I am not sure I remember exactly when we went to 6 duck 60 day seasons but I read the framework whitepaper when they did it. Didn't say much in there about the Ducks at all the vast majority of the discussion to go to 6/60 seemed to be based on the economic impact of lengthening the season.

I think we've shot the ducks that migrate over the last 20 years as they have poured money into wetland projects all up from Missouri to N. Dakota. The State of AL to my knowledge still sends our AL Duck Stamp money up there to build more wetlands for the ducks to breed on. Maybe that is important. Maybe it is not as important as improving something in this State like maybe forcing AL Power to give up at least a little property somewhere to add a wetland WMA and using the money to build a dewatering unit..

Back when I started Duck hunting people all up through the Dakotas didn't really hunt that much. They did hunt, but the difference was they had to time the season because it was shorter. They always had better hunting in the years they timed and hit the sweet spot where they had open water. But in other years they didn't get it exactly right and you could tell it back then off the end of your gun barrel there were more ducks. That's stating the obvious I know.

What has happened is we went to 60 days and everyone up through there over the last 20-25 years has built duck holes, flooded fields, etc. because under a 60 day timeline they got birds. That's guaranteed. So now all the land is leased and there are duck holes everywhere you look. As farming has become less profitable farmers have turned to leasing land to make up the shortfall and dang near every single one of them that can have a duck hole is leasing their fields.

Now onto the 2nd issue in my mind and this is where things begin to fall apart. There has always been discussion of ducks imprinting on an area as far back as I can remember. Take the above and couple that with higher numbers of ducks that do actually fly South still getting shot over 20 years. Fewer go back each season and return the next.

Throw it in a bowl and mix it all up and what do you get? Empty skies.

The good news is that for the last about 25 years we have allegedly had record number on the breeding grounds every single year. So we stay at 60. Because that seems to make sense we would have near or long-term average record numbers forever? Not sure about that. Seems like something you would hear on CNN.