We're in Garwood Sunday morning. Gonna be hot and not great - taking my SIL from England so really hope he gets a chance to shoot a duck. He's a very good wing shooter, he's just never had the chance to hunt water fowl.

Going Monday morning in garwood area. Hope new birds come down.

DP

Only got out once in teal season and once for big ducks since I had my knee replacement surgery a couple weeks ago and this season and last season have been the 2 worst I can remember. Just a fraction of the birds showing up compared to 3-4 years ago.

Like an overnight collapse.

Nice shooting!

Hope a few of those mallards are still around Saturday. Been a few weeks since I could sneak over there.

TarponChaser said:

---

Only got out once in teal season and once for big ducks since I had my knee replacement surgery a couple weeks ago and this season and last season have been the 2 worst I can remember. Just a fraction of the birds showing up compared to 3-4 years ago.

Like an overnight collapse.

---

3 years back everyone said it was the worst season they could remember, but we still did ok.

2 years back they said the same, but we did well on teal and wood ducks.

Last year, we heard the same again and our wood ducks still held strong.

This year, it finally is the worst I have ever seen.

Little to nothing left to hunt, yet all of the "experts" at USFWS, Delta, and DU tell us the populations are doing ok and to please keep sending money.

If you need someone with a dog or just to help put out decoys or whatever, let me know. I'm dying to shoot a green head…

Was invited to hunt yesterday to see if front pushed in anything new. Couldn't make it for work reasons but didn't miss much. They shot 1 gadwall.

Hunted in garwood area yesterday morning. 1/2 limit for four of us. Two pintails. Rest teal.

Interesting . And shows how random it is. We saw big flocks of pintails and sporadic teal on Sunday. And lots of geese and cranes. We were just west of 71 and south of 90. Of course we were in 65 degrees and little wind and you were in cold and high wind.

How's water levels out there? Only 2-3 rains since beginning of September has been brutal

CS78 said:

---

TarponChaser said:

---

Only got out once in teal season and once for big ducks since I had my knee replacement surgery a couple weeks ago and this season and last season have been the 2 worst I can remember. Just a fraction of the birds showing up compared to 3-4 years ago.

Like an overnight collapse.

---

3 years back everyone said it was the worst season they could remember, but we still did ok.

2 years back they said the same, but we did well on teal and wood ducks.

Last year, we heard the same again and our wood ducks still held strong.

This year, it finally is the worst I have ever seen.

Little to nothing left to hunt, yet all of the "experts" at USFWS, Delta, and DU tell us the populations are doing ok and to please keep sending money.

---

Until your prior post I hadn't considered that USFWS, DU, or Delta would fudge the numbers but now I'm concerned. Maybe it's a post-surgery, no hunting time, post Christmas blues getting to me but now I'm worried.

Your experience jives with mine- this season hasn't been good and I've seen very, very few solid reports from outlets where in the past they were melting barrels from shooting at so many ducks. The 2024-25 season was very strong for teal but big ducks weren't great. 2023-24 was inconsistent for me- mainly because of weird weather when I was able to go, like I missed the good days when buddies went and when I was able to go it was an 80-degree day in December with no wind and no birds moving. 2022-23 was good.

But this year things just cratered.

Love me some decoying gray ducks! Nice hunt

ttha_aggie_09 said:

---

If you need someone with a dog or just to help put out decoys or whatever, let me know. I'm dying to shoot a green head…

---

How far are you from Somerville? Might be able to help you out if some more show up but not sure if it'll be worth your travel for a chance at just a handful.

El_duderino said:

---

How's water levels out there? Only 2-3 rains since beginning of September has been brutal

---

Pretty terrible. a few feet low and nothing but mud. The early summer floods followed by 6 months of no rain really set things up for terrible habitat across a lot of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. I pumped water at my spots but that doesnt really do much good if the whole area is dry.

Katy so not far. I was half joking but am always open to an invite!

TarponChaser said:

---

Until your prior post I hadn't considered that USFWS, DU, or Delta would fudge the numbers but now I'm concerned. Maybe it's a post-surgery, no hunting time, post Christmas blues getting to me but now I'm worried.

---

It might be tough to say that numbers are full fledged lies but I do think there's varying levels of bad science, misinterpretations, and intentional misrepresentations of data that combine for a vastly different picture than what is reality.

Another one I've noticed lately is they keep shortening the years for "long term average". Used to, that encompassed 50 years. Then you started seeing them use a rolling 10 year period. Louisiana recently put out their December numbers, and I noticed they are using 5 years for their long-term average. Five years tells us almost nothing and covers up true changes and long-term trends. Why would they do that if they weren't trying to manipulate the interpretations? If you're comparing this year's counts to five years, maybe we're only down 10%. Compare it to 30 years and that number is going to sound way worse. Classic example of figures dont lie, liars just figure.

Go onto social media and you'll see all of these groups and different state agencies putting out migration reports, season updates, etc. and the theme is always the exact same. Some guy telling us about how things might be a little slower than normal but it's just because the last push of birds didnt stick around long and there's still plenty of bird holding up north. You feel like your watching some government propaganda piece about how all is fine. Then the comments are all the same. A few hundred hunters calling them out about them being full of chit.

Preacher 98 said:

---

We got a 4-man limit by 8 am, mostly Gadwalls this morning in Matagorda County!

---

Cool. New birds or a spot that hasnt been hunted lately?

It has been hunted off and on. Probably hunted every 4-5 days. Depending on scouting.

I'm heading out in the morning. Going to be a weird setup with W wind and then shifting it NW and eventually N. Scouting report looks good though but who knows…

That's absolutely a possibility tomorrow! Thank you sir

Mason County stock tank shooting.

Nice cotton tops!

Did not need headlamps this morning…

Hope you have a little wind where you are. I have all motion decoys out.

Very little wind but some. We have about 7 Higdon pumpers and 4-5 wonder ducks out

They are bombing my spread before shooting light. Hopefully that keeps up.

Certainly shooting light now!