For its part, the MDWFP is working hard to cooperate if Mother Nature holds up her end and sends us ducks. "For one thing, we now have three biologists who are full-time on migratory birds, and for the most part that means working with waterfowl," Scott Baker said. "We have added Kevin Brunke to our Jackson headquarters and Houston Havens to our field staff. Havens works out of Greenwood in the Delta. That gives us more manpower to deal with the resource.

"For another thing, we are opening another waterfowl-intensive wildlife management area. Named for Howard Miller, the late two-term wildlife commissioner whose passion was waterfowl, the WMA is 2,100 acres near Rolling Fork in the south Delta. It is composed of rice and soybean farmland that can be flooded and yield a lot of ideal waterfowl habitat."

According to Baker, information on Miller WMA will be available on the agency's Web site, www.mdwfp. com. "We're still working on the regulations, but it should be ready and going this fall," he added. "I feel like it will become one of our better public waterfowl hunting areas, and will do so quickly. It will join the list of places like Mahannah and Twin Oaks, which are in that same vicinity, and Muscadine Farms near Hollandale. Those have been solid producers and should continue to do so."

Baker reported that the mallard-monitoring program is still in its infancy and has yet to produce much data. "We banded 30 in 2006 and we did another 15 in the spring of 2007," he explained. "Some of the new ones have GPS tracking instead of satellite, and the GPS is a lot more precise in its locating ability -- like, almost down to 12 inches. That will give us a better understanding of exactly what kind of habitat our ducks are using.

At this point we don't have a lot of data that can tell us too much, but more is coming in. Long-term, we feel like we will gain a fuller understanding of migration, habitat use and other factors that can help better manage the resource."

Short-term, the program has more or less been used as both an entertainment and slightly educational tool by hunters who can follow the migration of Mississippi's monitored ducks and those in the older Arkansas program. "I tracked them throughout the summer and fall last year," Lee Benoist offered. "I thought it was interesting to see where each duck went after they left the nesting grounds.

"But as far as did it help me during the hunting season? No, not really. It didn't tell anything more than I really already knew from hunting -- and that was that we weren't getting a lot of migration during the season. But I will continue to use the program and watch the ducks. I'd love to look at it one week this winter during an arctic blast and see all of the duck icons heading south in a hurry toward Mississippi. If I saw that, then sure, I'd say it would have helped me because I'd darn sure be heading to the duck blind."

Though he has low expectation for the upcoming season, Benoist -- like most duck hunters -- would be quick to accept a proposition that made limited hunts were the norm. "We may talk a good conservation game, but it is true that 99 percent of us do dream of having a situation where we could limit out every trip," he said. "Don't let any hunter tell you he wouldn't.

"But for that to happen, the situation would have to be ideal not only for hunters, but also for ducks. It would have to follow years of consistently good nesting production and that requires ideal habitat. It would require the right weather patterns with consistent cold fronts and a few arctic blasts.

"Realistically, that's not possible. We don't have the number of ducks we wish we had, we don't always have ideal nesting conditions, and we haven't had what I'd call a normal winter in about a decade. What we have to do is scale back our expectations -- and a lot of us have. It's either that or we'd get so frustrated we'd quit altogether."

Which brings us back to Jerry Garner.

"I'm still considering giving it up," he said. "They keep telling us that we have enough ducks, that we're going to have a good fall flight, that we will be seeing a lot of mallards, and yet they do not materialize. Last year, I did everything I thought was right to have a good duck season and I had the worst I've ever had.

"When I think of the money that I spend every year on leases and pumping and planting and travel and maintaining my gear and my dog -- well, you can't really count the dog, because I'd do that anyway -- and I seriously have to think about whether it is worth it to hunt another season.

"Then I think about what if we did have a change, and the Delta was full of ducks and I wasn't there. I couldn't live with that. So, yes: I'll be out there again -- chasing the dream."