CHEROKEE LAKE MALLARDS AND THEN SOME
Cherokee Lake near Morristown is home of the Cherokee bass or the better known hybrid striped bass. This was the original water where hybrids were bred from a cross between stripers and white bass. Cherokee is also a viable duck and goose hunting destination all late season long. The lower end of the lake is where you'll find most waterfowlers hunting off points and in coves for mallards, divers and incoming Canada geese.

Duck hunter Ronnie Lovell from Morristown and a partner had a big blind on Cherokee Lake for years that they maintained on an island near Timber Crest subdivision right downstream from Point 18. They put big spreads of decoys out in the amount of 75 to 100 mallard decoys and about 50 bluebill and goldeneye decoys.

They generally killed everything, but most of the incoming birds were mallards. From his Cherokee hunting, Lovell has mounts of canvasbacks, bluebills, goldeneyes, black ducks, buffleheads, teal and geese that were all killed on Cherokee Lake. He said the season always gets better as the winter gets colder in January. That's when the ponds and other small waters started freezing, and the duck numbers always go up on the lake. You can see big migrating flocks way up high, too, coming in from the north.

As far as geese hunting goes, it's still a resident-goose population on Cherokee Lake; landowners constantly complain about the mess the birds leave in yards. Geese use Cherokee as a resting spot as they fly back and forth to feeding areas, especially in the fall and winter. A few floaters, some decent calling and some full-bodied dekes on the flats will get you your goose shots on Cherokee Lake.

HE NUMBERS GAME
Tim White, the TWRA's Waterfowl Coordinator, said that traditionally, there are peak times for ducks to appear in Tennessee. He said the waterfowl refuges in West Tennessee usually see peak waterfowl numbers somewhere around Jan. 1, give or take a week. They typically build through Christmas and hold steady through New Year's, but many factors can throw all this out the window, including unseasonably warm or cold weather. If you had to bet, the first day of the new year will be our peak.

We all know that West Tennessee is the duck mecca in the Volunteer State, but there are duck enthusiasts across the Tennessee Valley. The Old Hickory Lake area and Dale Hollow Lake actually see their share of ducks. White said most of the ducks in Middle Tennessee are Mississippi Flyway ducks. Very few ducks from the Atlantic make it that way. The waterfowl biologist said waterfowl numbers in the Atlantic Flyway have been down for decades. To put it mildly, White said the Mississippi Flyway is the 500-pound gorilla of the flyways.

Cherokee Lake in East Tennessee can hold some pretty good waterfowl numbers at times in the form of both geese and ducks (puddlers and plenty of divers). Moreover, East Tennessee has its share of black ducks when it comes to those with a price on their heads. White said black ducks in East Tennessee are produced in the same areas as the black ducks that come to Middle and West Tennessee. They are primarily from the Boreal Forest region of Ontario, Canada. He added most of the Atlantic black ducks are produced on the coastal areas of New England and on up into the coastal areas, and somewhat inland in Canada.

Most of the inland population of black ducks comes down through Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky into Tennessee. White said they spend much of the time in the southern Lake Erie marshes, and we depend on cold weather to send large numbers of blacks on down into the Volunteer State. He added there are probably a few black ducks here that come over from the Atlantic Flyway, but most of ours are produced north of the Great Lakes.

MAY POND SURVEY ANOTHER POSITIVE FOR THIS SEASON
The good news for duck hunters this season is from Ducks Unlimited (DU), which notes that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released in July its preliminary report on mid-continent breeding ducks and habitats, based on surveys conducted in May. Overall, duck populations increased 14 percent since last year with an estimated 41.2 million breeding ducks on the surveyed area. As a result of winter snowfall and good precipitation, habitat conditions are similar or slightly improved compared with conditions in 2006.