There was drama Tuesday in what usually is a drama-less January Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meeting.

January’s meeting focused on the agency’s Wildlife Division announcing the proposed dates and other usually minor alterations for the next hunting season.

Ducks, namely teal, provided the eye-opening lead-in to that staff’s presentation.

This year, the special September teal season will be nine days — Sept. 20-28 — not the 16 days hunters have had for nearly two decades.

The reason comes from the 2024 Waterfowl Breeding Count survey, an estimate conducted on breeding grounds in the north-central United States, the Canadian prairielands and in Alaska.

The count on bluewing teal came in at 4.599 million, just below the 4.7 million needed to allow Louisiana hunters a 16-day season. The bluewing count has declined during the past three surveys from 6.485 million in 2022 to 5.25 million in 2023.

So, what usually are calendar adjustments from the previous hunting seasons turned out to stand only for resident game — deer, squirrel, rabbit and quail seasons.

And for the second year, the West Zone waterfowl season took another turn. In 2024, some West Zone hunters banded together to ask the commission to extend their duck season to the last day, Jan. 31, allowed in the federal waterfowl framework.

They got their wish last year, but not this time.

Commission member Kevin Segrera, who was later voted to chair the commission this year, offered an amendment calling for an extra early end to the West Zone duck season. His amendment, passed unanimously and has a Nov. 1-30 first split followed by a Dec. 13-Jan. 18 second split. The current West Zone season has three splits.

Other proposed changes included:

• Adding a two-day special weekends for Youth (Nov. 8-9) and honorably discharged veterans (Jan. 30-31) to the East Waterfowl Zone;
• Changing to a four-per-season limit (2 antlered/2 antlerless) deer in Deer Area 4 where the limit had been three for a season;
• Removing physically challenged hunter blinds on Maurepas Swamp Wildlife Management Area and the Floy McElroy WMA (for lack of use) and establishes a similar blind one on the Sandy Hollow WMA;
• Moving to allow dogs only on Wildlife and Fisheries’ WMA camping areas;
• Setting a 2 p.m. curfew on waterfowl hunting and a rule prohibiting mud boats and air-cooled vessels and all other nighttime activities on the Biloxi Marsh WMA, and a rule requiring all fish on the WMA to be taken by rod and reel;
• Opening the 2026 turkey seasons on Good Friday, which adds an extra day to the seasons in all three turkey hunting areas;
• And, opening U.S. 11 to all-hours access to the Pearl River WMA.

Newly elected vice chairman Andy Brister offered an amendment to allow hunters 65 and older to use any legal firearm to take deer during the primitive firearm season, a move that mimics the allowance for hunters 17 and younger.

Another offering came regarding the opening of the dove season. Federal regulations allow Louisiana to open the dove season Sept. 1, which, this year, is a Monday. Wildlife Division spokesman Jeff Duguay said previous surveys showed hunters preferred a full weekend to open this season, which, this year, falls Sept. 6-7. Duguay said another survey is in the offing and said the commission staff will work to compile the results for either the Feb. 6 or March 6 commission meetings.

For the full 2025-2026 hunting season’s notice, go to the agency’s website: wlf.louisiana.gov/resources/category/commission-action-items.

Duguay said the public can expect a Zoom meeting in February to discuss the seasons and take public comment.

Comments will be taken during the Feb. 6 and March 6 meetings. March 6 is the deadline to make comments mailed to: Jeffrey Duguay, LDWF Wildlife Division, P.O. Box 98000, Baton Rouge, LA, 70898-9000 or e-mail: jduguay@wlf.la.gov.

John Paul Summers has always watched the Super Bowl more for the commercials than the action on the football field. This year, one of those spots could be his.

Summers, an Abbeville-based filmmaker, has written and directed a semifinalist entry in the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest. Earlier this month, a panel at Doritos selected the 25 semifinalists from around 2,000 entries in its revived Super Bowl contest that offers viewers the challenge of making a better commercial than Doritos can.

On Tuesday, three finalists will be announced, and the public will have the chance to vote online for the winning commercial. The creator of the top vote-getting spot will receive $1 million and an all-expenses paid trip to New Orleans for the Feb. 9 Super Bowl — and of course, the thrill of seeing their commercial air during the big game.

Also making the top 25 is a spot called “Home from Work,” FUGO Productions’ humorous take on the return to the office post-COVID. Longtime Lafayette actor Bruce Coen, who now lives in Georgia, stars in that commercial … in his boxers, no less.

Meanwhile, Becca Begnaud, a traiteur, or faith healer from Scott, is the sole cast of Summers’ “Ashes to Ashes” commercial.

In search of someone to act in the spot, Summers called John David Mahoney, a Lafayette producer who he’s worked with for years.

“And he was like, ‘What about Becca Begnaud?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s perfect,’” Summers said.

“I met Becca in 2017 on a short film, ’17 Year Locust.’ And then, we had also collaborated on a documentary she’s in,” he said. “Becca is a lot of things — she does healing work, and she also deals with death and dying, which ended up being a good synchronicity for the content of this commercial idea.”

In the spot, the ashes of Begnaud’s character’s loved one and Doritos manage to collide in humorous fashion.

“When he asked me to do this, he knew that we have an understanding of death and dying and people need to start understanding that, you know what I’m saying?” Begnaud said. “So it’s a dark, humorous take on it, but it’s like we are all going to die and we need to own that.”

Summers said “Ashes to Ashes” was a group effort by his employer, Baton Rouge-based Movee Media, which produced it, and his boss, Stuart Poulton, executive producer, along with on-set sound man Lance Willie.

“It was a lot more homegrown than a normal commercial set, you know what I mean?” Summers said.

On the day of the shoot, Begnaud said Summers chose the earrings and shirt that she would wear for filming, and inquired if she had capri pants. A quick wardrobe change and they were off to Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville. They set up on the park’s beach for the shoot.

“It was a really simple idea,” said Summers. “That was kind of what was great about it, is that it really didn’t require a lot of resources to pull off.”

And Begnaud didn’t disappoint.

“A lot of times I feel like you really have to force things to happen, but this, everything just came together, the idea came to me very easily — JD recommending Becca, and she was perfect,” he said. “I really believe, you know, if somebody would’ve come up with this idea in a boardroom somewhere, they couldn’t have found a better person in the whole world to play it than Becca Begnaud because I feel like that’s something that would actually happen to her.”

Summers has worked in the industry since 2011 doing regional, national and international projects — most notably filming famous flamboyant designer Iris Apfel for an Apple commercial called “Behind the Mac,” as well as music videos with Sir Paul McCartney. He’s also done many commercials for The Ochsner Health System, several for Gulf Coast Bank & Trust, and a national PSA for the Wounded Warrior Project.

Sizing up his competition for the Doritos prize, Summers thinks “Ashes to Ashes” stands out.

“It’s the only one with no dialogue and I think it has its own unique style,” he said. “It’s been super well-received by all the people that we’ve shared it with. We’re honored to have gotten this far, obviously, but also still very much holding out hope that we can win. And with the Super Bowl being in New Orleans and us kind of being the home team, I think is cool too.”

To check out the other semifinalists’ entries, go to doritoscrash.com.