Teal season off to promising start

Submitted photo/ Brooklyn Foreman 9, from Walker holds some of the teal a party of hunters from Iowa, Louisiana and Missouri took on the opening weekend of the early teal season on the Schell-Osage Conservation area.

Nevada Daily Mail

A tradition of duck hunting on opening day for more than 40 years continued last weekend when hunters from Iowa, Louisiana, and Missouri converged on the Schell-Osage Conservation Area to open the 2014 early teal season.

Siman Seidel, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Mark Monday, of Heflin, La., joined Missourians David Forman and daughter, Brooklin, Walker, Charles Monday, of Lee's Summit and Roy Garreans, of Schell City for an opening weekend of teal hunting.

Seidel said, "We had a good hunt. The ducks flew right beside the blind just before shooting time. We waited until shooting time, but the ducks quit flying. Then, when several bunches flew by, we missed the first two bunches before we finally connected.

"By the time we decided to head back in, we had 15 blue-wings. Those teal are a big challenge, they fly very fast and can fool you."

Charles Monday said, "We really like to hunt ducks. Its become a tradition for some of us. We get together and have a good time. The weather on opening day made good duck hunting. It was cool and wet. We saw some big ducks and several wood ducks, but most of the birds were blue-wings."

Teal hunting is unlike the regular duck season. The small migrants usually fly close to the water's surface and are hard to see in time to get a shot off before they get beyond gun range.

Since the first special teal season opened in 1965, more hunters have taken advantage of the opportunity to duck hunt in late summer when the hunting pressure is much lower than the regular duck season, especially on conservation areas. With a daily limit of six teal, early hunters may have plenty of action to bag a limit of these small ducks.

The September teal season is unlike the regular fall duck season in many ways. Bob Moore, a veteran duck hunter from Jefferson City, told me that it doesn't seem right to go hunting in 80 degree temperatures.

Moore said, "When I think of duck hunting, I think of cold and wet weather, not warm or hot weather. You have to suffer to be a real duck hunter. I tried teal hunting last year and I liked it more than I thought I would. Those small birds give a hunter a real test and I also found they are very good on the dinner table. I plan on doing some teal hunting this year, especially since there are a lot of birds heading this way and with a daily limit of six, it makes it worthwhile."

As the early teal season opened, conditions at Schell-Osage were improving. The recent rains helped bring up the water level on the area, but officials say much more water is needed before the regular season opens in the fall.

The crops on the area are good this summer and if there is more water available by the time the regular season opens, the ducks should find conditions to their liking. As the season opened, cooler weather helped move more teal to the area with more than 300 blue-wings.

Matt McConnell, at Schell-Osage said, "If we continue to get some rain, the hunting will improve and the forecast for much cooler weather should bring in more teal. On opening day there were 16 hunters that killed 59 teal for a 3.7 average. By the time the regular duck season opens, we should have good water conditions for the predicted good flight of birds."

At the nearby Four Rivers Conservation Area, several hundred teal moved in just prior to opening day. Chris Daniel, manager at Four Rivers reported fewer than 50 teal were on the area two days before the opening weekend of the early season.

With few exceptions, waterfowl have had a remarkable run. The total duck population estimates have hit record highs in three of the past four years. The 49.2 million birds in the breeding grounds was an 8 percent increase from last year and the largest estimate since the standardized surveys began back in 1955.

If water and weather conditions are right, it looks like a very good season for Missouri duck hunters this fall.