The early reports are in, and waterfowl hunters taking to flooded fields and marshes for this weekend’s opening days of the Louisiana’s West Zone certainly had more opportunity for success than this time last year.

That goes double for hunters in the southwestern parishes.

Wildlife and Fisheries’ Waterfowl Program manager Jason Olszak and his staff indicated aerial surveys of the coastal area and the Little River Basin (formerly Catahoula Lake) showed an estimate of 1,238,000 ducks in those areas, a number 143% higher than last year’s 510,000 all-time November low.

And, 704,000 of those ducks were in the southwest.

Yes, Monday’s cold front helped push the count to 40% higher than the average of the past five years’ November survey — 885,000 birds — and is the highest count since 2021

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