Photo by Marc Murrell

The numbers don't lie. The January 2004 Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries waterfowl population estimate was 3.4 million ducks. The January 2005 estimate was 2.5 million. The January count came in well below the previous five-year and long-term averages for January (3.9 and 3.1 million).

No doubt about it -- duck numbers are way down. However, southwest Louisiana tends to hold more of the ducks that are in the state -- and that's still a lot of ducks.

"No doubt it's been slower than normal," said Jeff Poe of Big Lake Guide Service in Lake Charles. "It's been tolerable the first split, but the second split has been off a little. It seems like we aren't getting any new ducks during the second split, and the ones that are here are pretty well educated. We've been getting a good shot of ducks early in October. . . . They behave fairly normal during the first split."

The numbers definitely indicate that there are ducks in this part of the state. The January 2005 estimate counted 108,000 mallards, 401,000 gadwalls, 446,000 green-winged teal and 150,000 pintails.

While numbers for all except greenwings were down from the 2004 count, the big-picture look shows that southwest Louisiana held notably more dabblers than southeast Louisiana. The January 2005 estimate showed only 10,000 mallards, 152,000 green-winged teal and 23,000 pintails in southeast Louisiana. Gadwalls came in at 537,000 in the southeastern part of the state.

Totaling all the dabblers, southwest Louisiana held a 516,000-bird advantage over southeast Louisiana, and that should have hunters in the southwestern corner of the state feeling at least a little bit better.

"We've got such good habitat down here," Poe said. "There's thousands of miles of marsh, and we've got numerous rice fields. The birds tend to roost in the marsh during the day and move to the rice fields at night to eat."

Of course, the ducks in southwest Louisiana get the best of both worlds. They can go the rice fields to eat, or they can eat in the marsh. Take your pick -- rice or widgeon grass. It's no wonder more dabbler ducks favor southwest Louisiana.

Dennis Tietje has been hunting ducks in southwest Louisiana long enough to come up with a couple of his own theories regarding why the ducks favor his part of the state.

"I know we've got a lot of good marshy areas down here," said Tietje, "but I think the main draw is all the rice fields we have here. We've got so many people putting in crawfish ponds who turn around and grow rice during the winter. . . . The ducks have a ton of stuff to eat. There are so many ponds here now that southwest Louisiana looks like one giant lake from the air."

Tietje, who typically hunts his own ponds, agreed with Poe that the ducks would feed in the rice fields at night and fly to the marsh during the day.

"Hunters hunting the public marsh around here may not have an outstanding first hour," he said, "but if they'll wait it out, the ducks leaving the rice fields are going to show up sooner or later. At times, the marsh hunters will do as well as, if not better than, the rice field hunters. A good rainy day may keep them in the rice fields all day, but a clear, sunny day will send them straight to the marsh."