More, No Ducks

[Worth Mathewson]

First, I would like to thank Brad Harshman for his suggestion I look elsewhere for ducks. That was just good common sense. But due to several things over the past few years I don't get far from home, at least in the Northwest. So to a degree all my eggs are in one basket.
As for the reason that many of us in Oregon's Willamette Valley are puzzled over the lack of ducks might be of interest to other waterfowlers. For starters, the Willamette Valley starts at Portland, and runs south to Eugene, a little over 100 miles. The valley is formed by the Cascade Mountains on the east, and the Coast Range Mountains on the west. Give or take a few miles, it is about 45 miles wide. The Willamette River flows through the center of the valley, entering the Columbia at Portland. There are several other large and small rivers entering the Willamette from both east and west. One close to our place is the Yamhill.
While there might be other locations with as many "duck clubs" or land managed for waterfowl, I think the Willamette Valley would rate very high. There are also three large Federal Wildlife Refuges (formed to protect the Dusky Canada goose) and several smaller ones.
The best example I can give is my own place. Below the house I have 20 acres which floods. I plant millet and buckwheat for the ducks. Since I am within five miles from one of the refuges, we have problems with ducks night feeding us. In years past we have had over 3000 ducks down there at night. Rather remarkably, they know the opening and closing time down to the second. In, just minutes after legal time, gone before starting time. (Even if we don't shoot that day!) But more important to understand the Willamette Valley, our place is just one of scores within a ten mile radius of our front door. This morning I made a list of those, and the number is 21. That is a lot of places in a rather small area. And all of these plant for the ducks. One of the largest is the Perrydale Club. It is a mile north of us. They plant and flood 55 acres of corn. Even more impressive is the Mud Creek Club. That one is 525 acres of totally natural wetlands. They don't plant. Mud Creek Club is directly across Hwy 99 from the refuge. And is actually better habitat. Just a few years ago the members always shot over 1,500 ducks there. As for the refuge itself, yep, there are ducks on it now, but not many. And the refuge has excellent natural food for the birds.
Yesterday afternoon I was at a pre-Christmas get together, and spoke with other guys that shoot clubs or their own planted grounds up and down the valley. All said the same, there were some good days at the start of the season on local birds (mostly mallards), but almost nothing since. And everyone voiced amazement that there are no teal.
What all this adds up to is the fact that in the Willamette Valley there are hundreds of places where food is planted for the ducks. And large refuges for them to spend the day and night feed the clubs. But they certainly ain't around. Does this mean we just don't have numbers of ducks? Are they all over on the coast? Are they still up north? For sure I don't know. I do know that a lot of us find it puzzling, if that is a strong enough word.
And as a P.S. to Bill Ferrar about LL Bean decoys, I have had mine for about 30 years, and still use them. Since I was from Virginia to start with, I have a strong loyalty to the black duck. I got those rather than mallards. Most of the guys I shot with over the years gave me a hard time when I used them. The mallards didn't care, they decoyed to them, and still do. Worth

 

[Mark W]

It is very similar here Worth. The private clubs have not seen the numbers of ducks they have in the past. My in-laws place in South Dakota have not had anywhere near the numbers of ducks come through as years past. Early season here was better than average and then later on petered out. I was seeing teal in late October and Wood ducks into November which is very unusual.

One private place I have access to always draws ducks due to a good food source and bubblers that keep water open year round. It is almost as if migrating ducks know this spot as when the flghts are down, this place is packed full of many varieties of ducks. When the big migrations happens, I have in many years past sat watching wave upon wave of ducks land in this area. It is one of those awae inspring sites that many don't get a chance to watch. Sort of like watching the snow goose migration through South Dakota - amazing. Even with the smaller bodies of water frozen around here since this weekend, and now with a big winter storm moving in tomorrow, they still do not have ducks on the property. Very strange.

The Mississippi is usually a good indicator of what is around. We have regular contact with hunters around 100 miles north of the Twin Cities down to a little south of Weaver Bottoms (100 or so miles south of the cities) and they have seen no ducks. One guy, a retired fireman typically hunts 4-5 days/week through the whole season and has done so for as long as I have known him - no ducks. Got so bad for him that for a couple of weeks he didn't go hunting which is not like him at all. Even told his wife to hide his truck keys so he had no means of getting to Weaver Bottoms. Whe this happens, you know it has to be bad.

Mt theory, the ducks are still north of here. October was record rainfall (or close to record rainfall) and while it was chilly, it was not cold enough to push ducks. With all the rain in October, the farmers have been unable to get to the crop in the fields. When I was back pheasant hunting, all the slough land was filled with water and we couldn't hunt it. So, with all the standing water, crops still in the field, no frozen water, and no snow to cover food, the ducks duidn't leave.

Just my opinion.

Mark W

 

[greg setter]

If it's of any interest, we are looking at the same thing on the East Coast, at least here in New Jersey. I hunt along Delaware Bay, the southernmost part of the state. Almost all of the best marshes are public and it stretches about 40-50 miles-a lot of ground. Our early migrants were here in pretty good numbers, but it has fallen off quite a bit. We have had pretty mild weather all fall, and even when we had ducks the hunting was not that good, they would just lay up all day and not move. Now those ducks have left and pickings are mighty slim. Our primary ducks are green wing teal and black ducks, that is probably 80% of our bag with the rest made up of mallards, pintails, gadwall, and wigeon, in that order. Wood ducks are abundant a little inland and I understand the gunning for them was quite good, but many of them are home grown. We often have a lull in action this time of year, but it has been going on quite a while now and we haven't really had any great outings. Reports from others around the state are similar, and it doesn't seem as if the neighboring states are any different. I am also not hearing of much good gunning on the bays along the ocean except for bufflehead and brant. It's kind of baffling. We also winter a lot of greater snow geese, but they don't usually get here in a big way until late December/January, and while there are some around, it's kind of hard to tell if that is slow as they generally bypass us on the way down and start working back north as the winter wears on. There are also a lot of Canada's in New Jersey and while I don't hunt them, I am usually seeing them all over the place, and it doesn't seem like they are here either.