After opener, dream of November

Experienced duck and goose hunters don’t pay much attention to forecasts by the federal and state waterfowl agencies. The size of duck and goose migrations out of British Columbia and Alberta isn’t necessarily going to deter them.

Eastern Washington and regions to the north have enough water to produce ducks even if the main pothole regions are dry.

Weather patterns will determine whether hunting will be productive.

Waterfowling tends to be good on the first day or two of the season in Eastern Washington until the “local” birds wise up to any defects in decoying and calling. Then the hunting gets tougher as the birds take refuge on bigger water.

The next waterfowl bonanza usually, but not always, comes around the second week of November, when wintry conditions and migrant ducks move into the area.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists warn that prolonged drought in Eastern Washington has dried up many potholes. Ducks didn’t raise as many broods as they did when most potholes were full of water. Fewer potholes means that locally-raised birds will tend to be concentrated on big lakes, which is good or bad news depending on where you hunt.

At the Swanson Lakes Wildlife Area south of Creston, biologists say most of the lakes and potholes are dry. Unless a lot of rain falls the next few weeks, the area’s only decent option will be to walk into Z-Lake, or possibly Florence Lake.

A high percentage of the potholes throughout Lincoln and Douglas counties dried up this year, according to Matt Monda, Columbia Basin regional wildlife manager. Migrant birds will provide most of the hunting in the Basin this fall and winter, which means most ducks will be shot in November or later.

Goose hunters, however, can expect another excellent season, although Monda said that even with clouds of geese in the skies, waterfowlers have to do their homework if they want to be successful.

Follow the birds to the fields where they are feeding and then get permission from the property owners to hunt on the land the following day, he advised.

“Geese move around a lot,” he said. “If a hunter doesn’t follow them to find out where they feed, he won’t do well. The hunter who thinks he can drive out into the Basin and find feeding geese and then get permission to hunt the field that day will be disappointed.”

Veteran waterfowl hunters hope for some nasty weather, but not too nasty. They like a wind that moves decoys and chilly weather that encourages the birds to feed all day. It’s those kind of days that bring birds over decoys from morning until sunset.

If temperatures plummet and most lakes, ponds and slow-moving streams freeze over, both ducks and geese will move to the Columbia River and then perhaps into Oregon, ending the season for nearly all waterfowlers. That kind of scenario has happened in past years.

But even in that case, don’t give up entirely. Monda said the ducks and geese that are pushed out by cold weather often will return to the Columbia Basin if it’s thawed by warmer weather.

Long-time hunters have noticed changes in overall waterfowl patters.

Members of the Calispell Lake waterfowl club east, one of the oldest clubs of its kind in Washington, assume they’ll be lucky to get any shooting much after Thanksgiving every year. The big lake east of Chewelah attracted more than 5,000 migrating Canada geese a few years ago, but the flight pattern of the birds changed and only a thousand or so have stopped at the lake the last five or six years.

The duck bag limit can include no more than two hen mallards, one pintail, one canvasback, two redheads, one harlequins, four scaup and four long-tailed ducks.

Goose seasons and bag limits vary for each goose management area. See the current Migratory Waterfowl and Upland Game Seasons pamphlet.