Having multiple wetlands allows us to react accordingly to variables beyond our ability to control. This picture series is just a snapshot into one adjustment we had to make relative to the year's weather to insure we have the best duck hunt wetlands that we can make.
In the case of this wetlands and this coming fall's duck season the spring weather prohibited the corporation farm (biggest farm equipment to be seen) from planting its lowlands with any kind of crop. This condition, if we let it stand, would have resulted in a weed field rather than a crop field to flood for that fall. With the field too wet for any farm tractor, even our 4,000 pound compact tractor, we took to prepare seedbed and plant 800 pounds of millet over a 160 acre field, with an ATV. It turned into four long days.
June through August are the months we do our most productive waterfowl improvements. Levee and pipe repair is usually on top of the list, but last summer's hot weather enabled us to pretty much get caught up on that end. With one water level control task done there will always be something else on the wetlands list.
The season of these pictures, we're planning to keep as much standing water as possible in the Middle Zone (reacting to our dry summer and fall last year) and seed some of the mud flats as the water recedes. That should end up with 1/2 of the fall flood area in crop and the other 1/2 in open water.
In the North Zone we're doing some work to plant feed for the ducks only in areas we have a guaranteed water source such as in the photo series below. This wetlands has a well and pump that floods and maintains water level throughout the duck season. Our other northern zone wetlands is the one with the 12 acre reservoir lake we will drain into the duck food plot planted wetlands should we need extra water.
Jon Jr. (future owner/operator of MAHA) working some seed into the ground. The large fields east of the wetland (under MAHA lease for field sets) have been planted to corn and are doing well. Those fields are above the large drainage canal. This field is less than 20 feet lower elevation and that was enough to keep it too wet to plant, however easy to flood during the fall.
We had to pick and choose areas to seed since a lot of the ground was too rough to work with what we have to work with. This particular low spot next to one of the blinds worked real well. The real value of this picture is the water in the drainage canal. This small canal feeds into a larger one that was several feet deep with water during a time of year when it is typically dry. All that water is field saturation runoff as the last rain was several days prior.
This is pretty much the same as the last one, but it shows a little more detail like the shooting pool that was left in front of the blind.
A lot of folks feel that combining a recreational interest with an income source means we have a cool job. The reality is that any job is work with good and bad and in the hunting industry there is as with all work fields more monotony and simple work than interning or fun days. One definition of monotony is riding an ATV in circles for four days to first drag and smooth the seedbed followed over the same ground to plant. What is normally a 1/2 day effort with farm equipment turned into a four day endurance test that while not physically demanding did mentally numb the brain.
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