Ducks Unlimited Podcast

00:00 Mike Brasher Everybody, welcome back. We have a great show for you today. I'm your host, Mike Brasher. Joining me in studio is Chris Jennings. It's been a while, man. You forgot my name. I did not forget your name. That was just all a play. Chris Jennings, good to have you here, man. Thank you, sir. Good to be here. And we're going to be having a little discussion here revisiting the breeding population survey results from, I guess, about a week and a half ago now. Joining us for that discussion is our great friend from up in Canada. The one and only Dr. Scott Stephens with Ducks Unlimited Canada. We're excited to have him join us. And I guess this will be the first time that we've really had an opportunity to dig in on this report and its data with you. Scott, you're always a great source of information leading up to this report. And we're going to actually have you help us decipher it now. Welcome.

00:58 Scott Stephens Yeah. Good to be here. I thought I was mostly a source of entertainment, though, not information.

01:03 Chris Jennings Information on this one. Okay. Okay.

01:06 Mike Brasher And entertainment. You can do both. All right. I'll try. I'll do my best. So we are about, what, a week and a half out from that survey when it was released by the Fish and Wildlife Service. And again, want to clarify, this is not a Ducks Unlimited survey. It is not a Ducks Unlimited report. We do obviously summarize some of the information and put it out there and help advertise for the Fish and Wildlife Service and all the other folks that contribute to that. But yeah, we're going to pick up this discussion. And I guess before we do any sort of in-depth talk and get Scott's perspective, was he surprised? What did he think when he saw the numbers? We have a piece of information we're going to revisit from an episode that, and Scott hasn't heard this yet. I've heard it. Chris has heard part of it. That we, as a discussion that we had back in February, in an episode that I think aired February 17th, where we were talking with Scott and we were trying to handicap at that time, what we thought the total duck population for the traditional survey area was going to be this year.

02:18 Chris Jennings Chris, do we have that ready? Okay, here we go. Let's listen. wreck 36.5 that was closer and you never did follow up even after you saw the weather Chris you never you never gave us an estimate we never really had an opportunity yeah we never really had an opportunity to do that but I'm really glad that I did not pick a number he would have gone with 32 yeah yeah I probably would have gone with

03:45 Mike Brasher like I don't know 32.4 probably right around there yeah Chris is often the more pessimistic between the two of us yeah probably so yeah you would have been probably would have been I would have been a little lower yeah we would have all probably gone over though yeah I would have definitely been pay homage to the late Bob Barker who passed away just a few days ago you know we would have all gone over we would none of us would have won the prize none of us would have been

04:10 Chris Jennings in the showcase showdown no none of us would have done that so that 38 that's a big number Scott that was that was super optimist that's like real diehard

04:20 Scott Stephens makes me wonder why we even have him on here today exactly yeah that's that's out to lunch as it turns out that's the reason we we use data is because our guesses aren't always that good right what's your initial reaction there Scott I was definitely surprised it was down for sure but quickly once I saw the data it's like well okay you know if it was down you know my my post-hoc explanation in front of the data would be well last spring I know at least in this part of the world was a little late and a little cool and a little weird and it's like

04:59 Mike Brasher okay maybe that impacted production more than more than we anticipated so Scott before we get into that a little bit more I want to just remind folks the number we're talking about right now from this breeding population it's called the waterfowl status report that's that's what it comes out in but it's their estimates obtained from the waterfowl breeding population and habitat survey they're conducted May early June of every year it is measuring the number of ducks that settle in those breeding landscapes it's before any production occurs it's they are estimates that are extrapolated across that entire survey area they fly transects we've kind of covered the methodology on past past episodes but they extrapolate out to these large survey areas and it is an estimate of the waterfowl population size at the time of that breeding season that is kind of important to keep in mind because it's not that's not the number that necessarily waterfowl hunters are going to be so concerned about later in the year that number later in the year is a function of that breeding population size and the productivity that occurs during the summer during that spring and summer period which itself is a function of habitat conditions anything to add to that Scott to kind of frame that up

06:19 Scott Stephens no that's right I mean we think about the B pop number which is what what we get out of that survey is the breeding population so that's what we start with and that by the way is kind of the I was gonna say smallest number of birds that that we start with for the year right and then we're subtracting some throughout the breeding season from that and then adding production and then that's what gives us the number of birds that wing their way southward and people

06:47 Mike Brasher see over their decoys so the traditional survey area I think I might have said this already but the number we had was 32.3 million total ducks in the traditional survey area that's the largest portion of it that's that mid continent sort of central flyway Mississippi flyway Pacific flyway area and then you have the eastern survey area the number of ducks that are counted or estimated there's is typically much smaller I think this year is four or five million I don't have that total number summed here in front of me but it was that that total duck number in the traditional survey area which was down and it was down 7% from last year it's that and that number is 9% below the long-term average Scott I remember whenever I first saw that report I too I was surprised because I remembered a lot of the conversations we had last year and I guess that's the other piece of this is that the breeding population size that we anticipated during our conversation you know earlier in the year would have been a function of last year's breeding population size the production that occurred last summer right and then the number of birds that kind of survived and made it back up there this spring and as you heard we were all expecting a little bit higher number because we had talked about the productivity and the end of the drought across a good chunk of that prairie landscape not all of it and we were anticipating more production now Scott I can tell you I don't know if you looked at this report but the Fish and Wildlife Service also puts out a report summarizing harvest data from from last year one of the pieces of information in that report is what's called the age age ratio the number of juvenile birds relative to adult birds in the harvest that data comes from the wing bee surveys the wings that hunters provide whenever they're asked to participate in that parts collection survey those age ratio data were all up last year you go back and look at the 21 data which would have been a reflection of the extreme drought of 2021 those numbers were low there was very little production and the data everybody that hunted that year 21 22 would tell you yeah a lot of old birds in that fall flight the data bored out last year I think most hunters would also say yeah there were more young birds in the flocks in our bag the age ratio data from harvest also bore that out so there was production last year there's gonna be production every year but there was a there was a pretty sizable uptick in production last year over 21 and so that kind of adds to the head scratching of like well what's what's up with these with these numbers and like I've said on some of the other things that we've done we're not gonna try to explain every up or down move in these numbers we just can't right Scott do you do you feel do you want it do you feel like you you should be able to do that you know you're a scientist right and so you're supposed to be able to explain why this went up and this went

09:54 Scott Stephens down and what do you I don't feel like I need to yeah there's some of that I mean I would say Mike I think you talked about this in the webinar session too it's like if it's plus or minus five I sort of go that's pretty similar like and I wouldn't spend a lot of time explaining plus or minus five so so remember we're we're minus what seven from last year it's like okay so we're probably down but not a substantial amount so you know we could spin stories

10:26 Chris Jennings all day but it just means the numbers aren't that different I think what Mike's trying to do is just justify why he was wrong because he does not want to be

10:37 Scott Stephens wrong I'm okay being wrong no I'm just kidding wrong all the time I would say the one the one observation that I had you know like thinking back we talked in February I know the snow melted and we had reports and and then I actually got to see some conditions in early June I was out east of Saskatoon we had prairie experience up there and I know when I got out on the landscape I was like oh it's still pretty darn dry like there was water but there was no shallow water like there there was no water in seasonal and ephemeral ponds and I went okay so there would be pairs here but you know it's really that that shallower water that really drives settling of dabbling ducks for sure and and I was struck I was surprised how dry it was out in that country it's like oh it was

11:30 Mike Brasher drier than I expected was that was that this year that was this year yeah I remember dr. Tom Mormon I think he was up there for maybe Ducks University he went up there for something and he I may be confusing the years but I want to say it was him it was Tom that said he drove through that area and there were a larger than normal larger than expected number of unoccupied ponds that kind of

11:57 Scott Stephens sounds like what you're saying yeah yeah that would have been that would have been last year okay very experience alternates within so Ducks University was in Bismarck this year so it would have been last year that Tom probably would have been up so yeah when when I was out it's like okay yeah you know we had some recovery from drought but we had no shallow water on on that landscape at least east of Saskatoon which is Allen Dana Hills it's a big target landscape that we invest a bunch of program dollars in and it was just pretty dry not like no water but it was pretty dry from a settling standpoint I

12:33 Chris Jennings would say Scott just for you know some of our listeners who probably may not be as visually understanding of what the prairie landscape looks like and how it you know how it shapes up kind of describe that larger bottom the larger wetlands compared to the smaller wetlands and then also the transition throughout spring and summer I mean things can change up there pretty drastically in that area doesn't really get a ton of rain anyway it's not supposed to that's wrong but just kind of describe that a little bit how that and what do the ducks do when it is dry are they all going on to these larger

13:05 Scott Stephens wetlands or some of them just flying over so across these landscapes in the prairies that that we're talking about there would be sort of a full complement of wetlands ranging from ones that are a few inches deep and you know may hold water for a few weeks in the spring to you know bigger lakes that are you know three or four or five feet deep and hold water in all but you know the the most severe drought and and kind of everything in between and typically when we think about okay what what are the conditions when especially dabbling ducks that that feed in those shallow areas what are the best conditions for them that would be we have all kinds of those shallow wetlands are full and brimming with water you know after that runoff and you know when I was there in June it's like we clearly did not have that this year in in that area so you know what what do the birds do you know I suspect that you know we've talked about territoriality and those kind of things before on this podcast too so birds are territorial you know some of those smaller wetlands are dry they're not setting up on those then you know the only thing that's left is deeper wetlands and there's just not as much pair habitat so you know the pair numbers with those conditions we would expect to be down in some of those areas what are the extra birds do they probably push north and into the boreal forest you know where we think they find places to breed but they're probably less

14:34 Mike Brasher productive so Scott the pond number that which is an index of habitat conditions breeding habitat conditions in that super important prairie pothole region it was down 10% from last year fight now 5% below the long-term average previous year was 5.5 this year was 4.9 basically 5 million did that did that surprise you

14:57 Scott Stephens that it was down yeah I would say it did because you know as I was looking at reports Mike like you I was thinking oh we've we've improved some you know it's not as dry as it was the previous year but you know the pond count so it sort of bears out what I described was my experience on the ground you know I got out there and it's like oh yeah there's water it's not totally dry but there was not nearly as much water as I was expecting based on the reports that I

15:22 Mike Brasher was reading and paying attention to I do want to ask you about a couple of species Mallard at the top of that that one is down 18% from last year now down 23% from the long-term average I was talking to dr. Steve Adair about some of this and he said yeah you know it's yeah most people would probably look at that and say I'm a bit surprised because we know we had some production last year yeah and again recognizing that there is a range around that 18% right yeah he also he also discussed this idea that it sometimes takes a couple of years before those wetlands that have been dry and oftentimes been farmed if they've been dry it oftentimes it takes a couple of years for those things to recharge to full productivity is there potential for some of what we're seeing here to be like a lag effect of just needing a couple of years of good habitat conditions before we really get to that super production that we know can be

16:21 Scott Stephens can't happen that could be part of it I mean but I I guess my counter would be we have we have a bunch of those shallow ponds that are not in cropland too right that that don't take a couple years to sort of recover and grow vegetation and and even the ones in cropland you know bloom pretty quickly with the aquatic insects you know I'm thinking things like fairy shrimp that pintails go crazy over like those those should have been there if we had water but clearly we had less water than we did the year before so that's driving some of it I mean you know we we know that mallards are a species that will overfly and go into the boreal forest and just given the density of transects there we count them we count them less well when when they move further north you know we we know that's the case with pintails too you know there's a correction in the AHM for what is it latitude of centroid of the latitude that they account for those kind of things it's it's the same kind of thing happens with mallards so you know am I surprised yeah I was a little bit surprised and am I worried about mallards I'm not like they're the most resilient species we have and you know I'm I'm still in the boat of I'm confident that if we get the right conditions and the prairies at a at a widespread scale or sop and wet like I think we'll we'll see duck production increase we'll see populations recover you know I'm not in the camp of oh my gosh you know this is the end or mallards

17:54 Mike Brasher gonna become extinct the answer to that is no I'm pretty confident in that Scott I want to go back to one thing that you mentioned because I get a lot of people that they kind of wonder about this when we say that we don't count birds in the boreal forest as well as we do in the prairies part of that as you said is is due to the lower density perhaps more uniform density we start to get in into some sort of statistical design theory here right there are a lot of those boreal strata where there are fewer transects now statistical theory would say you're still going to get an accurate estimate from that process but there's gonna be more there's gonna be less precision around it I mean if if it's a year where you've got a larger population size there maybe they're not as distributed as uniformly then in that situation you could end up with a little

18:46 Scott Stephens more noise around that that estimate right yeah I mean the the other statistical thing that we need to talk about is detection probability right like we do we do an air ground correction for that every year in the I think it's a it's a constant factor I mean it's it's been done you know it's been corrected but it's not adjusted on an annual basis so there are a few of those things that just make it more challenging as you said to get precise

19:16 Mike Brasher estimates when birds are further north and and again to your point that is why we don't make conservation decisions investment decisions on a one-year type of basis we look at the long term both in terms of population trajectory as well as of sort of habitat trajectory and what those risks and threats are and so yes yes they do inform harvest regulations on an annual basis at least here in the state but that's kind of a separate conversation and those those

19:44 Chris Jennings decisions take into account uncertainty and modeling aspects as well Scott I've got one question for you and Mike and I have kind of we touched on this I think last week on the podcast but the reality is we didn't have the survey for two years so we were kind of you know we're assuming oh it's you know numbers are up well we didn't really know they could have been really down you know this could be way up compared to what but I the reason why I'm asking you that is because did you see that stark contrast error or has it been pretty stable as far as what you've just kind of you mentioned you you know laid eyes on you know wetlands in June and we're able you know you're kind of surprised it was so dry but when you've done that the last few years has it been pretty consistent or you know did you notice oh man it's really when we knew it was pretty dry

20:32 Scott Stephens but we just don't have the data to back it up yeah well the second year that we missed with the survey was real dry so so I think my prediction which we've we've already demonstrated is not very good but my prediction for that year would have been yeah the the B pop number was probably lower than we saw this year back what would that be now 21 21 yeah yeah that would be my guess it was dry yeah yeah and and things improved a bit you know last year and and we thought you know we we thought maybe things that did improved a little bit more this year but it wasn't the case it was it was back pretty darn dry again and you know as I know we're just getting ready for this season but as we begin to think about okay and how are things setting up for next year I would say boy you know we are dry where it would take we'd need soaking rains to saturate the soil just before we freeze up you know and and if we don't get that like I don't think there's enough snow to to make a difference you know come come this winter so you know now these these droughts sort of turn just as quickly as they came right and and everything sets up and we get rain in the fall and we get piles of snow and it can turn pretty quickly but right now

21:57 Mike Brasher it's we're not seeing the signs that it's turning yet for sure we're gonna take a break right here when we come back I want to ask you about a couple of other species then we're gonna I think there's a the North Dakota Brood Survey came out came out here the past few days and I know you and I and others have been fielding a lot of questions about that so we want to touch on that I also want to talk briefly about what we've learned in terms of adaptive harvest management and some of the recommendations coming out of that recent report and then we'll close up with like maybe a few more questions about habitat conditions so stay with us folks you everybody welcome back here in studio with my for the record I did not forget your name but that was me trying to be funny and it worked at least to something and joining us remotely is dr. Scott Stevens we're talking about the recently released B pop survey results B pop breeding population is what that stands for I actually had some other people here recently asked me about that what does the B pop stand for breeding population shorthand for that

23:22 Scott Stephens yeah it's not it's not like kpop or any it's different not here anyway okay two species I want your sort of quick thoughts about Scott pin tail pin tail yeah so they were up a little bit 22% yeah he's not he's not buying it I wouldn't get too excited about that I mean when I think about pin tails and especially when we compare to the long-term average I just think that when we look back at the long-term average of pin tails I I'm not sure we're ever gonna see the pin tails that we saw in the late 70s again given the changes to the landscape that have happened so when I look at their variations since then it's like okay yep there's still ups and downs but you know and so this is up that's good news it's a species that that we typically have concern about because their numbers have been down from higher numbers previously but yeah

24:15 Mike Brasher I mean if there are more pin tails around that's that's awesome up 24% from last year down 43% now from the long-term average this is not another one of those species that as you mentioned will overfly the prairies into that boreal area and we know that some of these birds actually go into what they call the unsurveyed area and so that's also part of that correction you're talking about for the sake of harvest regulations and yeah so this number this 24% increase when you juxtapose it to all the other decreases you have to think this is perhaps maybe partly a reflection of of some birds not being counted or estimated last year you know if that be the year because we got so close it was like the record low number and that's right kind of a difficult thing to message but I guess it's also we have to be honest about this it's just it's a it's an estimate there are they're really good estimates of precision around these numbers but it's still a highly mobile group of animals it's still 2 million square miles of area that we're trying to extrapolate to there's still some noise in these estimates from one year to the next and everybody will acknowledge that but we do the best we can our

25:30 Scott Stephens partners do the best they can and we work with the data that we get I would argue that these surveys were really set up to do a good job of surveying mallards you know like that was the target species that's how the transects were distributed was through the core of the mallard range and so you know it probably does the best job with mallards that are also more abundant so we get more data to feed into those estimates and when you deal with less abundant species it's like you know there's gonna be wider confidence limits and you know you get things like we see with pintails which doesn't make a ton of sense with ponds down and you know all of those things but it's like okay I would interpret that as as pintails didn't you know we didn't pick up a big decline so maybe that's good you know are they are they up as much as the survey suggests

26:20 Mike Brasher not sure yeah and then your favorite species the bluewing they were down 19% they're about they're right at the long-term average but down 19% we we talked last year about good production for blue wings that folks were supposedly seeing and did see across the landscape we'll be honest about that

26:40 Chris Jennings there was production last year. Was it 18 or 19 when that blue wing number was at like 8 million yeah it was fairly recently wasn't it I mean it was I'll tell you

26:49 Scott Stephens that was a huge number there and there are species that can really boom when conditions are right too and yeah when when not then they'll decline so did that number surprise you down having blue wings be down yeah I mean I thought I thought they were gonna be 38 million total ducks so of course it's probably

27:09 Chris Jennings a few million less blue wings yeah that's right starting to add up yeah

27:14 Mike Brasher exactly so let's talk about that North Dakota brood survey actually before we touched on the eastern survey area a little bit a little bit I guess maybe I just Scott your thoughts on that before we get to that brood survey your thoughts on the eastern survey area I mean that's got to be there were some good numbers in there if you're if you're someone in the Atlantic Flyway Mallard numbers stayed strong it looks like it's gonna hang on to that four bird bag limit that comes that those when those levels are up there no major moves on any of the other species black ducks seem to still be showing some stable stability around the around that number where they are so overall pretty solid picture there

27:51 Scott Stephens out of the eastern survey area yeah it's just a lot less variable than then we have in the mid-continent so you know not not nearly as big as swings and so

28:01 Chris Jennings it's kind of steadier populations for the Atlantic Flyway folks Chris anything to add there no I mean I think just you know it's good to have these conversations people will look at these numbers and a couple years ago was the eastern survey or last year you know this year I'm getting text messages about oh you know that widget numbers really down that's gonna hurt us like I don't really know if that's I don't know if that's how it works so it's good to have these conversations where and having you guys really explain that this a lot of these numbers it's a good data set it's good overall information but it's also something to kind of take with a grain of salt as far as you know you've even mentioned it with the pin tails like yeah you don't really know if that number looks right but right you know it just gives gives everyone kind of a level playing field there so and that's especially with the Eastern Survey to

28:46 Mike Brasher that's why popped in my head there yep and I think to that point Chris and you know in this being only one of varying of a large number of factors that are going to influence folks's decision to hunt this fall and experiences out in the field this fall the I've heard recently from folks in Louisiana and I've seen pictures from folks in coastal Louisiana I've been meaning to send these photos to you there are areas significant areas of the marsh at least in southwestern Louisiana I don't know about southeastern where it is dry I'm talking no water in some of the places where I have hunted before you know knee deep and deeper and it is cracked soil no water there for blue wings in a lot of those areas no water in the borrow ditches or the canals into those areas that's gonna be an interesting discussion that we have with Jason Olsack whenever they fly that survey if things don't change between now and then it is super dry so in that landscape if you have a dry duck lease it doesn't matter what the breeding population size is there's some pretty stark images there in parts of Louisiana okay the North Dakota brood survey how many Chris how many times how many people have contacted you about that probably ten and that number that survey basically said what broods are up 80% from last year or something like that I don't want I don't have that report in front on me but I know it was a very positive message from that survey which indicated good brood production in in North Dakota and I've had several people contact me and say Mike how can this be when breeding population numbers are down and I'm like well let's just slow down here I mean those surveys are measuring a breeding population survey and a brood survey are measuring two totally different things yes the brood production depends on a on breeding ducks being there but they're measuring two different things and without having to get into any sort of density dependence type of discussion you could actually make a case right Scott that when when populations are low productivity if habitat conditions are

30:54 Scott Stephens good productivity could be higher yeah it could be now I haven't spent time in I understand conditions are substantially better there than what I'm looking at but when I look across the landscape it's like I would not expect there to be great production because things are dry right just like we talked about they haven't changed much since May and you're talking about at the larger scale that's right yeah and that's the other factor I mean it's good to have information like this from a specific jurisdiction like North Dakota but I think you know in the in the breeding population surveys you know the Eastern Dakotas which would capture North and South Dakota you know even in the peak years in the in the late 90s and early 2000s they were those those areas were like 16% of the total breeding population so you know you have to put that in context it's good that conditions are good in North Dakota you

31:47 Mike Brasher know at best they're 15% of the total so yeah and that's the other thing that I told I told folks is that I am happy to hear about duck production in North Dakota if we didn't have duck production in North Dakota I would be worried because it is it was probably probably set up in the prairies as one of the better places habitat condition wise across North Dakota South Dakota and that survey region in Montana there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 million breeding ducks estimated across that landscape and we know there were good moisture conditions maybe they came a little bit late but they were still good and I think reports are that they've kind of they've continued to get some beneficial rain periodically to keep those wetlands in pretty decent shape that's a good recipe for duck production duckling production and so I would have been worried if we didn't have some indication of production there now interpreting 80% above last year and whatever it is relative to the long-term average that's I'm not I don't even I don't have the report here with me so I can't really speak to any of that but the point is those results are not necessarily inconsistent or not at all inconsistent with well should say not necessarily inconsistent with a low B pop number they're just different surveys and I think it's a bright spot that we do have some production there Mike Tymansky there with North Dakota I did exchange a couple of emails with him he said the one thing that he wished would have would have been stated more clearly in that report is that whenever they started talking about their anticipation for a fall flight in that report he wished it would have clarified a North Dakota fall flight as in terms of the number of birds being produced from that state so so that's kind of where we are on that let's see what else we want to talk about here I guess harvest management that's one of the other thing that that the Fish and Wildlife Service releases the same time they released this status report the flyway councils their technical committees meet well there's one of them meeting this week maybe two of them meeting this week at least a couple met last week they take this information they take the information from the adaptive harvest management report and use it to develop recommendations for harvest packages for next year the the survey data we have right now from this year will inform harvest regulations in the states for next year it's done differently in Canada but the AHM report that is out which I read over the weekend states that they anticipate no changes in the harvest regulations across the four flyways for next year now that's that's that's the lead question that I get from folks is like well what all these numbers mean for harvest regulations that's in the AHM report they anticipate no changes next year now there's process that has to play out and we can have somebody come on and talk with us about all the specifics of that but but that's kind of where we are Scott I got a couple

34:44 Chris Jennings questions for you and that's her since I've already proved I'm great at speculation about what numbers will be yeah yeah I'm not gonna ask you for any gambling tips or anything exactly just yeah you've already proven to fail there but I mean it is right here we're recording this on August 28th your waterfowl season kicks off in four days yeah what's the plant what's you know where you starting out I think you need to sit it out given these low population

35:11 Scott Stephens yeah I think you should probably sit this one out yeah well you said something Mike earlier about people making their decision on whether to hunt and I was gonna say my advice is hunt like life is short you better even when it's dry and numbers are down but yeah I will be out there like I will be hunting yeah I'll go to some of my usual spots that stage blue wings and despite the fact that they're down 24% or whatever it was there will be blue wings there to take advantage of so eight of them yeah specifically yeah yeah the the daily bag limit is eight birds a day up here so I hope to I hope to get into to teal and and harvest eight blue wings or occasionally there'll be some green wings mixed in when but the the season is open for all the ducks for us I just am one of the weird guys who focuses on blue wings and you know what won't shoot

36:05 Chris Jennings won't shoot other ducks this time of year if I can avoid it you'll have plenty of other ducks later in the season I'm sure so yeah that's right once it gets a little colder and chase those blue wings out that's probably when it's mallard time but yeah no I just you know and what is the kind of the hunting conditions look like and we've talked about the spring conditions and kind of through the summer but as we get into early fall what what would you be telling you know people are like hey I'm planning on going up to Canada to freelance or you know I'm going to Eastern Sask you know Saskatchewan or

36:35 Scott Stephens something like that what would you what would you tell them yeah that's a good question my my advice is usually pretty standard it's like okay you'll you'll want to do your homework and you know like like when I'm looking for blue-wing spots it's like I'm always looking for shallow water you know six or eight inches of water is ideal I'm not typically hunting small ponds that birds would breed on I'm hunting more larger water but there'll be large flats out there so you know that's what I look for is the same recipe of water depth dependent on the species that you're chasing but you know guys coming to Canada this fall they will want to spend their time scouting and that's always good advice but you may need to put on more miles to find where the water is and where the birds are are staged up and using those areas so that that's always good advice and then you know you you either purchase the online maps now that have landowners names or you can go to the local rural municipality office and purchase a big fold-out map printed on a piece of paper and you begin the work of tracking down landowners and getting permission and off you go so

37:42 Mike Brasher great time of year yeah speaking of blue wings and right around the corner being early teal season here saw an email a few days ago from from a friend of ours Chris Scott Paul Dixon over in northwest Louisiana oh yeah he's got already has blue wings there on some of his property it was 105 degrees and he actually took some photos of these birds and doing some sort of adaptive cooling was it was a pretty neat thing he sent me he sent us an email and people might see that out on the DU social media at some point is a pretty neat observation sort of explaining some of the adaptations that birds use to cope with those kind of extreme temperatures but already blue wings in in North Louisiana let's see I was gonna ask you one other thing oh I guess anything else like habitat-wide we'll have an opportunity to catch up with you in terms of you know habitat conditions other than I guess I would remark that you've said in an email here you know to anticipate to prepare folks for the fact that it's it's dry it's dry there across the prairies Alberta Western Saskatchewan and we are now I mean how long has it been since we had good

38:55 Scott Stephens moisture conditions in Alberta yeah a number of years it's been dry for a while so you know Mike we exchanged notes before you guys did the the show on the B-pop and you know I think the you know the advice that I provided is I was back in and reading Johnny Lynch escape for mediocrity recently and one of his quotes I thought was appropriate for this year it's no cause for wild rejoicing nor is occasion for panic and I think that's where we're at this year it's like yeah it's not gonna be awesome not gonna be terrible kind of gonna be somewhere in

39:30 Mike Brasher between but should you hunt absolutely you should hunt so you know that the title of that escape from mediocrity whenever you said it this first time I ever popped in my head I was gonna ask you is that like the latest self-help

39:40 Scott Stephens book that you're reading you know escape from mediocrity but you know but that that name you know when you read that title when you read the article he's like very seldom do we escape from mediocrity and that's accurate for the B-pop and we're right in that mediocre zone again now occasionally you know things set up and and it's awesome but not not many years out of out of ten

40:07 Mike Brasher is that the case you're right let's see in terms of I cannot let you go without asking you about some of your decoys that you've been carving I did see a Rosie bill poachered I am wondering

40:17 Scott Stephens what the limit on Rosie build poachers is in Canada can you help me out there I think it must be a because there's no species restriction up here but yeah we won't find many of those there I carved those after I got the opportunity to go on a trip to Argentina and yeah saw all kinds of cool birds there Rosie build poachers silver teal were one of my favorites I have a decoy that I made that's a silver teal there they're cool so I have an affection for teal across multiple continents so any besides those any other sort of decoy activity still hung with the blue ink teal flats skinny teal I've got skinny teal out now I completed another full dozen of cart of cork teal so I've got two dozen of my own hand carved cork teal that I'll be hunting over

41:05 Chris Jennings so no new inventions no new ideas for this year we have the song dog the skinny teal anything what's next on the horizon Scott's inventiveness with the skinny teal decoys you know that I think he first mentioned this two or three years ago when you first started coming on the podcast well then the popularity of silhouettes because they used to be really popular in the 80s you know and then all of a sudden the silhouettes just came back you've got all these manufacturers out here making silhouettes and so I'd like it was after I think it was after you talked about having your

41:37 Scott Stephens skinny teal so you're influencing the industry right now influencer extraordinaire there we go yeah they work they work great I mean if you find the right water depth it's not very deep so the

41:48 Mike Brasher silhouettes along the edge look just like the birds out there so cool I don't have anything else I'm good Scott anything from your end I think I think we've I think we've covered the bases you won't let me say doing some editing now Chris Isaacs just shaking his hand over here he's like hey it was all good I didn't need to do anything and then he screwed it up all right Scott appreciate you joining us we will reconnect with you no doubt over the next few months to hear how things unfolded up there and yeah good luck to you as you get out and good luck to everybody else yeah for sure don't let a don't let a down breeding population report discourage you from getting out and chasing these birds there will be some birds out there for you to free to get and good luck doing so so Scott thanks for joining us Chris great to have you in here as well thank you yeah thanks Mike a very special thanks to our guest on today's episode Dr. Scott Stevens from DU Canada we always appreciate him joining us I also thank my co-host Chris Jennings for being here and thank our producer Chris Isaac who always does a great job with everything he does here for the podcast getting these edited and then out to you and to you the listener we thank you for your time we thank you for your support of wetlands and waterfowl conservation