duck hunting - Wildlife Management Pro

Ducks Found in the Highland Lakes of Central Texas

Ducks abound in the Highland Lakes area, and are found, basically, in two varieties — the puddle duck and the diving duck. According to Derrick Wolter, wildlife biologist with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, the puddle duck species include mallard, gadwall, wigeon, blue-winged teal, green-winged teal, shovelers, and pintail. Diving ducks include ring-necked, lesser scaup, greater scaup, canvasback, redheads, and buffleheads.

Probably the best known of the puddle ducks in this area are the mallards, pintails, blue-winged teal, and green-winged teal. Puddle ducks are so named because of their feeding habits. These waterfowl prefer to dine on submerged vegetation in shallow puddles or along the shores of lakes and rivers in water no deeper than about 12-inches.

Puddle ducks feeding in shallow water

Their diet, in addition, includes lots of seeds — from corn, wheat, bulrushes, wild rice, primrose, willow, water elm, oak, hackberry and other trees along streams. And they also dine on mollusks, insects, small fish, tadpoles, freshwater snails, and fish eggs. Continue reading Ducks Found in the Highland Lakes of Central Texas

Duck Hunting Drives Land Values Higher

How many duck hunting camps are there are around Greenwood? “Hundreds,” Henry Flautt says. He then explains to how duck hunting has driven land values around the Delta to record levels. “It’s unbelievable.”

It wasn’t always that way. We are sitting in a duck blind that Kenneth Thompson’s family bought for 50 cents an acre in the 1930s so their son could have a place to hunt. The land had been cut over and nobody wanted to pay the taxes on it. So it sold for pennies at a tax sale.

Fast forward to present day and currently the land is worth thousands of dollars an acre – simply as a place to hunt teal, gadwall, and mallard. Heirs of Atlanta’s Cox family just purchased thousands of acres in Carroll County. The Gaylord’s, Oklahoma City’s publishing family, recently purchased a huge tract of Delta land. Their sole purpose: to hunt ducks. Continue reading Duck Hunting Drives Land Values Higher