Texas Hunting Leases

Thirty or so minutes after shooting time and three of us are sitting in the blind with arms folded across our laps.  Beside us are four Teal ducks representing two of the three North American species to migrate south each fall.  In Texas, these would either be Green-winged or Blue-winged Teal.  Their Cinnamon Teal brethren rarely make their southerly migration through Texas, opting for a more westerly route along the Pacific coast flyway. With fifteen ducks in the blind, we are waiting for the sixteenth candidate to appear over our decoys so the fourth hunter in our party can round out a full limit.  In typical duck hunting fashion, someone sitting in the lucky part of the blind got more shots off than the other guy and thus has his limit first.  Today, the slowest seat in the house happened to be in the interior of the blind, second from the left end as you look out over the decoys.

As experienced and passionate waterfowl hunters, this does not pose a problem or a bragging contest for those with their limits.  Although it does not eliminate the obligatory ribbing or commentary on poor shooting, if that was the case.  On the contrary, everyone is respectful of the fact that they just happened to be on the side of the blind where the ducks decided to come into the decoy spread.  In a four-man blind situation, it is common eitiquette, and just plain safe, to shoot only those ducks within your “quadrant” of the firing zone.  Starting from left to right as you look out of the blind, the guy on the left looks for and shoots ducks as they come into the decoys at “nine o’clock” to eleven o’clock.  The two middle guys get eleven to one o’clock and the right guy gets the one to three o’clock on the imaginary grid.  If you get a decent group of ducks to come in, the outside guys wait for the ducks to enter the middle quadrant so that everyone gets a shot and, on singles, the middle guys alternate.  The problem is the ducks do not always cooperate.  Today was just one of those days for the second slot shooter who happened to be next to me on my right - me being the left-end hunter.

I, for one, appreciate a patient gun.  I find it more satisfying to pick good shots and therefore insure a swift dispatch of the bird than see a rushed shot lead to a lost cripple. And, I appreciate those who practice the same restraint.  In this case, my immediate neighbor had done just that.  He waited for the right shots and as a result got to enjoy watching the ducks work their way into the decoys and admire the other hunters make shots in the process.  If there were a golfer’s par equivalent in duck hunting, it would probably be a ratio of one shell per bird harvested.  Since most golfers do not shoot par, a respectable ratio of shells shot to birds harvested would probably be 1.5 to one.  Anything north of two per bird is probably grounds for taking a little more time at the range or practicing some patience on the trigger. 

So, at about forty minutes after shooting time, our last hunter sees a single teal banking in from right to left as he approaches the decoys.  He leans forward on the bench, eyes just above the brushy camouflague of the blind.  The rest of us do the same except with guns empty and held low behind the cover.  As if on cue, the duck cups his wings right in the middle of the two group decoy spread in front of us and our last shooter pops up with one fluid motion, aims, and dispatches the final bird for our limit.  Forty minutes and done.  Not a particularly fast Teal hunt but those are not always the best anyways.  I am of the opinion that having some singles mixed in with a few good groups makes for a better hunt and stretches things out a bit.  Today was exactly that.

As we made our way back to our staging area, other groups of hunters from different ponds began to show up.  Leaning against an ATV or sitting on the tailgate of a truck, the men start to tell stories of this shot and that.  One guy got a double out of group, another guy missed a fully-cupped teal ten yards away.  And so goes the jawing back and forth while I start to put my gear away.  I looked in my shell bag and pulled out my box of 12 gauge #4’s and took note of the number of shots I took for the morning.  Looks like I am perilously close to needing some range time next week, or maybe a little more patience.

Every year, around mid-August, I walk out into the garage and dig around for a small object that brings me hours of relaxation.  Somewhere behind the bird seed, next to the car wash stuff it sits waiting for this day to arrive.   I grab it and its two identical friends and head into the house.  Taking a measuring cup, I mix three parts water to one part sugar and begin to fill each one of them up with the irresistable atractant.  My Humingbird feeders are a very simple design with a bug moat and 6 small feeder ports drilled into a red snap-on lid.  I hang them in succession along the fence outside of the kitchen window so that every morning I have chance at having my moring coffee with them.   You can almost set your watch by their arrival each year to our back yard.  When they come, you  most certainly know that flights of early Teal are arriving in coastal rice fields as well.

The annual migration of North American birds, in general, lines up from small to large.  With the arrival of my aerobatic friends, I know that it will soon be time to go afield to see the first waterfowl to arrive on the scence -Teal ducks or “rice rockets” as hunters call them here.  This honor bestowed on them because they love the rice fields to feed and frolic in as they make their way south.  While scouting our duck leases this past weekend, we saw dozens of them in tight formation buzzing over uncut rice looking for a place to land.  Although out of their winter plumage, their flights are as beautiful and exilerationg as watching an air show with the Navy’s Blue Angels as the main event.

When I got home tonight, I looked out the window and there was our first visitor.  A beautiful male ruby-throated humming bird perched on a feeder, nourishing itself for its annual pilgrimage to the southern tropics.  Now, its time to go out in the garage and dig around for those small decoys in the bag somewhere in the back.  Their time will soon be here. 

Note: Learn more about Texas Hummingbirds here!

AUSTIN, Texas — With the approval of season dates and bag limits Aug. 23, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission set the parameters for what could be one of the best waterfowl hunting season in many years.

Vernon Bevill, program director for small game at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, presented the commission with data showing near record duck populations building to the north and improved habitat conditions on the breeding grounds and awaiting them in Texas. This year’s North American waterfowl spring breeding population survey showed populations of the 10 most popular duck species was up 14 percent over last year with an estimated 41.2 million birds. These counts are the highest since 2000 and just below the all-time record of 43.8 million ducks recorded in 1999.

Texas, along with four other states in the Central Flyway, will be in the second year of an experimental Hunter’s Choice bag limit during the 2007-08 seasons. The Hunter’s Choice allows hunters to shoot five ducks daily, but only one in the aggregate of certain species. In the aggregate category of one bird could be either a mallard hen, or a pintail, or a canvasback, or a “dusky duck” (mottled, black duck or Mexican-like duck) . Since hunters are more likely to take a mallard, the mallard hen thus buffers the other less abundant species.

The general duck season length will be the same as last year in the North and South Zones at 74 days and up seven days in the High Plains Mallard Management Unit to 96 days.

Here are this year’s waterfowl hunting seasons and bag limits:

Early Teal — Sept. 15-23 in the HPMMU and Sept. 15-30 in the remainder of the state, bag limit of four teal in the aggregate. (Previously approved by the commission May 24.)

North and South Zones — Youth-only season Oct. 27–28, regular season Nov. 3–25 and Dec. 8–Jan. 27.

High Plains Mallard Management Unit — Youth-only season Oct. 13–14; Oct. 20–21 and Oct. 26–Jan. 27 for the regular season.

The proposed daily bag limit for all ducks is five and may include no more than two redheads, two scaup, two wood ducks, and one aggregate “Hunter’s Choice” duck.

Eastern Goose Zone — White-fronted geese: Nov. 3–Jan. 13; Canada and light geese: Nov. 3–Jan. 27.The daily bag limit is three Canada, two white-fronted and 20 light geese.

Western Goose Zone — Nov. 3–Feb. 5 with a daily bag limit of five dark geese, of which four may be Canada geese and one white-fronted. The bag limit on light geese is 20 per day.

The possession limit is twice the daily bag limit for Canada and white-fronted geese and no possession limit for “light geese.”

The Light Goose Conservation Order will start at the close of the regular goose seasons and run through March 30 in both zones.

Sandhill Crane Zone A — Nov. 3-Feb. 3 with a daily bag limit of three.

Sandhill Crane Zone B — Nov. 23-Feb. 3 with a daily bag limit of three.

Sandhill Crane Zone C — Dec. 22-Jan. 27 with a daily bag limit of two.