DUCKS WHEN THE WEATHER SIZZLES

Freshwater-Marsh Hunting

EDITOR'S NOTE: Like most duck hunters throughout the nation in the warm weather of this past few seasons, I didn't hear the whistling wings of waterfowl gliding out over the marsh, the constant quacking of mallards as they fed in acorn flats or the whistling of wood ducks as they came in to roost at night. Instead, the ever-present hum of mosquitos' wings -- millions of them -- overpowered all the other sounds. However, while this past year brought unseasonably-hot weather and many areas didn't see as many ducks as they'd seen in other years, the sportsmen who knew how, where and when to hunt quacks still found numbers of webfoots and took limits of ducks, even though they may have killed over their limits of mosquitos.

We left the saltwater marshes on the coast that evening and headed to a duck-hunting club near Hackberry, Louisiana, and the Texas border to hunt freshwater marshes the next morning daylight. As we left the lights of the town of Hackberry, we rode on mile after mile of levees, barely two-cars wide built above the marsh. When we finally arrived at our destination, the owner of the camp told us that, "Ducks and geese traditionally have held in certain areas of this marsh throughout the season. This marsh has some old abandoned rice fields in it still producing rice, and the ducks in this marsh usually will concentrate here throughout most of the season. If you shoot the ducks coming in to one blind, they often will fly to the next pothole containing another blind. These ducks don't move great distances like the saltwater- marsh ducks do."

Although this section of the Mississippi Flyway didn't get the large movements of ducks from the North to the South due to warm weather, waterfowl still moved and fed in the marshes. The hunting pressure in this region seemed to cause ducks to move and feed more than any other factor. These freshwater-marsh ducks became so wise during the warm-weather hunting season that hunters had to camouflage and hide very well to keep the ducks from spotting them. Once again, subtle calling replaced loud, aggressive calling when Haydel worked the ducks. Although the huge flights of ducks normally seen at this area didn't come in, we had good shooting from daylight until 11:00 a.m. and took several gadwall, teal and mallard from our blind.

TOMORROW: FIELD HUNTING