Waterfowl hunting season underway in south zone

Some young duck hunters waiting for the ducks to arrive. (Photo courtesy of Missouri Department of Conservation)

Weather suited for ducks greeted the opening weekend of waterfowl hunting in the state's south zone. The duck season in the south zone will continue through Jan. 24, 2016, while hunting for Canada geese will continue through Jan. 31, 2016.

As the season opened in the south zone over the Thanksgiving weekend, hunters found a growing number of mallards moving into the state. An earlier count of ducks has shown that this popular duck numbers made up 28 percent of the ducks in Missouri, but the most recent count included 68 percent of mallards in the numbers of migrating ducks.

At Four Rivers Conservation Area, the latest count of ducks had more than 56,000 including nearly 30,000 mallards while nearby Schell-Osage Conservation Area had 42,000 ducks with 38,000 mallards.

There are still a lot of ducks moving into north Missouri. At Grand Pass Conservation Area, there were more than 180,000 ducks with 135,000 mallards, which are making area duck hunters happy.

November started out with temperatures above average, but as it's been said many times before, " if you don't like the weather in Missouri, just wait, it will change."

Hunters like Jim Parker earlier in November said, "Since we hadn't had a freeze yet, the hunting has been poor." Today, Parker said, "I had ducks working my decoys and had my limit on opening day in the south zone. It was a good duck hunting weekend although it rained most of the time."

Although the hunting conditions weren't the best, some hunters couldn't have had it any better. Hunting in a cove at Stockton Lake, Kent Roberts and Fred Simms threw out a few decoys and waited.

Their wait wasn't long before a flock of teal-buzzed their makeshift blind and on their second run, the hunters were ready and dropped three birds. A few minutes later more ducks passed by and the hunters added four more teal. In less than an hour, about 20 mallards sailed into the cove and the hunters ended the day with their limit.

Roberts said, "It was the best opening-day I have ever had and I have hunted ducks for nearly 20 years. I had a preview of opening day in the middle zone, but it wasn't as good as last weekend's hunt. Though it was rainy, I have always heard that to be a successful duck hunter, you have to suffer a little."

A sight duck hunters would like to see now that the duck season is open statewide. (MDC photo)

The Missouri waterfowl season should continue to be a good one. With the population of both ducks and geese up from past seasons, hunters are looking forward to some great waterfowl hunting. If it continues like it was for the hunters who braved the rain on opening day, it will be the best in years.

In some areas the goose population has gotten out of control, especially for snow and blue geese. In fact, the birds are hurting other waterfowl species by destroying nesting areas. In many areas of the state, Canada geese have become year-round residents and nearly every farm pond of any size, is home to Canada geese.

Larry Thomas, Blue Springs, used to hunt geese, but now he said, "I don't hunt geese anymore because there are so many of them it is almost like shooting your pet, so I quit hunting them. I'll leave it to the other hunters."

A flock of Canada geese resting on Stockton Lake prior to the opening day of the second part of the split-season, which started Thanksgiving day and will run through Jan. 31, 2016. (Photo by Ken White)

With weather forecasts more suitable to duck hunting, hunters are gearing up for a big season.

The duck season in the north zone will continue through Dec. 29, in the middle zone the season runs through Jan. 5, and in the south zone, where the season opened Nov. 26, it will run through Jan. 24.