Lake Manitoba - Delta marsh waterfowl reports

Duck season in Southern Manitoba seems to be opening earlier each year. One has to remember The Delta Marsh Complex is predominately a diving duck pursuit. Truth of the matter being the lions share of young divers are barely on the wing by early September and adult females are completing their molt. Things on the Delta don't get into full swing until early October...unless your forte' happens to be teal, shovelers, scrawny young mallards and such. See you out there mid-October!
 
What's funny is that in years past, we've had great early hunts. Lots of mallards, teal. My first hunt this year was the 11th. But I hear you, it gets better later on.
 
Delta, St Ambroise and Lake Francis rock early October when the scaup and redhead move in. Second week of October brings a large wave of cans that only stick around for a few days. Feed on sago pondweed tubers and such. Sad to see the carp gates gone on the Lake Francis Management area as carp destroy valuable feed beds used by divers. Great strides have been made in the Delta area to exclude carp but somehow Lake Francis has been abandoned. I was told by Ducks Unlimited that they have left water level management in the hands of local Rural Municipalities. Its my guess that removal of carp gates was done by a person(s) unaware of the destructiveness of carp.

Last ducks to arrive en masse are the ringneck which stick around late as with a good sprinkling of scaup. As the marsh freezes in early November, mallard are the king and stick around until virtually no open water is left. These feed on nearby fields if crops are still available but mostly on scuds or freshwater shrimp which abound in the brackish waters of the delta. When the marsh is all but frozen one can still find pockets of divers such as whistlers and bufflehead with lots of the seasons cripples frantically trying to keep the last of the water open. Eagles and ravens make short work of these unfortunates.
 
My property at Delta has one of only three inlets/outlets to the main lake, which are where they have installed the carp barriers. It's the only one up the east side, the other two are down by the Portage bypass outlet. They spent a lot of money at the direction of the pointy heads and ignored some local knowledge and advice offered by some I know from St Ambroise. And, with predictable results, the first crack at it was a disaster, with both the dike and the dam foundations failing for a variety of predicted reasons. So they spent a couple million more and seem to have it worked out this time. Made a mess of my land though. But, I keep telling myself, it's in a good cause.

I won't be back out there to hunt until the second half of October. Hoping we have a warmer October and freeze up really is sometime in November. Its; a really piss of when it's all over on the 25th!

I've never really liked the first half of September out there. Too hot and the mosquitos are still jerking around.
 
canvasback said:
My property at Delta has one of only three inlets/outlets to the main lake, which are where they have installed the carp barriers. It's the only one up the east side, the other two are down by the Portage bypass outlet. They spent a lot of money at the direction of the pointy heads and ignored some local knowledge and advice offered by some I know from St Ambroise. And, with predictable results, the first crack at it was a disaster, with both the dike and the dam foundations failing for a variety of predicted reasons. So they spent a couple million more and seem to have it worked out this time. Made a mess of my land though. But, I keep telling myself, it's in a good cause.

I won't be back out there to hunt until the second half of October. Hoping we have a warmer October and freeze up really is sometime in November. Its; a really piss of when it's all over on the 25th!

I've never really liked the first half of September out there. Too hot and the mosquitos are still jerking around.
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Carp gates at the north end of Lake Francis were in operation from the late 1970's to present. Drain was dug to regulated water levels for optimum waterfowl production by Ducks Unlimited. Problem being today that Municipality is too lazy to clean weeds from gates on a weekly basis as opposed to taking them out completely. Carp now have free access into lake Francis from lake Manitoba.
 
M12shooter said:
Carp gates at the north end of Lake Francis were in operation from the late 1970's to present. Drain was dug to regulated water levels for optimum waterfowl production by Ducks Unlimited. Problem being today that Municipality is too lazy to clean weeds from gates on a weekly basis as opposed to taking them out completely. Carp now have free access into lake Francis from lake Manitoba.
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Well, you never know what they will do but in convincing us to allow them access to our land, a big deal was made of the weekly cleaning. The project is a joint venture between DU, Delta Waterfowl and the provincial government. But to your point, eventually, regular management of the facilities is supposed to get turned over to the municipalities involved, once the DU/government/Delta guys are satisfied it's running smoothly and working.

That's a shame about Lake Francis. I remember carp gates at the eastern outlet to the Lake in the early and mid 1960's that at some point they just got rid of. The basic structure is still there.
 
One of the biggest factors affecting migratory birds is their rate of return in spring. As you imagine, the places they winter - the southern United States, Mexico, and areas around Central America is one of the largest factors in migratory bird management. Obviously less birds have been coming back year after year because of massive disruptions in the birds' wintering grounds, primarily through habitat loss.

This leads to less birds returning to breed here in Canada and U.S. I have noticed less birds breeding in the spring and thus a drop in overall population. Less birds coming back means less to breed which means less to shoot on the migration south. This is the crux of what you are observing. Why our game bird managers have't been able to make this connection tells a lot about the quality of our bird management.
 
umchorn2 said:
One of the biggest factors affecting migratory birds is their rate of return in spring. As you imagine, the places they winter - the southern United States, Mexico, and areas around Central America is one of the largest factors in migratory bird management. Obviously less birds have been coming back year after year because of massive disruptions in the birds' wintering grounds, primarily through habitat loss.

This leads to less birds returning to breed here in Canada and U.S. I have noticed less birds breeding in the spring and thus a drop in overall population. Less birds coming back means less to breed which means less to shoot on the migration south. This is the crux of what you are observing. Why our game bird managers have't been able to make this connection tells a lot about the quality of our bird management.
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You should show them game bird managers how its done.:jerkit:
 
Grouse Man said:
I'm getting recent reports from earlier this week that things are still very, very slow out there.
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Delta Marsh complex was so very slow this season. Not even worth setting up a hunt. Guess there is so much water around now with all the rain and such. Couple weeks ago we hunted and there was a huge migration of scaup from sunup until late morning. All these birds were coming from the west across Lake Manitoba from points distant and continued to move in high flying large groups to the south east. Its my opinion that much of the fall flight overflew the marsh for the United States.
 
umchorn2 said:
One of the biggest factors affecting migratory birds is their rate of return in spring. As you imagine, the places they winter - the southern United States, Mexico, and areas around Central America is one of the largest factors in migratory bird management. Obviously less birds have been coming back year after year because of massive disruptions in the birds' wintering grounds, primarily through habitat loss.

This leads to less birds returning to breed here in Canada and U.S. I have noticed less birds breeding in the spring and thus a drop in overall population. Less birds coming back means less to breed which means less to shoot on the migration south. This is the crux of what you are observing. Why our game bird managers have't been able to make this connection tells a lot about the quality of our bird management.
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You got these observations within a 400 acre fenced parcel managed for ungulates I am sure. Funny how the spring nesting surveys the past few years are showing higher numbers of breeding pairs of birds than since first recorded in 1947 and that the overall fall flight has exceeded the 15 year long term average NAWMP in spades!! There was a short dry spell here around my home for a week or so but I only had to go 10 minutes east to be into countless numbers of birds. Then all of a sudden a change in weather inundated my area with birds as well. I never saw so many widgeons and gadwalls on the sloughs around my house as this year. We still have snow geese and specks too, thats late for here. Migration is very affected by winds and birds will get pushed or follow the jet stream if you rather into areas where thoee winds are prevailing. I'll withold any personal comment to keep my username from becoming pink.

Hang in there Grouse Man there are still lots to come yet. Bigger waters here are holding lots of divers this week and there are still lots of Greenwing Teal and other puddlers on the smaller sloughs.
 
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