By David Draper

It seems the fears of forum posters who predicted last week’s cold front would push ducks through the Plains were premature. Though the storm may have moved out some local birds, according to my sources, ducks are plentiful in the northern part of the flyway and the main part of the migration is just kicking off with new birds showing up daily.

One of the first signs of autumn’s migration is the trilling call of Sandhill cranes as they wing their way south for the season. Over the past couple of days, I’ve been hearing cranes, and picking their faint outlines out of the clouds. Avery Pro Staffers Lance Ohnmacht of Hutchinson, Kansas, and Vance Stolz of Windsor, Colorado, both report a significant migration of the big birds passing through their respective states. [ Read Full Post ]

By M.D. Johnson

In northeast Ohio, where I grew up, wood ducks were synonymous with beaver swamps. Oh, you’d find them on the creeks (pronounced cricks, and spelled that way too sometimes) and we’d kill a few on the east branch of the Mahoning River, if we floated it early enough in the season. But usually, wood ducks, flooded pin oaks, duckweed, and buckbrush all went together like little kids and trick-or-treat.
 
Now, I’m hearing that hunters in Minnesota are seeing clouds of woodies in the cornfields. I guess it makes sense, what with the marshes here in the Upper Midwest dramatically dry due to the summer drought. No water, no duckweed, no invertebrates; so the birds are going to the most abundant and most readily available food source going these days – corn. I did hit flights of wood ducks in a cornfield cut for silage on the opening day of Iowa’s early season one September. It was a lightning quick, right-at-first-light deal, but it was fascinating to see the colorful drakes and their drab girlfriends twisting and turning over stubble as opposed to cattails, ‘coon tail, and dark water. Sharp eyes could tell drake from hen; sharper shooting skills could bring home a pair like these, courtesy of that eastern Iowa morning. [ Read Full Post ]

By David Draper

Late last week, the forum boards were aflutter about the the big arctic push coming in from Canada. While most the waterfowlers were positively giddy about the nasty weather kicking off the 2012 migration, there were a good number of Nebraska duck hunters grousing about the late openers the Game and Parks Commission put into place in Zones 1 and 3 this year. "The ducks will pass us by!" they cried. "Our seasons are over before they start!"

Funny thing about the Internet, it causes some people to speak (or type) without thinking. That's the only explanation I can come up with for anyone believing an early Arctic Express would push every duck through the Dakotas, Nebraska and south in to Kansas. And I'm one of those Zone 3 High Plains hunters that has to wait until October 20 to start my Nebraska duck season.
[ Read Full Post ]

By Michael R. Shea

Mixed reports from opening weekend in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have many speculating a slow start to the Atlantic flyway duck migration. Bird counters in and around the Chesapeake Bay agree, but a cold snap expected to hit the East Coast this weekend could jump-start the season.

Brad Shepard, who lives near Augusta, had a bang-up opening day last week in Maine’s north zone. “Three of us all shot limits and saw 200 to 250 birds – a good mix of mallards and woodies,” he said. “We got seven the next day, a banded woodie, then the last day of early goose season we got five between three of us.” A few miles down in the south zone, it was a different story with heavier hunting pressure and fewer birds.

“Southern Maine I’ve got some mixed reports,” said Kelsey Sullivan, migratory and upland game bird biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “It’s been very mediocre south on Bangor.” [ Read Full Post ]

By Duane Dungannon

Now that a few preseason tilts have offered a tease and a season preview for waterfowl season in the Pacific Flyway this fall, it’s time to kick off the regular season.

Western waterfowlers got a taste of the treats in store during early goose seasons and youth waterfowl hunting weekends in September, and they can now set their sights on the general season openers in early October. By all accounts it should be a stellar opening to a banner season, as record numbers of ducks and geese arrive from their northern breeding grounds to complement good numbers of resident birds throughout Pacific Flyway states. [ Read Full Post ]