November 10, 2017 at 8:57pm
I maintain an electronic distribution list for the aerial survey reports, and I've offered on this website, tigerdroppings and others at least twice to include anyone that wants to receive the reports on that list. Just send me an e-mail. I have no control over posting reports to the website. But you can bet that since I didn't finish flying the survey until late yesterday, and didn't finish the report until about noon today, on a holiday, it won't get posted until Monday at the earliest.
I flew the easternmost 9 lines, from Houma to the mouth of the Mississippi River, yesterday from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm. Don't get too worked up over 'the count is down'. Last year was unusually high, and as I explained in the report, over the last 5 years, the November estimate has ranged from 1.02 to 1.25 million in 2013 and 2015, to 3.06 and 3.25 million in 2016 and 2014. This estimate is between those, but on the low side. As others have said, things can change a lot during November, especially with freezing temperatures in the Dakotas. I'm hopeful that SE will see decent hunting because there were good numbers of ducks across multiple lines rather than just a pile of ringnecks in upper Terrebonne and another pile of dabblers down at Venice, with very little in between, like we've seen in some years. I've also heard good reports from Lake Borgne north to east/northeast of New Orleans, where our survey lines do not extend.
That's why I included a map of the survey transects in this report so folks can see where we do and do not fly. It is a random sampling of the entire coastal habitat, not an evaluation of everywhere everyone might hunt.
Good luck tomorrow.