Teal hunting can be tough — and rewarding
Texas’ coastal wetlands during September hold a wonderful bounty for waterfowlers willing to put themselves in the middle of these marshy environs on just about any of the 16 late-summer/early-autumn mornings of teal season. But there’s a price for admission.
Some of the abundance found in those wetlands is less than enjoyably memorable or even agreeable. There’s the misery of mud and mosquitoes, both in infinite supply this especially wet September. Particularly the mosquitoes.
Add to that, the soaking sweats that come from even the least physical exertion when wearing chest waders when the air temperature at dawn is above 80 degrees, the humidity 100 percent and the wind dead calm. Within minutes of stepping into this world, everything is drenched — from sweatplastered hair to socks squishing inside wader boots and everything between.
If not for the very real threat of contracting a case of “swimmers itch” — a nasty rash sometimes colloquially called “marsh rot” — caused by parasitic snails often found in warmwater wetlands, it would be sensible to just forget the sweat-inducing waterproof outerwear and simply “wade wet.”
But then you’d have to worry a little more about blundering into one of the floating balls of fire ants that often pepper recentlyflooded prairie wetlands or the occasional cottonmouth that wants to contest possession of a levee or other piece of what passes for high ground in these wet places.
But the singular sights, sounds, scents and other sensory rewards the experience offers more than outweigh any temporary physical discomfort.
That was most recently confirmed this past weekend on a beautiful wetland in Wharton County.
We were sweat-soaked by the time we unloaded gear-loaded sleds from the side-by-side UTV and trailer and, an hour before sunrise, began the slog across the thigh-deep impoundment. From the look of things, the five of us — four men and one Labrador — might get even wetter. To the southeast, back toward Matagorda Bay and the Gulf, pulses of lightning backlit roiled thunderheads, promising more of the rain that has blessed and cursed coastal Texas this month.
Far over in the corner of the wetland, near a sienna bean patch, came a quick, thin, reedy quack and soon after, just as it was almost gray light, the sound of wings cutting air whispered overhead. Teal. Bluewings almost certainly.
But there were so many other birds, too.
Streams of ibis — white and white-faced — sailed overhead, some so close it was easy to see their peculiarly long, down-curved scarlet bills and strikingly blue eyes. Galleries of great, snowy and cattle egrets, drifted over the wetland like white streamers. A belted kingfisher wheeled and turned and dove, coming up with something wriggling in its spike-like bill.
Black-necked stilts, wading the shallows on those impossibly long, pink legs, poked and probed for the abundant invertebrates living in the rich soup of the shallow freshwater wetland. A couple of roseate spoonbills joined them, rhythmically sweeping their namesake spatula-like bills back and forth, seining breakfast.
Wavering lines of “squealers” — black-bellied and fulvous whistling ducks — traded over the wetland, the resident waterfowl conversing among themselves in their highpitched “pee-chee” calls.
The morning was a steady stream of avian live drawn to wetlands, a landscape on which they depend almost wholly. These shallow wetlands with their mosaic of aquatic plants invertebrates and vertebrates are lodge and larder for scores of bird species and other wildlife. But mostly birds.
And during September they draw some of their largest crowds of the year as resident waterbirds are joined by the first waves of migrants moving south.
Gathering at wetlands
They all come to the wetlands — the prairie impoundments and coastal fresh, brackish and saline marshes — to partake of their rich bounty of food. And that bounty is richest in early autumn. It’s then — now — when those special places attract their largest variety of avian life. It’s a mix of resident waterbirds and arriving migrants. Many of both will be leaving over the coming weeks and months, moving south to winter quarters in warmer climes. Some of the migrants will winter in Texas.
A pair of those migrants shook me from my birdwatching when they swept low over the wetlands, braked, flared their wings and sifted toward a purposely-made opening between two clumps of decoys. Teal! A pair. Blindmates James Powell and Nick Shaver rose, fired, dropping both. On Rob Sawyer’s command, Mattie, a polished bolt of black lightning, chugged through the shallow water and returned with the birds. Both were adult male blue-winged teal.
With apologies to Voltaire, who I’d like to believe would have said it if he’d been a modern Louisiana duck hunter instead of an 18th century French philosopher: If teal season didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it.
Which is exactly what happened in the mid-1960s.
A devastating drought on northern prairies in the late 1950s and early 1960s resulted in waterfowl populations plummeting to lows never before seen. Duck seasons in the early 1960s were slashed to as little as 30 days and bag limits dropped as low as two birds. Waterfowlers abandoned the recreation in droves, taking with them the licenses fees and federal excise taxes on firearms and ammunition that almost wholly funded waterfowl and wetland management.
Blue-winged teal proved one way to get hunters back.
Bluewings, one of the most populous ducks in North America, are early migrants. Most of them head south long before other ducks, with the majority continuing on to wintering grounds in Mexico, Central and South America long before the regular autumn duck season opens.
In particular, adult male bluewings, which migrate a month or more ahead of most hens and their broods, begin arriving in Texas as early as late August with large numbers in the state as September wears on.
Those ducks were here and gone before the autumn hunting seasons opened in November. Waterfowl managers figured a brief hunting season during September, when bluewings were almost the only migratory duck in Texas, would be a great way to add hunting opportunity without negatively impacting the species’ population.
A huge success
After a couple of “experimental” teal-only hunting seasons in the mid 1960s, the September teal-only hunting season has been a staple since 1969.
The September teal-only season has been a huge success, especially in Texas. The bulk of North America’s bluewings — and their population is booming, this year 27 percent above the 62-year average — pass through Texas in the Central Flyway and Louisiana in the Mississippi Flyway. This past year Texas lead the nation in the number of teal hunters and teal harvest.
This year, Texas’s teal season has been … just fair. Just ahead of the Sept. 15 opening of teal season, heavy rains swamped much of the Texas coast. That abundance of water created lots of habitat for teal, scattering the birds and making hunting tougher.
That could change for this final weekend of the season, which closes at sunset Sept. 30. This week’s full moon coincides with a mild cool front pushing south out of Canada. That should trigger a strong move of migrating bluewings just in time for this season’s finale. A grand finale
The finale of our hunt this past weekend was one all Texas teal hunters hope to see when they head afield. It was a grand morning, with the rain holding off, a building south breeze sweeping away some of the mugginess and a lot of the mosquitoes and the sky filled with a parade of avian life. Some of them were teal.
We pecked away, mostly at singles and doubles. We were thinking of packing it in when a swarm of teal tumbled out of the sky, bore low over the wetland looking for just the right place to land.
They swung downwind, banked, aimed straight for the opening in front of the blind and came in a rush — maybe 30 birds — braking and waffling on locked wings right there, 20 yards in front of us.
That sight, like so many moments that morning, was definitely worth the price of admission.