Thunderbird Hunting Club

The hunting in our area is still way off the norm. We lease approximately 15,000 acres inland of the Matagorda Bay system. Our duck hunting appeared to pick up this weekend, but only so slightly. We hope that this is the start of birds moving into our area from the inclement weather up north, only time will tell. Our normal long-term average is 75% to 100% limits on ducks at this time of year. This year a good hunt is four hunters bagging ten birds. Reports we have received from the coast are; huge numbers of ducks in the bay system and not just all Redheads and Pintails. As speculated earlier, the monsoon rains that fell non-stop over the summer have sweetened the marsh system and cultivated good habitat. Areas along the coast are reported the most ducks they have ever seen. Our area on the other hand has had less than 2-inches of rain since late August. The result of the drought is the outlying areas of our leases are parched and is poor habitat for the waterfowl. We have kept our habitat flooded, repumping some of our ponds up to four times, but so far all the water we have maintained since September has not helped our hunting.

Geese are just now moving onto our properties in fairly large numbers. However, the hunting is becoming exceeding more difficult, in part we blame the constant barrage of shooting at the Snows through the extended season up and down the flyway. It appears that all the Snows now have doctorates in survival. We are now exclusively using full-bodied decoys to fool the geese and are having only limited success with the decoys.

Best regards,

Todd Steele
Thunderbird Hunting Club
713-705-2370