FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
FM Talk Outdoors - 8-31-24
It's time to talk about the outdoors in South Alabama, hunting, fishing, and getting outside along the Great Gulf Coast. It's time to take it outside with FMTalk 1065 Outdoors with reports, stories, how-to information, and Dr. Bill's Marine forecast. Here's Sean Sullivan and Mike Ward. All right, here we go, FMTalk 1065 Outdoors. And you would think maybe this was pre-planned, it was not Mike is on assignment this week, but it's okay. We don't need, don't need Mike on this week's show. But I mean, we miss him, but we don't need him so much. When he comes back, we'll talk more about what he's been up to in the last week since we've talked on today's show, and it couldn't be at a more important time. If you like things that fly and migrate, today's show is the one for you. Of course, we're on the cusp of a new month, the month of September that really, and I know people will argue that hunting gets started again in August because of the Gator hunt, some people we've been calling Gator fishing, but in my opinion, it really gets cranked up in the month of September as Dove season and Blue Wing Teal season are back in the mix. And so we get ready for this with our discussion with, he is a man where so many hats. Now he is, he's been on with us over the years as a migratory bird coordinator with the State of Alabama, but also Assistant Chief of Wildlife at Alabama Department of Conservation, Natural Resources, and how many other hats Seth Maddox are you wearing right now? I mean, how many, how many you get on? Hey, Seth. I don't think I lost you. Yeah, there you go. You're back. All right. Seth, Seth Maddox, I was kind of delineating right now, not only a migratory bird coordinator that has been a title that's gone with you all the years you've talked to us, but now, also, you are Assistant Chief of Wildlife at the DCNR. What other hats I got you wearing now, too? Are you like the personal bird shoeer? You go up into the north and shoe the birds down here to Alabama. What do you do? Yeah, a little bit of everything. Yeah. So Grant and everything up from there. So yeah, a little bit of everything. Well, it's, it's a good thing. A little bit of every people say, what do you do around the radio station? I said, yes. Yeah, exactly. Do all the things. Man, it is exciting as a, as somebody likes to hunt doves and likes to hunt doves this month of September coming is exciting. I have over the years learned so much about doves from you that people need to pay attention when you talk because doves are, it depends on who you talk to, right? I mean, Seth, I'm sure your phone rings with people going, man, we don't have any doves anymore. What's happened to the doves? Do you hear that? So, you know, it's definitely location-wise, you know, regionality, you know, so yeah, it's regional and those areas, some areas, you know, people aren't seeing what they used to see. And, you know, the population was really high there for a while. And now it's dropping down, you know, and maybe into a new norm of a few less birds. You know, it depends on what the habitat is important. You know, the habitat's always changing, especially with construction and stuff going on. So, you know, population is ever-changing, but still, you know, high numbers of birds, as far as we go. We still have the 90-day season, the 15-bird bag limit per day. So, still looking good there. So, it's just depending on the area. Yeah, and you mentioned that, too, that I guess it's, it should have been obvious, but especially as somebody like me, that, you know, that duck hunt's a good bit, that there's fluctuation in populations. But I guess growing up, you know, we'd go, and we're going to talk duck numbers with you this hour, but we would go, you know, field and stream would come up before the internet, right, to come out with the duck count for the year. We had to take it to school and be reading it and talk about, "Oh, look at the mallards up," or, "This is up and down." But then we'd go dove hunting and never thought that those populations should have any kind of cyclical nature. I just assumed it'd be the same number of doves that were the year before, but they also have this kind of, you know, peaks and valleys. Yeah, maybe not as much fluctuation in the, in there, but it does, you know, there were, you know, in the late '90s, early 2000s, really high population numbers that does have come back down a little bit, and maybe that's, maybe that's okay. Maybe the habitat was really good there for a while, and it could support high numbers of birds, but maybe this is the, maybe this is the new stabilized population trend that we have. It's a little lower than what it has been, but still a good number of birds. Okay, so, and I want to get into the migration portion of this before we finish up today, but if we're talking about habitat and supporting or creating more important creating new doves, we've got, we get migratories, but we also raise our own, right? The doves, you've told me in general that we're hunting early in the season probably came from somewhere around you, right? Or is that true? No, that's 100% true, and I think most of those we shoot throughout the season are local birds. We do get some migratory birds probably later in the season, but, you know, probably 90 plus percent of what we shoot here in the state or raised here in the state. So, you know, it's important to have that habitat component out there for doves, you know, they need some open ground. They don't have really strong feet, so they can't scratch up like turkey's wood, so they have to, you know, kind of pick and choose where they go to feed and find seed on the ground. They can pull it off the stalk, you know, but other than that, you know, they need some some roosting cover too, you know, that's close to where they're feeding and some water, and especially some grit, so they can grind that food up in their crop, but, you know, all that's kind of, you know, with clean farming, some of that habitat being lost as far as hedgerows, so like breeding cover, and then, you know, there's not as much waste grain in the field anymore with the new technology either. This is what I think what's important too is we, so much of the dove discussion, I mean, I'm completely guilty of it. And, you know, whether it's just parsley or you're on social media, what we all talk about is how to get our fields ready to get those doves in there, you know, come September, right, to hunt. Very little discussion do I ever see about what we're doing to create more doves? It's just, you know, think a lot of us don't think about that, right? We're just focused on getting those things laid out, come hunting season, but you know, they were making new doves all summer long. So you mentioned like got a clean farming, but what in the summertime they're making nest, do they need certain kind of trees? And then you're talking about having, you know, with their wheat scratchers and things, we think about how we're going to set up the field and I'm going to burn this millet field so it's seeds exposed and they can, they don't have to dig it. But what am I doing during the summer to make more, have more success for doves nesting? I mean, is that it? Should I have a field that's dirt during the summertime? Does that help them make more babies? What do I need to do? I mean, it definitely doesn't hurt. You know, if you, you know, it all goes all cyclical year around kind of management. So if you're, if you're right now preparing your field, if you haven't planted anything yet, you're most likely you're going to top sow some winter wheat. So, you know, letting that come up and grow throughout the wintertime and, you know, preparing some of that in the spring to, you know, allow them to feed on that, that crop in the spring, you know, bushelving some of that down, leaving some standing throughout the spring to provide some food there. And then, you know, you're planting, if you're planting during the spring, you're putting in likely millet or sunflowers or sorghum or something like that. So, you know, having some type of rotational crop in there, you know, provides that seed. Even if you're doing like a natural field, you know, letting those grasses to come up, but also, you know, bush arguments with strips or something in there to allow them to get to the ground level to be able to access those seeds is really helpful. And then, again, you know, having some type of water source nearby, you know, all animals need water. But on the edge of your field, you know, you know, those all old 40s, you know, 40 acre farms used to have just grown up hedgerows, you know, as the edge of the field. And a lot of that for being taken out and, you know, it's pretty clean now. So, you know, allowing that edge, hedgeroad to grow up and get that, you know, real allows that nesting cover they need. They're not very good enough builders. So, you know, if it's, you know, if there's not a lot of cover, then the nest can blow out the tree really easy. They'd say they're they're necessary. They're actually pretty pathetic and a few sticks put together on a well. So, I mean, from what you're saying, too, if I'm picturing the kind of trees I want to have left there, shrubber year, the better instead of long clean branches is right. Right. Right. Yeah, like cedar thickets, you know, shrub, you know, shrub type bushes along the edges of the field is really good covering. It protects them from the wind to, you know, when they build that nest. How many times, like, will they, I mean, I think you told me that, but though it's not just one nesting, right? They'll try more than once. Yeah, it's usually like six or seven times per season. It's amazing. They'll start in February and go all day till August. And it takes about 30 days per per nesting attempt. So, you know, by the time they lay their eggs, she's a female incubate to them. And then they, the pair raised them till they're flighted. Then they'll start right over. And we think about, you know, on ground nesting birds, so many discussions on the show, you know, about Coyle and Turkey and all these things on the, you know, whether we're talking about nesting or, you know, we're going to talk about brooding cover these things and how weather affects those. What about doves? Now, they're up in a tree. They're not on the ground. Are they, are they, is more rain, less rain, cooler? Have you seen anything that says one is better than the other for, like spring conditions, summer conditions? Not really. I mean, it doesn't affect them as much as those ground nesting birds. Yeah, I mean, predators affect them a little bit, but not as much as ground nesting birds. Yeah, so they're pretty resilient as far as, you know, the weather and predators go. But, you know, having that cover really is really key. When we're, when we're looking at a lot of times, people say, well, you see, open and weekend, people are saying, see, these are the smaller local doves. And it's the northern doves that are a bigger, a bigger dove coming down. I wonder how much of that is just how old those doves are. Is that true? That's exactly, that's exactly what it is. Yeah, that's fault. That's a fault narrative. What you're seeing is, so when they, when you have offspring that are six months old versus a month old, they're much different size. You know, those ones that have a lot of light tan on the end of their feathers, those are really young birds that, that just hatched within the last month or two. And then, you know, ones that were born back in February, you know, or the size of an adult, and they look like an adult, it's very subtle differences that you can't really tell. So yeah, there's, the smaller birds are definitely hatched within the last couple of months. And then the, the larger birds are either adults or hatched earlier in the season, but we did get a lot of juvenile harvesters. I mean, that's, that's kind of how, that's how migratory birds work is. A lot of the juveniles are naive and, and to the situation. And so, that's how, that's how we harvest a lot of juveniles. Coming right back more with Seth Maddox from the State of Alabama, we're talking migratory birds, doves, and dad, we'll take a look at the ducks as well. All right, welcome back. FM talk 106 finds outdoors. Sean Sullivan, Mike Ward, on assignment. In other words, he's not here this morning. We'll be back with us next week. Always a treat though. The talks of Seth Maddox, migratory bird coordinator among many other hats with the State of Alabama. You get to talk ducks and ducks with him. And I love doing that. Seth, we, we talked a bit about the making does, which I think is interesting because so much of the discussion is going to be what we're fixing to get into. And that's getting doves to that spot come season. But yeah, unless we're, and you point out things like hedgerows and all that, I hadn't thought about that. So if somebody wants to be thinking about dove management year round, bushy hedgerows are a benefit that makes more doves. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And you're right. You're not in the minority there. Most people don't think about year round until a month or two before the season. So it's, I mean, it is what it is. But there's still a lot to have a tap in state wide. We still have a good population. We still harvest a bunch every year. It's just not as quite as good as it was. But a few years ago, here goes from the science portion that I'm going to have, Seth put on another hat to the bird hunter side of it. But then you can probably come back to the science fidelity to fields with doves. You know, we, you've probably heard this your whole life be like, we had them till last week. And then I bet you so and so is cutting corn or so and so has done this or that. That's where those birds went. I mean, you've heard that, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. Now that's so that that's the regular person portion. As a scientist, is that true? Do they just pick up and leave overnight and go to some new food source? Not really. They're standing pretty much in the general area. Now they, you know, depending on how close that food source is, you know, they may be moving over to the next field over or two fields over. But for the most part, they're standing in that general area. They may be changing when they're utilizing the field, you know, the morning versus night or during the middle of the day, especially when you start putting honey, honey pressure on them, they're going to start changing their patterns. So, yeah, I mean, for the most part, they're not moving very far. We don't get out of our band returns. We don't get very many of those band, you know, shot outside of the state. Because I'm always trying to figure out a reason, you know, where the doves went. But this, you know, this idea that there's a dove patrol out there and somebody's cutting corn nine miles away from me that they see that in the next day they leave. I mean, we always talk about that. But science doesn't prove that. Right. Yeah, we don't. Yeah, there's no there's no data that suggests they're moving long distances away. But, you know, food sources do open up, you know, that's the time of year for harvest for most agricultural crops. So, you know, they do scatter around in the general local area. And they may, you may have some you may have a concentration of some earlier in the year right before the hunt. And, you know, Ella takes us a few farmers, you know, picking crops to spread those birds out and send them out a little bit, you know. Well, that's what I'm always working on for. Yeah, that's what I'm always wondering, though, is how like where they were going to draw a sphere of influence or something like that, you know, like I know if they're if they're when they when they start, you know, turning harveston peanuts up by my by West line, that's going to be an issue. They're going to be up there. But but we will, you know, lose birds sometimes when I can't I can't put my eye on the field anywhere around me that they went to, right? I mean, I think I'm not alone. I said they're scratching my head and say, where did they go? Yeah, I don't know, you know, it's different for different areas, but I don't think we have an exact answer to that, you know, until we put some type of satellite tracking device on them. And I don't know of many studies that have done that with those because they're so small and they can't carry a lot of weight. So, yeah, we don't have a lot of minute scale tracking information, you know, bands are really, really telling. And most of our bands get shot within, you know, a few miles of where they were banded at. So, giving numbers, I mean, is it the same every year or various? How many, how many doves y'all banned in the state? Usually about 1200 annually. It's fluctuation, you know, plus or minus 100. So pretty, pretty good numbers. That's kind of the quota that each state has their own quota. And that's how we put that information into the formula to, you know, set and manage the harvest and feeding the bag on it. Okay, so you do work, you are checking out what other states are coming back with as well. I mean, is it your work? Oh, yeah, for sure. Have you seen anything that, you know, one states trending differently than our state or is there any kind of new data out there? I'm not really having this been pretty steady over the years. You know, we managed these, we managed those on three separate populations, the eastern population, the central population, and the western population. So everything used to be Mississippi is kind of the eastern population. And it's, you know, the trends fluctuate, but overall, I mean, everybody's still meeting their quotas as far as banding goes. Harvest hasn't fluctuated that much over the years. You know, everything's trending down a little bit, but not like a super plummet. I mean, just a gradual decline. And, you know, that's just to be, that's like we talked about earlier with population decline, with habitat changes, that's to be assumed that that's going to happen. But, you know, we could get migratory birds, but even the ones that are banded up north and like the Midwest, you know, those doves pretty much are shot there in the Midwest. And, you know, we get a few that are harpsed up there and they get a few that are harpsed down here. But, like I said, about 90% of our doves that we band here in state are harvested here within the state. I mean, it's significant because I think a lot of us think, you know, okay, well, they've got these local doves and then, you know, come October, sometimes, here they come, right? Here come all those, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee birds down here that make up our bag, but you're saying, nah, the majority of them are still from around here. They are, yeah. And they do, you know, they change their habits a little bit throughout the seasons. You know, they get more concentrated in the wintertime. And, you know, not a lot of people put pressure on them, you know, after rock out, we're in deer season starts. So, you know, you'll start seeing larger concentrations of birds because they're not at that time of the year, they're not actively breeding. So, you know, they kind of congregate together in different areas where they can, you know, sustain their weight and get food over the wintertime. So, you start seeing some larger concentrations and people think that that's a big push of birds, but if not, it's just, you know, concentration of birds that they're changing their habits, you know, based on that seasonality. Okay, now we're going to get to, because if I, if I don't ask this, people will be upset with me from a hunter, but a scientist perspective. What's the best thing to have in that field? I mean, it is, if y'all, I don't know, if you've looked at this, is it, now, this is not on the, making them, this is on the killing them side. Sunflower's rule, is it millet? Is it top-sewn wheat? Is there any research into this? We got to know, Seth, we got to know what's the best. Yeah, I think they did some studies back at Auburn in the 90s, I think, and I think the number one food in the crop was pearl millet, or pró, sorry, prósó millet, prósó millet. So white prósó millet was number one, and then, you know, it was, it was pretty close, you know, between browntop and sunflower, sorghum. I mean, anything you can put out there is good for them. I don't think there, there's that much of a difference between one and the other, what they're choosing. But, you know, if you can provide a variety, a variety is always better, because, you know, we don't like to eat the same thing every day, they don't eat it. So, but, yeah, yeah, pro sewn millet was the number one in the study that Auburn did 10 or 15 years ago, but everything else was, you know, pretty close. Okay, because what I was going to, y'all, I was going to box them in, but I still kind of will. You know, what do y'all plant like on the, the management area, the dove area near Montgomery, and I don't have it on the top of my tip, my target. Perry glades. Perry glades. What are you planting there? Yeah, we, in the past, we planted a variety of stuff. So, sunflowers, corn, millet, sorghum, sesame, green, sunhump. We've tried it all. It just depends. I mean, on the year, the weather affects some of that. You know, so, I can't say one is better than the other, but we like to try to provide a variety of things so that, you know, if we, if we do have a disaster with one crop, then we always have a backup plan. So, that's my, that's my advice is have a backup plan. Don't plant, you know, the monoculture of one crop if you, if you don't have to. It's not a problem if you have to, but I try to, you know, have a backup plan in case something happens. Okay, what about pressure? Any studies? I mean, you mentioned it. I mean, pressure is going to affect wild critters. How, you know, on doves? Is it, is it more or less than a duck? Is it the same? Like, what do you think about? How many days you shoot a field? Yeah, it's, there's not a lot of studies out there about it, but, you know, anecdotally, you know, we try to shoot ours every once, especially the, the limited coil of draw hunts. We should try to shoot ours once every two weeks. And that seems to be pretty good. You know, a lot, most people are, are only hunting, you know, four or five days out of the 90 day season here in Alabama. So, I don't know that they're putting too much pressure early in the season. And then it's over with, you know, as far as hunting goes, they're moving on to deer. But yeah, you can definitely put too much pressure. I would say, you know, once a week is probably enough. If you try to shoot it more than that, you may have some issues with moving birth to, to adjacent properties. And it all, it's, it's all situationally aware, you know, awareness too is like there's, there may be people, adjacent to you shooting. It just depends on the landscape surrounding you what, what, what you want to do in that situation. So, you just got to look at all, all those factors combined and try to make the best decision. All right. Yeah. And it reminded me to speaking of like the four or five times a year for a lot of people, they may not even think, you know, so they're more maybe casual hunters. It might be a dove hunter. So before they get ready to go out and dove hunt, there's some things they have to do. Obviously, it's a renewed license time. We talk about that, but also HIP. Yeah. Yeah, harvest information program is one of those things that we use to collect data. So it's mandatory for a migratory bird hunters and migratory bird hunters only. So if you're going to hunt doves or ducks or rails or galinules, some of those other species, cranes, then you have to be, you have to get a harvest information program or HIP certification within the state that you're hunting. So if you, if you go to Arkansas on a hunting trip this winter, then you're going to need to get a HIP in Arkansas. So it depends on what state you're hunting. You'll need one for each state to hunt in. But yeah, that's how we collect data. So they ask you those questions about how many birds you harvested and if you hunted those birds, and that's one of the ways that the federal government helps us collect data and we help them collect data on hunters and harvest of birds throughout the season. I'm going to be right back with Seth Maddox right here on FM Talk 106-5 outdoors. Right now, welcome back. FM Talk 106-5 outdoors. Sean Sullivan, Mike Moore, will be back with us next week. I do what I get. I wanted to get right into ducks and conversation with Seth, but something came up toward the break I think is real important as we talked about HIP, the Harvest Information Program. I asked Seth the question because I, you know, will travel to other states. I don't know if I've had Dove hunted in Mississippi before, but it's usually for waterfowl. And you know, like you said Seth, when I go to buy an Arkansas and Louisiana Mississippi license, I have to fill out another HIP and I felt that I had to put down the same number of birds I did on my Alabama HIP and you said that's not how it works. Don't listen to this. So how's it worth it? Yeah, so it's an educational campaign here. So, and we haven't done a good job of this as an industry over the years, you know, explaining this. So we're trying to get the word out there now. What you need to do when you're filling in that HIP information in other states, you're going to only answer the questions based on the number of very few harvested or hunted in that said state. So it's state-specific data. So the birds you harvested here in Alabama, you're not going to answer that question for Arkansas. You're not only going to answer how many birds you've hunted and harvested in Arkansas and the same for Alabama. So whatever state you go to, just answer the questions based on what you hunted and harvested in that particular state. Okay, so like if, so you and I are going to Arkansas this year, it's pretty cool. I got us a good, good spot. All right. But we didn't had Arkansas last year, when we filled our HIP it would be zero for number of ducks. Okay. See that y'all, that was a good eye opener for me. Thank you for the education. I appreciate it. Let's talk about ducks, whether it be in Alabama or Arkansas. What is the fall flight numbers? I know that the overall is up 5% they said in Maypond counts, but it's the devil's in the details here. Let's talk about the, the fall flight for 2024-2025. Yeah, total population is up about 5%. Ponds are up about 4%. It's spotty where, you know, where there's drought spots and wet spots. But overall, you know, numbers are looking pretty good. Increase in mallards, decrease in gadwall, huge increase in American wisdom. 55% increase. Wow. That's crazy. I love whigging, by the way. I love whigging. I love whigging. There's like one of my favorite ducks, maybe because we don't, early on growing up we'd kill some here in the Delta, but I, you know, it's such a rarity anymore. You know, that maybe I just, I'm excited about the whigging numbers being up, because I like them as a species. I like them. Yeah, they're cool, duck for sure. Yeah, it's interesting that they were up. Where do they, where do they breed? Are they, can, can you, can you back that out? So it's saying 55% increase from 2023 in the, in the which in 12% from the long-term average. Can you, are the whigging more, are they more, I mean, they're not boreal, right? They're, they're, they're, no, so they're high for airiness or so, you know, not in the lower, not in lower Canada, but just the, between the, between the lower prairies and the boreal, so little higher, higher prairie nesters. So that area was pretty wet. I would say that, that led to part of it. It's been wet for the last two years. So I think that, that's why we see it, seeing the large increase this year. And I guess, you know, sometimes we sit back and think, okay, well, all these ducks go breeding the same, you know, same swath or same area, but it's, it's not. So maybe is that like, so great, great, or Gadwall, do they, you think, maybe because they're down 11%, which I mean, listen, I, I like the idea that Mallard's you're up, we get so fuelable, I'm focused on Gadwall's, but they're down 11%. Do they breed in a different area than the whidgen? Is there a way to extract like that? Yeah, it's, it's definitely different, different, different areas, different habitat types. So yeah, I mean, you think about prairie cans, arboreal cans, Alaska, I mean, this is, we're talking about huge swath of areas and, and different habitat types that you, you, you just, that respiration doesn't see. And so, you know, up there, you know, you could have, you know, really wet areas and really dry areas. And, you know, if it's in that particular swath where these birds, the latitude where these birds are, then, you know, that affects nesting and reproduction. So definitely has an effect, especially latitude and lead, you know, because birds are at different, you know, breeding and stopping at different latitudes and, you know, on their nesting grounds. And so it definitely affects that overall. Look at it. Some that are down here other than you mentioned Gadwall, but, and I'll get to this last one. We'll put us in the next conversation, but let's go to a pintails down 11%. They, I mean, they've just been on the long term decline. Is there anything that can change there? Or is it just the hand of Mother Nature deals us? Yeah, it's, it's, it's a lot of it is agricultural practices in Canada on the breeding grounds. Um, you know, they're, they're historically short and, uh, short prairie grass nesters. And a lot of that's transitioned, been transitioned into agricultural fields in Canada. And they're, they're, they're pulling crops off about the same time they're nesting up there. So it's really bad situation. And, you know, a lot of the, a lot of those small potholes that they traditionally bred in, you know, or, or, or raised brood in are being transitioned away from, you know, upon to farm agricultural fields. So especially as it dries up, if it's not wet, then, you know, farmers can get in there and manipulate that stuff with equipment. So, uh, and while that short grass prairie is gone away, uh, too, make them hurt it and just gone. So it's, it's definitely hurting the pentales. Um, the other long-term average 49% below. Um, so they're hurting, but, um, we did, uh, we, we, at the federal level, they've, they've really, you know, evaluated pentales. Uh, a lot of the new signs coming out is saying there's a lot of males, uh, extra males, uh, in the population. And so not this season, but the 25, 26 seasons, we will have a three bird bag on an on pentale. Whoa. Okay. All right. And y'all just, uh, uh, uh, knowing that just, just, just shoot, tranks. I mean, I know that there are a lot of hidden pentales get killed because they're a duck. They look like a gray duck or whatever, but, uh, if people know you're looking at a flock, uh, the more boys and girls in there, hey, on the, on the diver side, it's a mix of the, like, the big three diver side is a mix bag. I mean, there's, it's so redheads and canvas backs are both down, scalper up. Yeah. So what get, are they Scott breeding somewhere different than the cans and the redheads? Yeah. And the harvest strategy we have in for them, uh, doesn't make a lot of sense. Uh, so we're, we're evaluating some of the harvest strategy on Scott too. Cause it doesn't really make a lot of sense. It's hard to explain. So you got, over four million birds in the Scott population, but you only got half a million birds in the canvas back population. Yet we can shoot two, two canvas backs a day on one scop a day. Yeah. What, what gives? That's hard to explain. You're not about to explain it to me. You know, you don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I can. It doesn't make a lot of sense to us either, but, uh, so we're, we're in the process of working with the feds to reevaluate that so that we can look at that, uh, that harvest strategy on Scott. Um, yeah, we think we feel like, you know, we could definitely harvest more and still not be a detriment to the population. But, you know, canvas backs, if you look at the historically canvas backs, have never had a huge population. They've never been much more than a million birds continentally. Um, so, you know, even though the long term average is only down four percent, it's a half a, you know, a little over half a million birds. And so there's never a word that, that many cameras are back. And so, you know, putting a little more pressure on them at two birds a day is not putting pressure on the population. Okay. And then we'll arrive at there way more virgin. Y'all can look at this. We'll post some stuff up on our Facebook page. But let's, uh, let's arrive here at Blue Wing Teal because this will get in our next conversation. They're down 12%. I, you know, I've seen years when Blue Wing Teal numbers are, you know, just blossoming. They're huge. And I had a man teal season and there's years when the Blue Wing population's been down and I've had a stellar teal season. So I don't, you know, I don't know what to make of that. Yeah. You know, in this count, you got to think about, too, when they're counting these birds is a maze when they're counting breeding pairs. This is before nesting happens, before brooding happens. So you, you take all this to account with full flight. So, you know, all these pairs they counted are having offspring and those are going to add to the full flight. So the popular population is actually higher than what is predicted here. So what, what was Blue Wing Teal, you know, that's like we talked about with, uh, with the Wigan or Gavol, the floss that they're in is that Southern, Southern Prairie, uh, along the Canadian, Northern U.S. border. Um, and so that, that, that area's been pretty dry for the last couple of years. And so the, the teal numbers are down and they're actually, this doesn't affect this, this 2024 teal season, but next year we actually lost, uh, we lost the week, uh, we'll lose the week of teal season. We're only going to have nine days next year. Oh, wow. And it's been, I mean, that's how, I mean, I've been around long enough that, you know, we had, you know, it came back and then we had the, then it went up in dates. It's been, but it's been some years here, right, where we've had that extra week. It's been a while probably since the early 2000s, uh, because the numbers have been really high there for a while. So probably like 2005, six, I can't remember exactly a year where we had, uh, less teal days, but, um, yes, the population come back down and did that. It's had a huge spot there, close to nine million birds in the population. So we're, we're, even though it's, you know, it's, it's down in the long term. It's, it's, it's down a little bit right now. Well, let me cause some trouble here for international relations as I say, how many teal are we shooting? How many are they shooting south of us? You know, is, is, I mean, are we impacted? Who's, you know, beyond just the harvest side? I mean, you got the breeding side, but the harvest side, does that play into it at all? Probably not. No, I don't think Harvard has anything to do with population, driving the population. And it doesn't look most species to be, to be honest with you. Um, that's how we set, that's how all these have been set up, you know, to be conservative so that we don't have an impact on the population. And so ultimately, for any species, Harvard doesn't drive population numbers. It's, it's all habitat driven. But it, out of Leopold told us you can't stockpile ducks. So, all right. So expectations for teal season, I get, so it's starting up in two weeks, 14th, get started for the state. When we come back from the break, I want to talk about that, your expectations for what we're going to see in this, he loves it. We'll do this in this year's flight, Seth Maddox, the migratory bird coordinated for the state of Alabama with us when we come back on FM Talk, one of six, five outdoors. By welcome back FM Talk, one of six, five outdoors. Glad to have you along. By forward, we'll be back with us next week. And actually, speaking of the weekend, this is going to be tough, but I'm somehow going to champion through it. The weekend the teal season does open in the state of Alabama. It's also the second day of the G and D outdoor expo. I'll be out there doing midday mobile on Friday. We'll do a special outdoor show from the grounds where the events going on Saturday. Just don't blame me if I come walking in and close a hundred teal in that morning to the outdoors expo. We'll talk more about that, but go online, gdoutdoorsexpo.com or go to their Facebook page. We'll see you out there coming up in a couple of weeks. All right, continue our conversation with Seth Maddox. He is the assistant chief at DCNR and also still wearing the hat of migratory bird coordinator. And so he gets the pleasure every year continuing to be going, all right. How's it looking in North Alabama? What can I expect T.O.Y.'s? What do you think? What are we looking at? How far up should I be for the 14th? I think should be pretty fired up, especially this year. I mean, the population is down, but there still should be a good false light. There's still lots of birds in the population, you know, four and a half million, 4.6 million birds, plus all the offspring they've had this summer. When will I get here? I don't know. That's the class. It's always the question. So we do our best with setting the season to try to, you know, maximize when they'll come through, but, you know, hit the crapshoot. Yeah, and that's the thing. We all, I mean, with, well, called big duck season, you know, anything I could do to push it back, right? It always would go later, go later, go later. And, but T.O. season, some years, that's true. But some years, they were here before the season. I mean, I know, I mean, you get an impossible task. I mean, and they are coming through here. I think I've told the story on the show before. I've, I was setting a sign on my birthday. This has been 15, 20 years ago on July 5th, setting a sign to build a blind in the Delta and ran a bunch of blue wing teal out in a spot July 5th. And I've also shot blue wing teal on the last day of big duck season. So this bell curve is long. We're just trying to figure out where the bubble is. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And it's, you know, we get those extra days in September. So, you know, it's just a bonus for, for that time of year, because that's when the majority of them are coming through our area, passing through fairly quick. You know, that's the other thing is they're, they're most of the time they're passing through fairly quick going, you know, down to Central and South America. But, you know, this year, we're, I mean, you're probably pretty wet down there. I've seen some tropical stuff, but as far as most of Alabama is pretty dry. So I think, you know, they're going to be pretty concentrated on these in the Delta on rivers and reservoirs, you know, in the shallow backwater areas. So if we don't get any rain between now and the next, you know, within the next few weeks, I think we're going to see pretty concentrated numbers of birds in certain areas. So it should be pretty good hunting. Okay, when you, when you watch this, so back to, you know, as a hunter, your formula for it. I do, you know, I've talked about this over the years, you know, but my perfect scenario, there's no science behind this, y'all. That's so the scientists above me out of the water. But if I could ever have this happen, there's some kind of tropical something in the Gulf. It doesn't, hopefully it's very light and it's not coming here. And then a cold front or a dry front this time of year blowing in. To me, that's always giving me my best teal hunts ever in South Alabama. What's your formula? Yeah, I think you're spot on, you know, that that that tropical stuff will hold them up. The cold pushing them down. They're kind of caught in the middle. If we have some, some decent amount of rain before that, and you got some sheet water on the landscape, you know, you can find them in these agricultural fields kind of concentrated, or sometimes spread out. But, you know, this year, you know, who knows what's going to happen? But I know that it's dry right now and there's not a lot of sheet water on the landscape. So, you know, they're going to be concentrated and make the backwater area, shallow water areas off red of ours and rivers and in the Delta. So I think that's where you're going to find them. Okay. And that's, y'all don't listen to him because I'm going to go find him there. Y'all don't go out there. And just about two minutes left here. But conversation, actually, I was having Scott Bannon, director of marine resources down here. We're talking about the number of fishing license sales going on and the increase here. But hunting licenses coming down nationally, I think affecting Alabama as well. But it always seems like duck hunting has not followed that lead. Do y'all have any stats? Are we trending down up neutral on people that are duck hunting in the state? Yeah, the metric we have to track down is our state duck stamp. And we've had a record number of duck stamp sales since COVID. So for the last five years, we've had record numbers sales each year. So we're close. We're getting, we're pushing 40,000 duck hunters in the state where 20, 20 years ago, we had, you know, 15 to 18,000 duck hunters. So, a lot more hundred from the landscapes than there used to be. Okay. So it's not just me being an old crotchety guy and complaining that it's actually born by the stats. So when people say the hunting licenses are sure down, that probably more in the small game world or something those people aren't participating. But the, because I mean, every time I hear that the licenses are down, I want to look at the people at the state, you know, or federal level and go, y'all, I haven't seen the boat ramp on open day of duck season then. Yeah, there, there, a lot of other states are more effective by than we are. I say we, we've seen a gradual decline, you know, in just overall license sales. But it's just, yeah, typically in small game hunters or deer hunters as well, we're seeing the decline. But definitely not what's definitely the opposite of this skyrocketing right now. Lots of, you know, the average duck hunters probably 30 in Alabama, you know, looking at some data. So we have some, we have some younger folks getting into the game. And so they're definitely out there and ready to get after it. So you have a lot of competition on the landscape right now. Yeah. And that's a problem. Because as some of us get older, they can get up earlier, they can push pull further. I don't like it. I don't like, I think we should not be allowed into it till you're 45. But, you know, set in regulations. Remind folks too, if they're going to get out there, we'll go quickly through, you mentioned license and HIP for people to be dove hunting. Would they have to have to be heading out on the 14th of Teal Hunt? What do they got to, what are they going to have to be legal? Yeah, if you're a resident of Alabama 16 to 64, you need a state hunting license and harvest information program. That's your, that's what you need to be legal for, for dove hunting, for Teal hunting. You need the state duck stamp, federal duck stamp, harvest information program and a state hunting license. Yeah. And a reminder too that you can go through the state, you know, you can buy this stuff in one place from the state. Even now, I think it was like, yeah, the last couple, I think I actually bought my fed license through the state. Yes, you can buy your federal duck stamp through our license health system. You have to buy it separately with a different transaction, but you can buy it there. And one thing that changed there this year is that the feds went and it used to be good for only 45 days once you bought it electronically. But now it's good for the entire season. So when you get, when you buy that electronic federal duck stamp through us this year, it'll be good for the entire season. And you, they won't mail you your physical stamp until after the season. So you can't double this there, but that electronic federal stamp will be good for the entire season this year. And I like it. Seth, thanks for coming on with us. I like the pleasure. All right, there you go, Seth Maddox. And we're going to do it again next week. Seth, I'm talk one of six five outdoors.