November 06 Snapp Ariticle

[Glenn]

HammerTime

“It’s On In A Big Way”


It’s time! Waterfowl season opens in Arkansas in five short days and it looks like it may be another banner year in the northeast part of the state. Early floods and weekly rains have plagued farm operations throughout the region, but conditions for waterfowl are the best I can remember seeing this time of year. While a lot of states and parts of Arkansas are still dealing with low water or drought conditions, we have all the water we need for now.

To go hand in hand with more water than I can ever remember for this time of year, I’ll go out on a limb and say, “we have more ducks than I can ever remember seeing this time of year” and you don’t have to take my word for it. If you use the Internet, check out some of the waterfowl chat rooms and see what the other private landowners are reporting from this region. From early indications, it appears our bird count may be up as much as 30 to 40 percent or more over this time last year and not only do we have record numbers of the early birds like teal, pintail and gadwall, we’re seeing mass number of mallards as well. If you drive through the heart of our regions rice country, you’re likely to see birds using just about every field that’s flooded. Our sloughs and oxbows are also full and that means the birds will have a lot of areas to rest and avoid excessive pressure, but apparently we’re not the only ones benefiting from early rains

I’m writing this month’s column on my laptop, trying to meet the deadline. Kelley Powers, Adam Hatmaker and I are on our way home from Southwest Louisiana. Particularly the coastal area a bit south of Lake Charles, where we just finished a film shoot with Rod Haydel and the footage should look great. The birds worked right in to our decoys and it appears the cameras were consistently on target. On a couple of occasions I’d even go so far as to say Adam was shooting his camera a lot better than I was shooting my shotgun, but either way … the ducks worked in tight and right were we needed them to be.

Rod and I also had the privilege of sharing a pit with a couple of locals for an afternoon speck hunt. After finishing up on our ducks one morning, we headed east about an hour to an area Rod said was known to be some of the top Speck territory in the state. As we neared our destination it became obvious we were in the heart of Louisiana’s southern rice country and like most waterfowl, Speck’s do seem to enjoy a craw??? full of water soaked rice. Specks (White Fronted Geese) are a fun bird and at times will work well to a call, but this was going to be one of those days when the birds were facing unusual odds. Rod is a former Louisiana State Speck Calling Champion and the other caller we were meeting up with just happened to be Jason Campbell, the reigning State Speck Champion. ????? ????was our host and a fantastic speck hunt it was. If anyone ever tries to tell you the competition callers aren’t hunters … they’ve never hunted specks when Rod and Jason handled the calling. Working a few specks is one thing, but when these two got their rhythm lined out, ???? and I knew this wasn’t the time or the place for us to pull out our calls. We talking excellent bird numbers and if you watch the show next year, you’ll see for yourself … some of these birds almost appeared to be in a trance as they worked in for their few minutes of fame on Waterfowler TV and limits of them were willing to die for it!

After the hunt was over, Rod and I had the opportunity to visit with Larry ???, who owned the property. Larry made no bones about it, he has some of the top waterfowl property in the state and he manages it for waterfowl. After seeing the numbers of birds we saw that afternoon, I ask how he felt their numbers compared to past years. Much to my surprise, that region in Louisiana had a wetter than normal fall, much like NE Arkansas had experienced. Larry has watched the birds for more years than I would care to guess and just like we’re experiencing in NE Arkansas, he felt confident the extra water had come with the benefit of extra birds.

With most seasons well underway, I can’t tell you how the other states are doing and I can’t predict how ours will end up. It does looks like it could be a record year for parts of Arkansas and south Louisiana and while I can’t tell you how things will end, I can tell you one thing for sure; “the migration is on and … It’s on in a big way.”
Charles “HammerTime” Snapp

snapp1@sbcglobal.net
www.arkansaswaterfowl.com
www.waterfowler.tv