Despite North American duck populations being at all-time highs for most species, it has been a very disappointing hunting season for most waterfowlers.
After a strong start to the 2015-16 season back in November, duck numbers in South Florida have decreased dramatically.
Many times, dedicated hunters that were regularly killing three-man limits of 18 ducks when the first phase of the season opened have been lucky to shoot five or eight ducks between them since the second phase opened in mid-December.
But it doesn’t take a limit of ducks to have a fun hunt before the season ends Jan. 31.
Paul Schmitz of Coral Springs, who has hunted ducks hard in South Florida for more than 30 years, recently took his neighbor Ron Lasota to hunt ducks in the Everglades for the first time.
Schmitz was hoping to have ring-necked ducks or blue-winged teal come into his decoy spread. Instead, he and Lasota had flocks of mottled ducks check out the decoys.
The daily bag limit on mottled ducks, also known as Florida mallards, is one per hunter. A lone drake came in shortly after Schmitz hid his johnboat in a clump of sawgrass and he dropped it with one shot from his 12-gauge shotgun.
Minutes later, eight mottled ducks flew over the decoys and Lasota, who last year shot ringers and scaup at Lake Okeechobee with a guide, got his first Florida mallard, another drake.
Having reached their limit, Schmitz and Lasota waited for other species to show up, but none did. In the meantime, they were treated to the sight of additional pairs and flocks of mottled ducks flying by the decoys.
Two different times, two mottled ducks floated in and hovered over the decoys, 15 yards from the blind, as they seemingly debated whether to land.
Plus there was a multitude of other birds in the area, ranging from moorhens and coots to egrets and herons to ibis and wood storks.
The big smile on Lasota’s face when they returned home was the perfect ending to a memorable morning, and Schmitz and Lasota got busy figuring out when they could hunt together again.
In a good season, Schmitz and his hunting buddies will kill more than 300 ducks. This season they’ve killed a little over 100 ducks, which Schmitz said is at least better than the previous season.
Unlike most duck hunters, Schmitz is honest. People think fishermen tell tall tales, but duck hunters are the biggest liars. Ask the average waterfowler how he or she has done this season and the answer will be, “I always get my limit.”
Occasionally I have been invited to hunt with those hunters and we never came close to shooting a limit of ducks. This season, I’d be surprised if they shot any ducks at all.
Schmitz believes a big reason for the poor duck hunting is an abundance of water in South Florida. The region received a record amount of rainfall in December, and Schmitz has heard reports from friends whose private deer hunting leases are flooded.
Conditions like that turn cow pastures and agricultural fields into duck magnets. The shallow water levels, abundance of food and lack of hunting pressure are especially attractive to teal and mottled ducks.
Even the hunting at the vaunted stormwater treatment areas has been off, with some STA hunts averaging less than a duck per hunter. Up until last season, the average was 3-4 ducks per hunter.
“There’s so much water, the ducks don’t need to go to their traditional spots,” Schmitz said, referring to the STAs, the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee.
Still, that doesn’t keep him from hunting and scouting in an effort to locate a concentration of ducks. As he told a disheartened friend who said he wasn’t going to hunt ducks anymore this season, you have to go afield to be able to find them.
“You’ve got to enjoy the pursuit,” Schmitz told another friend, Ken Massey of Davie, who hunts with Schmitz as often as he can.
“Well,” said Massey, “we’re getting lots of pursuit this year.”
swaters@tribpub.com or Twitter @WatersOutdoors
