Bear Grease - Ep. 412: Backwoods University - Mallard Declines

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

This episode is a field report. Where we go and interview outdoorsmen, hunters, and anglers from all walks of life to get their opinions on different wildlife related issues. Today, we will be discussing the current hot topic of mallard declines in the lower Mississippi alluvial valley. We will be asking these different hunters about what they have seen through their own experiences duck hunting throughout the years, and what they think could be causing the declines. Connect with Lake Pickle and MeatEater Lake Pickle on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. Big shout out to Onyx Hunt for their support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle. On this episode, we're going back to a topic that we recently discussed on this show, the notable decline of wintering mallards in the lower portion of the Mississippi Flyway. We just did an episode on this back in December, and it got quite a bit of feedback. so much so that it's earned itself another look, which is great. And when we dive back in this time, we're going to be hearing about this subject from folks just like you. The hunters, the duck stamp holders, the folks that are out there in the marshes and muddy backwater every single chance they get.

The folks that love to duck hunt more than they love the next breath they breathe. It's time to learn what those folks think of all this. Let's dive in. Before we meet our first die-hard duck hunter, allow me to set the stage a bit. The format of this episode is going to be a bit different than many of the other Backwoods University episodes that you may have heard in the past. I'm going to go ahead and say, I can't take credit for this idea. Steve Renella actually prompted me to do this before we ever officially launched this show. He called it Bar Biology, and the premise was to go around the local hangout spots for hunters and get their honest opinions on different sorts of wildlife issues.

deer management, wild turkey declines, law or regulation changes, or in this case, the decline of the mallard duck. And while I didn't go to any bars for these interviews, Mom, just so you know, I did seek out ardent duck hunters that love waterfowl and love hunting them. Some of these folks I've known for a long while, and some of these folks I met for the first time the day we recorded the interview. Hearing from a wildlife biologist is great, and believe me, if you continue to listen to this show, you're going to hear from more of them. But I also think that you're also think that it's extremely important to hear what the average hunter thinks. The citizen scientist, the common man.

What does he have to say? What does he thinks going on? What's their opinions based on their experience out there? Well, let's find out. Our first duck hunter has been hunting in the Mississippi Delta for decades. And while I had not had the pleasure of meeting him until this interview, I had heard of him in several duck hunting circles. His name is Jim Cruz.

He's a lifelong duck hunter and an author of a book called Amid the Cyprus. I'm sitting in Jim's office and on the walls hang several framed pictures of successful duck hunts that took place throughout the years. I want to start this conversation off hearing about one of these very photos. What about what about this one right here? The top one on the on your right. That top right? Yes, sir. That was, I just for whatever reason, remember, that was opening day of 2003.

That's a picture of my wife and me and my dad. And one of our girlfriends were along, and we had killed a limit of mallards and gadballs in very short order. It looks like a pretty great hunt. Yeah, that was a super hunt. My dad was a passionate sportsman. He grew up in a time when duck hunting really was the hunting that was available. He lived in Memphis, hunted in the Mississippi Delta, in the eastern Arkansas. saw both. And that's what he did growing up. And by the, I guess, the 1960s, he had gained access to

some of the property along the Mississippi River that we still hunt today. Well, as I grew older, I had a friend move in next door. He was a little bit older than me. He was old enough to drive. I wasn't. But he was nice enough to tag along. with a younger or let a younger guy tag along and hunt. He loved a duck hunt. So I got into that. So we spent many, many, many years hunting ducks together and other things too, but tons of duck hunt. Right.

So you're pretty much whole origin of duck hunting started in the Mississippi Delta. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. The great majority in Mississippi Delta, but I've hunted ducks in every flyway, Atlantic, Mississippi, Central. and Pacific. I've hunted, I don't know how many states a lot, and then several other countries as well. Right. But waterfowling is a big part of life for my family and me. We've established that Jim Cruz has been duck hunting for a while. There's no question there. Before we start talking Mallor declines, I want to get a better understanding of what duck hunting means to him.

The things that still stay with me, we had, I guess, my first duck hunts, my father and some of his friends had a lease on what's now the famous York Woods in Tallahatchie County. And those are really my very first duck hunting memories. And what I specifically remember is the sound of those wings overhead that whistling in the darkness. as we waited for the sun to come up, which, incidentally, I can't hear anymore. But I still remember how that sounded. And the colors on those ducks, somebody had shot a Drake Widgeon

with that bold, green, iridescent stripe on his head. And I just remember picking up that duck and thinking I was holding a miracle. And, you know, as I was. But I remember that. I remember the smell of the wet burlap that we used to camouflage the boat, the smell of the outboard motor exhausts. These are just things that come back to me.

This was probably my first season. Yeah. Stopping and getting potato logs and chicken nuggets at the gas station in Charleston. Just everything about it got to me and never got out of me. It's always fascinating to me to learn. things that stick with us so tightly that don't involve the actual hunt, like the smell of wet burlap or the brilliant colors on a duck. I feel like it's often those tiny details that add up over time and help develop the love for a particular type of hunting that I'm sure

many of you can relate with. I now want to turn the conversation to what we see today. I'm curious what changes Jim has seen in the Mississippi Delta throughout his time hunting here. One of the greatest changes I've seen in the Delta is the way the land is laid out. You know, when I was a kid, we would travel highway 49 or highway 61, depending on where we were going, to go hunting. And one of my favorite things to do was look for ducks out in the fields. And I knew where every wetland was on every highway, whether they were permanent wetlands or femoral wetlands. that were just low places out in fields that would flood if you got a good rain. Those are mostly gone now.

And you don't see the ducks on the landscape that you used to back in those days. And that's, you know, that's just a product of more efficient farming practices and land leveling. And, you know, goodness knows, I can't blame a farmer for wanting to get water off his fields so he can have him ready to plant in the springtime. but it has changed the landscape for the waterfowl. So that's a big change. I think we all read these statistics that say numbers of duck hunters are in decline. I, based on my anecdotal observations, have a hard time believing that. It just seems more popular now, which is not a bad thing.

I mean, it's an activity that I sure love, and I can understand how people are attracted to it. But again, I read the numbers that say Hunter licensed sales are constantly declining. So I don't know how to reconcile those with what I see. I just make that observation. So that's a big change. Another one that I've seen in my own lifetime in a big way is the changed migration patterns of geese, snow geese. snow geese and speckle bellies to be precise. When I was in high school, it was a big deal for us to see a flock of snows or specks.

And I was hunting all over eastern Arkansas, northwest delta. And if I saw a flock of snows on the ground, I would actually put a line in my journal noting that fact. That's how special that was. And I don't know how many trips we made a bunch to Texas to go hunt snows and specks in little canadas, the Richardson's canadas. The limit on them was five light geese and two dark geese at that time. We would go down there for that purpose. And Texas was the promised land for geese at that time. It looked like the Jonesboro, Arkansas area does now.

So the geese migration has changed drastically. And from what I understand, they just don't really get down there southwest of Houston in any significant numbers anymore. They've moved northward. Yeah. So that's changed. It raises the worry that what other northward shifts are going to happen with waterfowl. That's no secret. That's a big topic.

among a lot of duck hunters are flyaway patterns shifting. I mean, do you think that mallards have been declining down here over the past couple years? Do you think there's less mallards that make it down here? I don't have a good answer for that. Okay. I know people who are killing mallards just like they always did. And I know others who are saying they're just not here like they used to be. So I'm not trying to dodge the question, but I don't.

just I don't have a pat answer for that one. I will tell you this. I have a really good friend who lives over in Cameron Parris, Louisiana, which historically, I don't know if it still is, but historically, was the number one county in the United States as far as duck kill. And back in time, when he started duck hunting back in the 80s or early 90s, they killed tons of mallards, tons of pintails, tons of speckle bellies. I've hunted down there now five consecutive opening days,

and I've seen two mallards in all those trips. A little handful of pintails and a few specks here and there. Now, they still get plenty of gadwals, plenty of teal, spoons. But they don't, the mallards and the pintails just don't get there in any numbers. Yeah. And, of course, that's a lot of folks. over there, rightfully upset about that. That's the big question mark.

Yeah. You know, like what is a lot of- It's causing that. Right. That's what a lot of folks, and even the folks, and I'm talking about personally here, I've had, you know, some folks, they'll get angry when you start talking different theories. And from what I've deduced, even the folks that get angry, sometimes I get angry with me, if I share an opinion, I have deduced, I'm like, look, these guys, one thing we have in

common, they love waterfile, they love to duck hunt. So even when they get angry, they get angry, I, they, they love to duck hunt. So even when they get angry, it's coming from a good place, and I can appreciate that. You bet. And so that's why, again, it's like I'm curious. I've heard from the biologist. And so I'm just trying to gather opinions. What are you things going on?

You know, in your opinion, there's no right or wrong answer. It's just what do you think's happening? Well, I'll say this. This flooded corn phenomenon is not something that's been going on for decades and decades on a widespread basis. And that is the huge ticket item. Are all these private flooded corn reservoirs significant enough to affect migration? I have friends who have some.

I've seen, you know, the roost flights there. And you wonder, are all these ducks coming in here, ducks that used to go somewhere else? Yeah. I don't know. I was told, well, I know that there are. huge number of duck clubs up in the St. Louis area. That's a very historic duck hunting area where I think it's a Missouri and the Mississippi come together. And from what I understand, every club

plants corn. And one logical conclusion is that if you have thousands of acres of corn, you could affect the migration to some degree. So for what it's worth. I know in one of your prior podcast episodes, y'all touched on the global warming issue a little bit and made me think I really ought to take the time to go back through my journals, which go back all the way to 1976. And I have every hunt written down from then to now. And I would be able to tell you the days we were frozen up on a day-to-day, year-to-year basis. That would be... It would be interesting to look at that and see what truth was versus remembered perception. Sure.

We've had very hard freezes in the last few years, just like the ones that everybody remembers in the good old days. So, you know, by the same token, I hadn't broken any ice this year. We've had a lot of cold days, but I hadn't had to break ice yet. What about locally? You know, you've spent a lot of time hunting around the Mississippi Delta, even between, you know, your family land that you still hunt to maybe some other local places around there. What have you seen, have you seen any changes over the years through there about abundance of mallards? I would say our mallards have pretty much stayed about the same. Now, number-wise, they're up and down.

Yeah. Some years are better than others. That's just duck hunting. Yeah. But percentage-wise, I think our mallards about like they always have been. Personal observation on specific places. Yeah, that's good. You know, we don't go out and just there are no mallards.

Yeah. Some days, there may not be mallards, but overall, if I look across the course of a season or 10 seasons, I'd say percentage they're about the same. Yeah. I like hearing that. Yeah. Yeah, because again, some folks that, you know, they're ready to wave a red flag. They're like, yeah, this is bad. Yeah, I get that.

And I know people. I have friends who feel that way. How do you feel about the future of duck hunting? Do you think we have an optimistic future? I think we have to be optimistic. If we're not, what do we have left? I like that answer. You know, I can say for myself as long as I am able and have the opportunity to hunt them.

those ducks, I'm going to be going out there and trying for them. My approach has always been, if I'm not here in this office, behind this desk, and duck season is open, I'm going to be hunting ducks. And it's been that way for decades. Yeah. And without regard to the weather, I'll be out there every second I can get there. I'll tell you, speaking candidly here, this was such a fun interview. I love hearing from guys like Jim.

You can hear the deep appreciation and respect for waterfowl and waterfow hunting in everything that he said. How cool would it be to go back and look through some of those duck hunting journals he mentioned that go all the way back to 1976? I also was interested by some of the potential factors he listed off for what could be affecting these negative changes in hunting quality or mallard abundance, changes in agricultural practices, weather potentially, or the perceived. boom of flooded unharvested corn. That is definitely a hot topic these days. And I have my own opinions on that, but this episode is not about my opinions. So I hope you enjoyed hearing from Mr. Jim Cruz. I know I sure did. But now it's time to move on to our next duck hunter, my dear friend, B.C. Rogers, a lifelong duck hunter, owner of Ren and Ivy sporting and travel gear, and an all-around good guy. How old were you when you started duck hunting? The answer to

That question there wasn't a beginning because my mom and dad have always duck on it. And they duck on it together when I was born. But, you know, starting in the 70s. And so we don't, people have asked me that question a lot of times. I don't have any memory of not going. You don't really remember life before duck hunting? No, I mean, I remember when I was able to take a gun myself, I was seven, single shot 410.

Yeah. I took a BB gun before that, but I don't ever remember not going to the blind. Yeah. And my kids, Ren and Ivy, don't. I mean, I literally have pictures of them where they're in papooses. Yeah. I have an also picture of Ren. She's the oldest.

And she's in that baby Bjorn thing you wear in the front, zipped up in my hunting jacket. Of course, I can't shoot because I got a baby with like little camouflage cups on her ears. Yeah. Yeah. And same way. Of course, back then my dad was a smoker when I was a kid, and he would tear off cigarette butts and stick them in me and my sister's ears because they weren't earplugs. They didn't know. He would smoke a cigarette and tear the filters off and stick them in our ears. That's fantastic. Yeah, I don't have a – I think I probably killed my first duck when I was seven. But I don't have any memory of starting hunting.

So I don't want to assume here. Would that have taken place, all that would that have been? majority happened in the Mississippi Delta? No, 100% of it. Was it, yeah, at our family place that we've had my entire life. Yeah. In the blind that my mother and father and I will go to tomorrow morning. That's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And they're 78 and 76. That's pretty dadgum awesome. To start duck hunting so early that you can't really remember the beginning. And the memory of his dad using cigarette butts, his earplugs for them as kids, B.C., taking his own kids to duck hunt as infants and papoosus and camo earmuffs and to know that he took his parents at age 78 and 76 the day after I recorded this interview with him.

Man, what a story. This guy has some history with duck hunting, with the Mississippi Delta, and with their family hunting land. Let's dive in more. People talk about, man, the duck hunting in the 70s and the 80s and 90s. Talk to me about some of that, some of the ebb and flows that you saw with the changes and numbers perceived from where you were hunting that spot. What's interesting with my life as a waterfowler is that because my parents took us as babies and little bitty kids and we were always at the camp our whole life, my sister and I, I mean, I was there for the end of the point system. I was there for three ducks in 30 days.

I was there for the conversion between lead and steel. I like to think of myself as not a very old guy. I was there for those things and got to see them. And it gives me an interesting perspective when people, when we have a little bit of a drop in population like we're going through right now, I don't get too worked up about that because a few years of good conditions in the breeding grounds. And it comes right back. And I was there to see that happen. I was there to see my dad and his buddies in the early 80s. not realize that it was a resource that you could overutilize.

They didn't know. You know, these guys love ducks more than anybody, but they definitely shot over the limit, and they didn't realize it could go away. And then when the drought happened in the late 80s, in early 90s, I guess, and y'all can fact check me,

but that was my memory of when it happened. I saw them realize, wait a minute, this can all go away. And I saw them get really, dialed in on we're not going to overutilize this resource and we're going to do everything we can to send money where ducks are hatching and we're going to take care of them when they get here. I think that happened all over the continent and it happened in that age group.

You know, those guys are now all dying. But those guys that are in their 70s, sit them down and ask them about it because they'll tell you it'll go away. And a lot of people, another thing I saw in the late 80s, I guess. Lots of people quit duck hunting. You know, when it went to three ducks in 30 days, there were a lot of guys, you know, that were, you know, they were duck shooters. You know, they like to eat ducks.

They like to make gumbo. They go shoot some ducks. Those guys all quit. They went to deer hunting. As I'm telling you that, I'm thinking of all these guys that used to hunt with us that they just quit duck hunting. And it wasn't worth the time, effort, or money to go, you know, shoot one duck.

Sure. Two mallards. you know, for a period of time there, I hope that we don't get back to that. And I think it's really important that we do everything we can to keep from getting back to that. Because we'll lose all of this great community. Right. I say we'll lose them. We lost them before.

Yeah. And you just don't want that to happen again. I really don't. What do you remember the Delta looking like back then? Oh, man, I'm so glad you asked me that question. So the amount of land that is cleared now, you just can't imagine how much less. It was. We're talking about Mississippi.

Yeah. How many more rice fields there were and how many fewer cornfields there were. Of course, there was no, maybe there was, but I'd never seen a precision-leveled field. Yeah. So there was grass and crop that didn't get harvested in every field. There were little swags of water that had grass and, you know, it was a part of the field that they couldn't plant. So grass grew up in it or they couldn't harvest. So there was standing crop in it.

And there was just little pockets of habitat everywhere. If you drive through the Delta yesterday before this good rain that we're finally getting, it looked like a moonscape. I mean, I've been driving around for the last two months. And every field you pass by looks like a Walmart parking lot. Yeah. I mean, it's flat. There's zero water. It's great for the farmers.

And certainly not. I understand why we do that. But the Delta looked so different 25 years ago and even 15 years ago than it does today. And that's not even talking about what it looked like in the 80s. Right. There was just a lot of habitat. So you think, and this may seem like an obvious question, but I just, I don't want to assume anything. So would you think that we have a habitat problem down here?

We have a continuity of habitat problem, in my opinion. there's a lot of people who are spending a lot of money and effort to make their bee habitat, much more so than there used to be. Duck hunters used to be much more opportunistic. You had a bunch of land that you deer hunted and turkey hunted and duck hunted. When the water backed up into your field, then you got ducks and you shot some ducks. Now it seems that it's more focused around these habitat blocks where people are really making it perfect for ducks, which is really great for ducks,

but it doesn't have a lot of continuity across the landscape. So on a really dry year like this year, ducks are going to find those places that were able to pump water and have some food, whether they grew that food or some moist soil or however they do it. And ducks know, God created them, so he doesn't mess up. Ducks know, it hadn't rained. I've got water, I've got food.

There's no continuity of that habitat from here to the next place that has water and food, I'm going to stay right here. Yeah. And that's why when you drive around, you don't see ducks trading around because it's been so dry here. Yeah. Less so in other states in the southeast and certainly in other states, other places. But that for sure has affected this year in Mississippi and affects Mallards every year because the continuity of habitat is more spaced out. Right.

And you get these areas where there's a bunch of big landowners and WMA. and WMAs that are all kind of in one area, and then that becomes the duck area. 25 years ago, the whole Delta was a duck area because there were these pockets. There's a tuplograche right there, and there's a cypress slough over there, and in between them are 100 different swags of leftover grass and crop.

And the continuity is what's changed. A lot of folks would say right now we have a duck decline that we're going through right now. Would you agree with that? I don't think there's any way to disagree with that. Just making sure? Just making sure? Yeah.

I am not a duck expert. Most of what I can tell you is anecdotal. Sure. It's my observations. But I don't subscribe to the idea that I can judge an entire flyway by the 3,000 acres I pay attention to. My little place that I get to hunt and the 3,000 acres that surround it. And I think a lot of people do that.

I think that's very dangerous. but there's no question that we have a measurable percentage less ducks right now than we did at the peak, which wasn't very long ago. So something that's a challenge right now is that the young, and when I'm saying young, people who can still actively duck hunt were duck hunting at the peak of the population. And they weren't duck hunting in the 80s and early 90s when we saw those big declines. those people who have been here long enough to have seen the big decline and see it come back are less reactionary than these air quote newer people who started hunting at the peak of the population and now they're seeing 60% of that is what I'm hearing and they're thinking oh man the sky is falling yeah I don't subscribe to that I think that we have to continue to do the things that we're doing to make sure that when the weather conditions cooperate in the breeding grounds, that we're ready to take care of those birds. Right.

You don't change. You make sure that you've got it ready for them when they get here. I really appreciate BC's perspective and attitude here. Because of his literal lifetime spent duck hunting, he's seen declines before. He's seen the good and the bad. He's seen duck numbers and duck hunters go down and rally and be able to recover. Man, can I sure appreciate his optimism and his message of stay the course, keep the habitat here? Because when things do change back for the positive, we need to be ready.

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Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Before I wrap up with BC, I want to make sure I ask him about some of the topics that you hear come up these days. The alleged shortstopping of the migration or the shifting of the migration, the flooded cornfield topic, etc. No, certainly I hear those opinions that are not science-based in many cases. What is science-based is that in our lifetime, the freeze line was three or 400 miles further south than it is now. And that happened in mid-December. That's not opinion. You can look it up.

So when everything is frozen and covered in snow, ducks have to go past it. And when it's not frozen and covered in snow, they stay there. A duck is only going to migrate as far as he has to, and if it warms up, he'll go back. So the idea of short-stopping, I think that that's people saying that they've created a lot of habitat in an area that didn't have habitat. I don't know that that is statistically true. That habitat was there. It was frozen and covered in snow. Now, is there a lot more habitat throughout the flyway?

That's probably true. But you have to decide as a waterfowl, do I want to kill more ducks or do I want there to be more ducks? And a healthy duck in Missouri, I'm still happy he's there. I would love to see him land in my decoys someday. But if he's not healthy, he's never going to do that. So I'm never going to be upset about somebody making happy, healthy ducks north of me. I think that's short-sighted because I want there to be more ducks. Yeah.

And when the weather pattern changes again, which it almost inevitably will, there'll be more ducks. You don't change with the weather. Keep the plan. Make sure when they get here in February, it can be very frustrating for me and all of my friends. When you go three weeks after the season is closed or on Easter morning and all your duck holes are slam full of mallards and you didn't have a great season. but I like to try to think to myself, yeah, but they're going to be really happy and healthy when they're headed back.

So it's just a mindset. If you're unhappy because there are not ducks in your specific spot, it's important for you to expand what you're looking at. Are you looking at your one duck hole that's 40 acres? Are you looking at your county? Are you looking at the Delta, your state, the entire Mississippi flyway? because what's most important is, is there a healthy breeding population on the entire landscape?

Now, we can get into the minutia of why there's ducks here and not there. But the most important thing is that there are ducks. And we're still in a liberal framework, even though the duck numbers are down 40%. That tells you how great it was 15 years ago, because we're still in a liberal framework and we're down 40%. That says to you, there are plenty of very healthy breeding population of ducks in every species, and they're going to let us continue to hunt them. That should be more important than the 40 acres. That was some good stuff, B.C., and I'm going to quote him directly here.

He said, the most important thing is that there are ducks. And frankly, I agree. I hope every duck hunter out there would. To hear from our next duck hunter, we're going to have to hop a state line and head over to Louisiana. Wade Shoemaker is one of those guys who can pretty much be described by how much he likes to duck on. And also, in the name of getting some different perspectives, I thought it would be important that we hear from a Louisiana man about this Mallor-declined subject as well. Here's Wade.

I would tell you that we killed more than not knowing what we were doing. I wouldn't say more, but we killed a lot more than we should have, not knowing what we were doing than we do now, you know, even knowing halfway what's going on. I mean, I can tell you just in the last 10 years, people would call that I'm friends with it that I met over the internet, you know, for the most part. And we became pals and we met each other other other places. But they wanted to come hunt and they'd never kill them out or something like that, you know. And I was like, well, if you ever come down, come on, let's go hunt. And we'll for sure get that, you know.

Well, now I don't really tell them that anymore. I'm like, look, we'll go and we'll try, you know, but like we don't know where the water's going to be. We don't know what the weather's going to be like. And used to it didn't matter. Used to, you're going to go shoot some. You don't matter to shoot a lot, but we're going to shoot some. And now I don't. I mean, I'm optimistic about it, but I'm also realistic that it, the likelihood of it is way, way less than it used to be.

Yeah. We shot some this year, a few, but like last year, year before last, we didn't hardly shoot what we did six, eight, ten years ago, you know? And this is a late, like, it's a floating blind that stays there. decoys out the whole year. You basically are running traffic or waiting on a flight day, you know, and even on the days like the flight days, it's just not what it was. Yeah. So we know that Wade has seen and felt the effects of Les Mallards making it down to the lower portion of the Mississippi Flyway. No surprise there. I now want to know what he thinks is causing it. I think it's climate. I think it's pressure. And I think it's

development. I think those are the three things that play a larger role in any of it. it. You've got to, you know, it's not, I mean, dude, we ran over a snake today on the road. I asked my buddy Hunter, he's, he's filmed, we're on boat ramp tour, so we were filming, and we were just going, we weren't filming at this point, but we were going on the road, and Hunter was beside me, a camera guy, and I'm like, did I just run over a snake? You know, I thought it was a stick, and then I saw, and he's like, I think you did. So we got out to look at it. Sure enough, snake. And it's, what, January the 9th? So that plays a role, man. Um, birds aren't going to come down.

for a summer vacation, you know, they're going to roll out and go back home where they're comfortable and do their thing or back towards that way. Anyway, I think pressure is a large piece of it. You've got, and this is like no shot at anybody. Like, I'm not trying to knock anybody doing it because I hunt as many days as I can. Everybody does, and I can't blame them for it, you know. But on top of that, you've also got an exponent of outfitters than you did 20 years ago. I don't know about 30. There probably wasn't hardly any, you know, but now you've got them everywhere. And I get asked a lot of like, hey, who should I go with when I go here? And I'm like, well, dude, there's so many in that area that, like, I can't, I can give you

a couple guys that I know, but there's so many. I don't even, I can't keep up with them. So, and I'm just giving you a very, like, high level of that. Like, I don't want to get real granular with it, but it's, it's that. But then also, I think it's development. And, and I'm going to put this together, but development and lack of management. And I don't know where that blame lies, but I think that's a big part of it. And it's crazy because the development part you can't stop. That's progress, right? Like, you've got to build buildings. You've got to create jobs. You've got to keep moving things. And people build houses. There's more people than there was now. And they've got to live somewhere. So I think there's a lot more concrete than there used to be. There's a lot more buildings than there used to be. And just like local, where I live, solar panels are a big thing. And I consider that part of development, right? I think solar panels or whatever that is, whatever it does, I'm not going to get into that because I don't. I don't know enough to talk about it, right? But I do know that it takes away from a field that birds used to go hang out in and eat and whatever they do.

So that's a big part of it. And then right up the road from all these solar panels that have been put in by where I live, there's meta just bought 2,000 acres in a very important part of where birds fly over. It's a meta AI facility. And then I was told a month or two ago that Google just put a bid in on another large piece of property over there. We're talking northeast Louisiana, dude. Ain't nothing out there. Like, you know, farms and all this stuff and like lowland.

Anyway, you get what I'm saying. And then the lack of management part is just like on the public land that we do hunt. You know, like, dude, we used to go hunt these holes and all these things at home. You go in and stand in a hole and you shot dust because it was a hole. But now you go in those places and they're either grown up with coffee bean that you can't even get in a hole anymore. There's buck brush all over it or whatever it is. Just crap, dude. Like, I mean, there's a lot better adjutant to describe it, but this isn't the place.

And it's not good. There's holes that we can't hunt anymore. And then there's sanctuaries or no hunt zones that aren't no hunt zones anymore. Or they create no hunt zones that are literally just a tennis match of just like back and forth over the hunt zone. Yeah. You know, and I'm going on a rabbit trail. Like, I'm going like way off now. but the birds we used to hunt when you only had one part of that refuge.

They had plenty of room. They could hang out. But as the water rose up, it would force them to go somewhere else and use the rest of the refuge and create more opportunities for hunters. And at the end of the day, the goal is to have more ducks. But if you have people that aren't enthusiastic or excited to go hunting anymore, then you're going to lose the funding that pays for those things that help create more ducks. Yeah. lack of management. And the other side is you've got private landowners who are managing the crap out of their stuff. And it shows, like, that's why they got ducks, you know?

I feel like a lot of what Wade is saying aligns with what we heard from our previous guests, climate, habitat losses. And he also brings up a good point about hunting pressure. Could that be a significant factor? Moving forward with Wade, I feel like there's one specific topic that I just have to bring up, especially with him being Louisiana resident. Earlier this month, Louisiana Senator John Kennedy called upon the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to study the impact of what he referred to as unfair legal baiting, otherwise known as a flooded cornfield, and its alleged effects on waterfowl migration. Some of you have probably heard of this already because it's a hot topic right now. I want to hear Wade's take on this. I'm just going to say, like, I have a really hard time of telling anybody what they can do with the property they own.

you can talk about flooding corn or whatever other extreme you want to talk about when it comes to ducks and food. You know, I have a hard time saying they can't do something on their property because they own it, right? Now, as long as everything they're doing with whatever they're doing is legal when it comes to shooting those birds, like don't go crazy and go over your limit every day. But if you're shooting your limit, that's why there's a limit, right? So I guess mine is, if you got it and you're doing it, more power to you. Like, I, you know, sure you might shoot ducks when I'm not or hold ducks when we're not. But, like, you're holding ducks and feeding ducks, dude.

Like, thank you. But, you know, the downside is, well, there's less, we're not going to shoot as many because they're holding them. And I don't have a problem with that. But Kennedy, man, and I generally, like, enjoy listening to him talk because I think he's one of those guys that's no nonsense and likes to say things. It's honestly pretty hilarious if you listen to some of the things that he lets come out. But I think he's got some people in his ear. that's telling him things and he's just trying to appease. Maybe he believes it.

I don't know, but I think it's an appeasing thing. But also, I think it's kind of short-sighted, if I can say that. You're looking at a thing that's been developing over 30 years. In early 2000s, Louisiana was shooting three to four million birds on the harvest report, and now we're shooting under a million. That's a, you know, two-plus decade decline. And corn's not what caused that over two decades. There's several things that come into play there.

And I call it short-sighted because there's obviously other things. But also, man, I didn't see anything in his letter that talked about what we would do as a state to help improve what happens when we get them. If we want to force people to, hey, you quit doing what you're doing because you're doing really good. We have to also say, you can trust us with the resource once we get it, right? And that goes up to the lack of management side. Like, you've got saltwater intrusion down here. You've got development. You've got crops.

There's a bunch of sugar cane down there now. And it's like, dude, Dougs don't eat sugar cane. But they did eat what was in that field before you planted sugar cane. And I'm not mad at a farmer for chasing a commodity. You got to get paid. I'm not. But I mean, let's look at ourselves first. Like, what can we do to be better if we're expecting these people to change what they're doing?

You know, let's change what we're doing first. And then let's let's talk about what we can do collaboratively. to make sure we all have that opportunity, right? This topic brings out a lot of different opinions. I know that. Y'all know that. I think what's important to keep in focus here is that we as a hunting community all want good duck hunting

and most importantly, healthy waterfowl populations, regardless of how our opinions may differ. For our final interview of this episode, I want to introduce y'all to my good friend, Jay Janice, a man who hails from the Mississippi Delta and loves ducks and duck dogs as much as anyone you could ever hope to find. If you hear some odd background noise during any of this, it might be because I conducted this interview in Jay's mudroom slash storage building,

and the wind was blowing pretty good, and our two dogs were playing with one another while we talked. This one's as real as it gets. I talked to Jay about his early memories from duck hunting in the 80s and 90s, and honestly, it pretty much mirrored identically what we've heard from earlier guests. More ducks and geese around. The land looked a lot different. There was more water, more habitat, colder weather.

Where I want to pick up this conversation with Jay is when he's talking about a factor that we've not brought up yet. When I moved away from here 18, 19 years ago, I started hunting with a group of guys in that area where I moved. And the main guy who's got the land, he does it right. And he's on the X. You know, I just so fortunate that he asked me to go. Sure.

And, man, we were doing very well. for many, many, many, many years. Like when we were killing, when other people weren't killing. And he had a, there was a refuge not far from him. Like, no hunting. You know, the government flooded up for ducks, planted corn, and all that.

And I'm telling you, we, we stood on them. We had five men. We were killing five men, mountain limits. It was like something I've never seen. Right. I've been hunting out here. I was like, my gosh, we had it good out here. Yeah.

That was something. And they stopped flooding that refuge. We still kill, but it's nothing like it used to be. Yeah. You know. But the last several years have been tough for everybody, but you don't see the ducks. I mean, you just don't see them in the air. I mean, was there ever any clarity as to why they stopped flooding that refuge?

I think there's some people involved finding out what happened and if they're going to start doing it again and all that. But I'm not involved enough in that to even. No. Because, well, there's talking about ducks and the state of duck hunting down here. One thing that I do stand on, there's a lot of factors in there, right, of what's causing it. And I do hear folks because folks back, man, our refuge systems and our WMAs, they need to be in better shape, they need to be flooded. One thing I do say is I'm like, I agree with that. But also, you got to realize if you took all the refuges and WMAs in the Mississippi Delta, you wouldn't, I don't think you'd account for

10% of the land mass of the Mississippi Delta. Right. However. Every little bit helps. Every little. Yeah. So I don't know the why. And like I said, I'm, I'm a fan of most biologists.

I'm a fan of our wildlife department. So I don't, you know, I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus here. But because maybe there's some legitimate reasons as to why. But if it's a waterfile refuge or a waterfile WMA, if it, I would be starting to ask why it doesn't have water on it. As a resident here, you know. Let's take this situation we're talking about. And yes, you can put weather in it and everything else on the pie chart in there, right? But to see the decline in numbers of the ducks from when that refuge was managed to when it's not, it was immediate.

Really? Yeah. It was an immediate decline. And what you saw in the air? Because we would have, you know, several hundred circling like this. We called it the curse because nobody wanted to be first to come down because we're field hunting, you know, and it's tough. That's a tough environment to get a big group down. Oh, for sure.

My conversation with Jay went on for quite some time. And I wish I had time to share all of it. But he does bring up an interesting point in terms of how some of our public lands set aside for waterfile are managed. I've seen this topic come up a lot. And could that be a factor? I definitely don't have all the answers. but perhaps that's worth looking into. To wrap this conversation up,

I'm going to go back to Jay for something I know I can always count on him for. Optimism. But yeah, it's amazing, man, how it's changed. I just keep thinking, man, I do know like two years ago when the weather got right there for just a little bit. It got right in Missouri, Arkansas, everything, it got right, right. But everything in the fields were locked up, shallow water was locked up. They still come down here when the weather.

gets right i saw them on the river it was as many as i've ever seen as many i've ever seen out there yeah in the i mean it was just i couldn't believe it yeah you know it's got to get better yeah yeah it's got to get better you could think but i tell you one thing that has been encouraging every one of these every one of these duck hunters that i've talked to everyone's acknowledged that it's not great right now but i haven't met anybody that's been like Like, this is the end. We're screwed. Everyone's still holding on to some optimism.

You know why? You know, a friend of mine from North Carolina, he's 82 now or 81. I don't know. His name's Reggie. He told me this a long time ago. Hello, that man. I started hunting with him a long time ago. Another one of my best friends here.

And every time we were on a bad hunter or something, he would say, Jay, Hope Springs. Turnling a duck hunter's heart. So that's what you got, man. There's always next year. Yeah. Always next year. I like that.

And because a lot of times next year happens. Yeah. Next year happens. Hope springs eternal in a duck hunter's heart. That's correct. That's correct. I like that. Hope springs eternal in a duck hunter's heart.

I'm going to hold on to that one. That's good stuff, Jay. and I think we'll end on that. I want to thank all of you for listening to Backwoods University, as well as Bear Greece and this country life. I cannot over-emphasize how much we all appreciate you tuning in. If you like this episode, share it with a friend this week, and stick around because there's a whole lot more on the way.

On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping day. and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a head. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving,

the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness,

and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments, and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.