Quote:
Originally Posted by louisianaoutfitters
The expansion of crawfishing the rice fields of southwest Louisiana is creating a big problem for field duck hunters. I've seen a dramatic rise in crawfish acreage the last few years. I've lost some really good blinds over the years to crawfish. I can't blame the farmers, with the price of rice ( f'ed up by the govt with trade restrictions ect..) at very low levels. Farmers are looking for other ways to stay in business. If this increase in crawfishing continues, I'll say that in twenty years field hunting will be a dead sport. It's not just that it ruins that specific farm/field. But the pop guns ruin about a surrounding mile. Crawfish farmers don't want a duck or goose (or any other bird) in their fields, period. This loss of habitat will change flyways and birds (ducks, geese, shorebirds etc. will quit coming down here, if there is not adequate acreage available to them. This is a relatively new industry, but I've seen it becoming a much bigger issue to hunters in the last two years. In the meantime I'll keep finding new areas with less crawfishing, which are getting harder to find. It's a tiny drop in the bucket, but I don't eat them anymore, or serve them at our lodge.
Hopefully supply will meet demand and the destruction of waterfowl habitat won't expand any further!
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I wasn't going to comment but after reading this, my head nearly exploded. I grew up south of Kaplan on a rice farm which I now own along with my two brothers. We have always had crawfish ponds in the bottom pieces. We have also had a duck blind right in the middle of the crawfish ponds. We have another blind in the higher section of the farm thats better for geese. We alternate the rice crop between the two sections every year, have done this for 50 years. I know about 50 other people that do the exact same thing. Never had a problem with ducks flaring at the sight of a crawfish cage and no farmer I know would run his cages in a pond someone was hunting. Most of the time its a waste of time and money to start crawfishing until the weather warms up. Especially so if the pond hasn't been stocked and fished previoulsy. A lot of guys around here don't flood their fields until December and thats only if they need a tax right off before the end of the year. He probably will trap as much rain as he can tough. If your lease is in a decent flyway, I'd say give it another year before you go looking for another because your likely to be disappointed unless you have 30 or 40K to drop.
Crawfishing destroying the tradition of field hunting for the tens of thousands is complete hyperbole. It's the tens of thousands destroying hunting for those of us who aren't tourist. There are so many suburbanites and Business Development directors willing to pay ridiculous money for a blind landowners are putting them within shooting range of each other. Why not? Oil royalties dry up quick and a 1/5 or 1/6 royalty on a rice crop isn't going to keep the lights on unless you own a township. Money's not easy to come by in these parts. 3/4 of the people looking for a place to hunt would consider 4 or 5 spoonbills a slaughter. And I don't know where you hunt exactly but have never, ever, ever, never ever, heard a carbide gun go off during hunting season. Those things don't come out until its time to plant to keep the blackbirds and other nonmigratory birds from eating the seeds before they germinate. If someones got one out during duck season its out of spite or stupidity.
As a landowner I will say that finding a good farmer is a hell of a lot harder than finding a someone looking for a lease. We don't lease any property and probably never will. But if I did, I would more than likely let my farmer sublease to the hunters just to make sure they didn't do anything to piss him off. I can imagine running a commercial hunting/fishing outfit isn't the easiest or most secure way to feed your family, neither is sharecropping. The tradition of hunting means a lot to me, but at the end of the day, its a hobby. My land being taken care of and cultivated the way my grandfather would have wanted it done means a lot more than killing birds. If that means letting my rice farmer have a crawfish pond so be it. Sugarcane is 10X the threat to rice field hunting. Maybe you should boycott sugar as well.