got to duck hunt in the 80's. Side note in my area- many bowhunters have asked me remember all the wood ducks that would whistle by before sundown, where'd they go ? I tell them as the beaver was pretty much wiped clean in our county, so were the woodies.

[Quackaddict9]

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yes i agree if a crop feild is flooded the hunting is good. we got snow instead of rain this year so back the the marsh i went... u hunt up by bemiji right quackaddict9??

Yeah around the Thief River Falls area. Me and others hunted mostly private and some public land.

[BudMan]

I'm thinking you are surely mistaken about draining 5000 acres in Nicollet County. Do you really understand just how big 5000 acres is ??It would be an area approximately 3 miles x 2.5 miles.I'm not aware of any area of that size in Nicollet Cty. that was ever drained.Even if it was 500 acres that would be almost one mile square.Get your facts straight.

[Musky Buck]

That was confusing to me also, where do you put that many gallons of water if you drained that much. As far as I know we haven't drained our 10,000 lakes, rivers, creeks or streams, that's a lot of water. Our shallow ponds are another story. I guess the way I view it some is 10 years I haven't shot a duck. Geese maybe 100 or so. I guess I can go another 10 years without a duck. I'm sure in those 10 years I feel like I've coughed up enough dollars in Lottery, DU banquets, licenses, wild rice purchases for my ponds, etc. and talked with all my relatives that own waterfowl water that they assure me they'd never drain, not sure what more I can do with mallard houses and woody boxes everywhere, a migrating bird, what else can a guy do ? I hunt near a duck/goose sanctuary and still I don't take any ducks because they are so few. Used to be a bout 1,000 ducks in there and about 100 geese. Last 10 years or so 1,000 geese and 100 ducks. I wish it were 1986, that was my most memorable duck season ever with thousands of greenheads migrating in and sticking around, you could find them anywhere, those same areas today you can sometimes find a small flock or two. My duck rant is done.

[Get-em-good]

That was swan lake probably. The DNR drew the water down to kill the carp and get the duck habitat more suitable for breeding and attracting migrations.

And you really can't call many farmers greedy when they aren't making a whole lot of money overall can you?

It's over in MN in alot of areas. Not saying there aren't ducks, but there are WAY less than there used to be and you really have to work to get them. We just have to accept it and try to do what we can to bring them back. It won't happen overnight. Start hunting skycarp, they are everywhere and a whole lot dumber than any duck, usually an easy limit if you find a field they are using.

Look at it this way, lots of people are getting out of waterfowling. Should mean more ground that doesn't get harrased for you to hunt.

[fishgutz77]

Everybodys got there slant here's mine.

Who brought back all the woodducks?

Who brought back the giant canada goose?

Waterfowlers that's who.

I am behind Delta's philosophy that habitate is a smaller part of the machine than predators.

This has been my quote from the day I stopped trapping.

" We will not have ducks until fur becomes fashionable again."

All your animal activists and idiots that have thrown blood on people wearing furs and the movie star types that don't know a thing about the wild are shaping public opinon and our educational system just plays right along with it in the name of all things GREEN.

If the Dakotas go through the major leage drought for 3 years straight it may help reverse the flyway. But lets face it they got it really good from SD all the way to the Boreal forest where most ducks are hatched.

If we could knock down the Coyotes,opposum,weasles, mink,fox, coon, and skunks then you would see more ducks. nesting success is all it takes and then they imprint and it's game on.

But please don't start this duck hunters don;t do enough rhetoric.

Were you at the Capital for the rallies?

[Musky Buck]

I feel the same sympathy for the grouse numbers, used to have herds of them on my ground, now a brood or two maybe. Same with snow shoe hares, my swamp used to have tons, now I haven't seen one or tracks in 15 years or more. So I can't draw my gun on a duck anymore either, I remember a goose being an unreal thing to harvest in 1979, now I almost am to that same point with a duck. I am in no way pushing for anyone to not shoot ducks, that's just my personal choice. Like Get-em Good said, drill the honkers. We have 100,000 waterfowl hunters, what would that number be without the geese ? The people I hunt with none of us would go anymore without the honkers to hunt.

[kobear]

Where do you put that many gallons of water? Good question.

Here's a study in Nicollet County.

http://asae.frymulti.com/azdez.asp?JID=1&AID=17402&CID=sww2004&T=2

It states "Analysis of presettlement maps and survey notes indicate that about 50% of the watershed was once covered by

wetlands. Of those wetlands, it is estimated that 88% of the natural wetlands have been converted to cropland." So half of the County was water prior to drainage.

Check out the 1930's Airphotos on the DNR. Go to A-Z list under M for Maps. You can still see all the ditches since they are only about 30-50 years old at that point it's amazing most of the open ditches around my house were converted to deep bury clay pipe in the 1940's and you would never know what was slough previously.

How much is a bushel of corn worth?

Let's see $1 a bushel susidy ($0.50 a gallon ethanol), Direct Payments (you get these every year regardless of crop price generally around $20 an acre), Loan Deficency Payments (if the price falls you get extra), tax payer susidized crop insurance (buy it for cheap and get PAID), tax breaks (Green Acres), low interest loans, and of course a Disaster Payment when that wetland you drained fills back in with rainfall even though you NEVER PURCHASED INSURANCE!

So almost nothing if Taxpayers quit paying them to grow it.

Think about it just with the DCP payments and the $1 a bushel susidy we paid about $170 to $250 an acre last year for every acre of corn grown.

With 7.7 million acres of corn in Minnesota in 2008 the taxpayer paid out about $1,540,000,000.

How much was the incentive to grow ducks? If you enroll in CRP you sacrifice your DCP payments.

You get what you pay for, we pay to have cornfields.

[kobear]

Yes we paid MN corn growers $1.54 billion in subsidies in 2008! To grow CORN!

[Quackaddict9]

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We have 100,000 waterfowl hunters, what would that number be without the geese ? The people I hunt with none of us would go anymore without the honkers to hunt.

Yeah but most geese are harvested in the Early Season as it goes back to two or 1 in some places in the regular season and I would say at least 75% of the hunters hunt on water for ducks/geese and the Goose Hunting is not as good as in feeding fields but there are hunters that get great hunts on water on geese where geese want to be.

so early season helps lower the #'s of "locals" and a few migrators as the weeks go on, I wonder what the # of hunters that hunt the early season in MN? maybe 15,000-20,000? My numbers may be off but I don't remember seeing how many licenses were sold for early goose season.

[Musky Buck]

True enough quack, I was an quackaddict once too, I guess I'm a honkaddict now. Maybe our declining hunter numbers already reflect some or most of the duck license # issue. When I give the goose more thought that would wipe out a lot of Rochester hunters and Fergus Falls hunters I would think, if there were zero geese in MN, kinda meaning the people that line the city limits and pass shoot honkers. Do these guys really go chuck a bag of mallard dekes out, maybe maybe not. I guess they could add up our HIP info to the licenses that claim no duck kills, but only goose kills like I have done for 10 years now. In my area and the few dozen waterfowlers I know we would certainly be done with ducks. They do get a few scud woodies or occasional mallards while field goose hunting, and today I mean occassional. Quack I don't think I'm reading your theory right, if there wasn't a goose in MN I'd be done and so would all my hunting partners, we're not going to get up, head down to the river paddle upstream a 1/2 mile, set out decoys for zero birds. I've done that, 10-12 years ago we did that many weekends and the river used to hold thousands of birds, by hunting season it holds a couple and since I have many relatives that rifle hunt right on the bank of this river, they give me the report and it usually it is by god I actually saw a flock of 7 mallards today, can you believe it. Bow, Pheasant would be the option. KoBear I like your analysis, but I don't need to go back to the 30's or 40's although I hear ya loud and clear, man has ruined what used to be a great duck state, I'd just like to go back to the mid-80's, what has happened since then ? Our landscape has changed mightily. Side note, my mallard/woodduck decoy bag has been buried by dust, maybe I'd get some good coot action the way they look now.

[kobear]

All I'm saying is at a minimum we should offer the same benefits to Wetland Restorers as those who have drained.

Farm support payments since the mid 80's have totaled up over $1000 an acre already. We could have purchased the marginal acres and restored them with that kind of money.

So is that a level playing field? Grow crops, we'll pay you for your land and you can keep it! You can even pollute the other waters of the state and taxpayers will pay millions to clean them up.

Restore your land and we'll pay you 1/4th as much. Double your taxes. And every Tom, [PoorWordUsage], and Harry will claim you owe them public access since you received public payments. After all what do you produce for the public? Other than clean water, clean air, Pheasants, Deer, and Ducks.

Did you see USFWS report on wetland drainage since the 80's?

http://www.minnesotaoutdoornews.com/articles/2009/01/15/top_news/news04.txt

[Tyler23]

all this happened years ago and nothing was ever done about it until now... have you ever heard of WIWI bay and mud bay near middle lake and part of middle lake that is pretty much dry BUDMAN?? thats all due to this dam, havent you heard that the conservation club in nicollet has been going to court and fighting to get this dam back in place??? i was told we lost close to 5,000 acres after draining all this those numbers may be off im not exactly sure but im going by what the old timers tell me because they use to hunt all that area. sorry if there off i dont know exactly except alot of habitat was lost and that puts a bad taste in my mouth hearing about all this.

[Tyler23]

That was swan lake probably. The DNR drew the water down to kill the carp and get the duck habitat more suitable for breeding and attracting migrations.

And you really can't call many farmers greedy when they aren't making a whole lot of money overall can you?

It's over in MN in alot of areas. Not saying there aren't ducks, but there are WAY less than there used to be and you really have to work to get them. We just have to accept it and try to do what we can to bring them back. It won't happen overnight. Start hunting skycarp, they are everywhere and a whole lot dumber than any duck, usually an easy limit if you find a field they are using.

Look at it this way, lots of people are getting out of waterfowling. Should mean more ground that doesn't get harrased for you to hunt.

no im not talking about them lowering swan lake. i know about that, im talking about wiwi bay and mud bay east of swan that are dry now as well as timber lake and the other small sloughs that were affected.

[BudMan]

Well, TYLER23. I AM an old timer and YES I do know about WIWI bay and Mud bay . But the whole Middle Lake area is NOT 5000 acres . Now if you go back when I was a kid in the late 50's we used to hunt in Timber Lake which is now gone thanks to all the drainage ditches . If you would include that plus all the other small ponds that were drained you probably would get close to 5000 acres . In your other post you made it sound like it was ONE farmer and it was NOT , and it was NOT one body of water.

[Tyler23]

Well, TYLER23. I AM an old timer and YES I do know about WIWI bay and Mud bay . But the whole Middle Lake area is NOT 5000 acres . Now if you go back when I was a kid in the late 50's we used to hunt in Timber Lake which is now gone thanks to all the drainage ditches . If you would include that plus all the other small ponds that were drained you probably would get close to 5000 acres . In your other post you made it sound like it was ONE farmer and it was NOT , and it was NOT one body of water.

thanks for heads up, but i already knew that? if you wanted me to name every pond out there that is dry now because of the drainage ditchs ill print a map. my grandpa lived right next to timber lake and the rest of the small ponds in that area. i didnt want to name all the bays and ponds out there because i didnt think someone was going to raise this deal if they new about this area anyway because they would already know. the 5,000 acres came from a old guy that told me thats what he thought was lost threw this whole deal. i didnt figure the exact acrage out like u wanted apparently. and FYI it was one farmer that cut the dam out ask anyone thats fighting this deal from the conservation club and they will tell you

[BudMan]

I know who took THAT dam out, everyone in NIC CTY does

[Quackaddict9]

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Quack I don't think I'm reading your theory right

what do you mean by that? I mean if there was not a goose in MN but there are ducks, I'd still hunt. Go where the birds are

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True enough quack, I was an quackaddict once too, I guess I'm a honkaddict now

haha, its just a name I have like on each forum I'm on for a few years now. I think I'm more of a Gooseaholic... I love the early season. I have put up quite a few pics of our kills but when the ducks are right there, its a good time too!

[Tyler23]

I know who took THAT dam out, everyone in NIC CTY does

then dont say it wasnt ONE farmer that did it because it was.

what are your veiws with them putting this dam back in BUDMAN? j/w because i am all for it.

[Musky Buck]

Quack I'd love to fold honkers with ya !

[Musky Buck]

My final duck rant. Geese in my area seem to be a slight problem. The predator list is huge against the ducks. Coons,fox,coyote,possom's,skunks,owls,eagles,hawks and many more add in cats and dogs. The goose, ok here's the theory, my grandpa J's farm had 3 dandy muskrat huts in one of his ponds. Used to have a mallard or teal claim those every year to nest on. About 1990 that turned into a goose on top of each of those and the mallards and Teal were delegated to shore cover for their nest. I know the problem with duck numbers is more than that and there are many reasons. Just seems the geese are hogging a lot of the prime nesting locations before those puddle ducks. Our farm cat started bringing some of these hens back to the barn meaning the nest was then destroyed or left for whatever. Those geese were sure touchy about their nest. So instead of roughly 25 ducklings in grandpa's pond it turned into 6 big honkers and roughly 20 goslings. I know that's probably 1/1000th of the problem. The other is we have about 8 ponds on his farm in the spring, by end of august 5 of those go dry. Even with fairly heavy fall rains, they just can't get duckable kind of water, they dry up so quick. If we had the water in the fall that there is in the spring, it would help, quick ? As a kid hardly anyone had an irrigator, now a lot of the fields I'm familiar with have irrigators. Can that mess up our water systems at all ?

[Scott Stein]

id suggest buildin some nesting baskets for the pond w/ the 3 huts,there pretty cheap to make and a goose wont fit into one (im talking the tube type)

like this one

[kingr]

Minnesotans need to carry a shotgun and predator rifle in their trucks while they are driving around. Just like the locals in ND do. Then when they see a hawk, skunk, coyote, owl etc...you can do the ducks a favor and get rid of a couple of them. The reason the geese and swans have exploded is because they are large enough to stand up to most of the predators.

next time you're driving around the country side pay attention to the amount of hawks, eagles and crows you see. The when you go out to ND where all the birds are count how many hawks, eagles, and crows you see...enough said

Unfortunatly good duck habitat is also good habitat for the predators. You can build all the boxes, [PoorWordUsage] up the flowages but it won't work until you get rid of some of the predators.