Great Email - We are Not Alone!

Hey: Just a quick Thanks!!!!!!!! for putting your web site up.  Good work!!!!!!!  Please keep it up. Glad to know there are outfits in the area that are experiencing the same kinds of outcomes that we are.  I had real high hopes for the DU Migration Report on the Net as a source of information like yours..... but that hasn't really worked out.  I really enjoy reading about your hunts and value the info, particularly since your nearby. We hunt just off the Missouri a few miles below Desoto Bend.  So we are just 20-30 miles south of you.  Been waterfowl hunting there for about 15 years.  However, I personally, have been hunting on, or near the muddy MO for about 40 years, from Plattsmouth to Decatur.  We have friends that hunt on the Platte near Yutan, others on warm water near Leshara, and others in The Basin near Hastings.  It has been very hard over the years to compare notes with them......as they are in very different environments and have always seemed to do much better on ducks.  Until the last few seasons...... we have always done better on geese.  Have never experienced years like the last few here and our results have been on a decline for about the last 10.....even though I hunt more....... particularly since I retired 7 years ago.  Wish I knew what was happening with the waterfowl numbers and migration.  The only birds I see more of are wood ducks, and Canada's, they seem to have increased on the "MO" every year for the last 10.  Every other waterfowl species I see on this river is way down, in numbers seen, from when I was 15-16 years old.....and that is not selective sorting of my memory. Where are the bigger ducks and geese this year??????? or for that matter the last 3-5 years.  Reports that I get say they have moved west in their migration flights.  When I was a kid there very few migrating snows and blues in CO and the western half of NE....now they are there by the thousands, spring and fall.  I finally see that the Feds are acknowledging this.......changes in the flyway.  At least this is mentioned on the Internet Desoto Bend front page, they talk about snow geese moving west.  But what about the ducks?  I have been up there asking questions for the last five years.  I get no answers. We were out this morning (Saturday) north wind, low ceiling....weather looked promising........about 8:00.....saw 1 migrating group of about 50 snows and blues, up high........one decoyable flock of 6 snows about 9:00 ...... we screwed up.......and that was it.  Not one duck!!!!!!!  No one popped a cap!!!!!!!  Quit about 11:00.  Back tonight or tomorrow. Keep up the good work and pray for birds!!!!!! The Chuckler