A word to the wise on opening weekend of the West Zone duck hunting season for 2021-22: Don’t pass up a shot on a blue-winged teal or a green-winged teal waiting on big ducks.

That’s the personal advice offered by the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ new waterfowl program manager, Jason Olszak, 1 ½ weeks before the waterfowl hunting season opens Nov. 13 in the West Zone. Oh, yeah, everyone’s amped up about it, looking forward to killing big ducks, but heed the words of a veteran waterfowl biologist.

“I wouldn’t be picky about the species,” Olszak said Wednesday afternoon from his Lafayette office.

There’s no telling how many or what kind of ducks will be down for the opener this coming Saturday. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey, a statistical annual report card that’s accurate, was canceled this spring for the second straight year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lacking those numbers and conditions handicaps the waterfowl biologists preparing for the upcoming season. However, Olszak, who replaced veteran waterfowl study leader Larry Reynolds in early October, has received numerous first-hand reports of dry conditions in Canada and north central United State.

“That doesn’t bode well for waterfowl production, for the hatch. It was dry,” Olszak said.

Olszak, 47, who lives in Church Point, has been with the state agency 15 years, including the last 11 years as an assistant to Reynolds. He graduated first from Hiram (Ohio) College, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, then the University of Louisiana-Monroe. He was a sidekick on aerial waterfowl population estimate survey flights for a decade with Reynolds and plans to continue the surveys starting Monday when the department’s plane leaves its hangar in Baton Rouge.

Then he’ll have an idea about the estimated number of ducks down in the Sportsman’s Paradise, he said.

“I’ll have a better view of that when I get up in the plane,” he said.

He has seen reports from his peers in the Midwestern states monitoring the migration on their managed wetlands along the Mississippi Flyway. Ducks are on the way, according to those biologists.

Olszak has been keeping his eye on the waterfowl population at Catahoula Lake in central Louisiana. As of the end of October, there were approximately 15,000 ducks there, most of them blue-winged teal and pintails, with some greenheads and gadwalls, he said.

Reynolds conducted his last aerial waterfowl population survey the week before the special teal season opened Sept. 11. He and Olszak saw an estimated 5,000 mottled duck, 2,000 gadwalls and 209,000 blue-winged teal at that time in southwest Louisiana.

The blue-winged teal numbers that week were 44 percent higher than the most recent 10-year average of 145,000 in this region. They were inhabiting mostly marsh habitats rather than agricultural fields, an oddity based on past years

That was nearly one month ago. Things have changed, particularly the weather, and most of those blue-wings have exited the state, which is typical.

There should be plenty of green-winged teal in the state by now. Who knows? As for the other species, who knows? And that’s one reason the state’s new waterfowl study leader suggested against passing up a teal.

Also, because of the probability reproduction was down considerably this year, it will mean more older ducks than younger ducks flying down the Flyway. Olszak said it’ll be interesting to see the ratio of older and younger ducks harvested.

Duck hunters young and old will get an informed idea about what’s down here this weekend during the youth and veterans only duck hunting in the West Zone. Then it’s on to the highly anticipated regular-season opener in the West Zone.

The first split in the West Zone ends Dec. 5. The East Zone opener is Nov. 20 and hunting there ends Dec.5.

Take care and be safe. And bring back a limit.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.