Duck Hunting Doldrums

So far this year I have been on two, count 'em, two duck hunts. Usually by this time of year I have been on 10 or more, but the lack of suitable habitat here in my small corner of Missouri and, consequently, the lack of ducks has left me mired in a melancholy repose as opposed to my normal optimistic self (as my attitude pertains to duck hunting that is, otherwise I am a miserable and codgerly excuse for a man).

The two hunts I had the opportunity to partake in were less than spectacular, having taken 5 ducks in all. The first hunt was highlighted with the complete destruction of a lower unit in a 20 horse, 4-stroke outboard; somehow, the few feeble gears that remained worked well enough to turn the prop in reverse, slowly I might add, but we were damn glad to have that in the 20 mph wind! We did at least get to witness a large migration of both ducks and geese as we saw group after group of flight birds heading south, however, only one group ever came down from on high to give us a look. We peeled 3 or 4 off that group and they circled a time or two but that was it. A mallard drake duo swung in unseen but we were able to take one of those along with a beautiful female Barrow's Goldeneye. The second hunt went smoothly with no equipment failures but we still barely eked out a skunk by taking a single Green-winged Teal, a single hen Mallard, and a single Mallard drake. On the plus side, my female black Lab, Nellie, got some much needed work as both of the mallard retrieves were long ones. She gets stir crazy in the back yard and loves hunting more than she loves eating, which is saying something for a Labrador.

Over the next few days an Arctic cold front will entrench itself here, over the entire midwest actually, which will prematurely send more ducks down south. Low teens and single digit nights will assuredly freeze all of our shallow water wetlands & rivers as well as a large portion of our reservoirs here on the western side of Missouri. I'm sure it will warm back up in time to thaw at least the reservoirs to allow some late season hunting before the January 29th closing of the South zone, but it will take several days of temperatures in the high 40's & 50's to do so. While we have been experiencing temps in the teens and 20's the last few days here, everybody from the Iowa border on north has had sub-zero temps and plenty of snow for nearly two weeks. I suspect this early polar blast will result in an earlier than usual end to consistent duck hunting, but who knows- I have given up trying to decipher waterfowl migration; the best bet is to go and see what happens.

While duck hunting may be coming to a premature and abrupt end, this cold & snow might just be what we need for some great Canada goose hunting over the next 40-50 days. Goose hunting is never all that great here in Southern Missouri; it rarely gets cold or snowy enough up north to send a significant migration down before the end of the season. However, with the oppressive "Canadian Clipper" currently in place we may well see a lot more of our northern friends this year.

There have been several pockets of great waterfowling in Missouri this year from what I have read and been told, especially along the Missouri River and in the Bootheel, but the Southwestern quadrant of the Show-Me State has been less than spectacular. That's the thing about duck hunting though, there's good years and then there's bad years. That's the way it goes and it's just another reason why waterfowl hunting is so intriguing. Hunting a migratory animal is quite different than hunting resident game. They're often hard to predict and there is a laundry list of factors that ultimately determine the success of any one hunt, or season for that matter. When a majority of all these different facets line up and you somehow manage to find yourself in the right place at the right time, that is what makes it all worth it. Not every season can be one for the books, there has to be some give and take which mirrors the cyclical nature of waterfowl population & migration.

Habitat is also fickle from year to year and is the most important factor when it comes to attracting and temporarily facilitating a consistent local duck population. In a drought year, like the one we have gone through this year, the majority of the duck habitat is left high and dry except in places where water is pumped in from nearby waterways or wells. While this scenario narrows the choices down to a few key venues for hunters, the lack of overall habitat greatly diminishes the waterfowl holding capacity of an area. It's just a common sense matter of usable waterfowl acreage. Wetland areas that have been holding anywhere from 50,000 to 120,000 this year were holding 80,000 to 200,000 ducks during the same time last year, and that was in a down year for ducks, according to the USFWS. It's not that there's less ducks, in fact there's probably more, it's just a simple matter of less habitat. In a flood year there is more choices and places for ducks to hide and become widely dispersed, which is an argument I have heard some hunters make against "wet years," but with a little more time invested in preliminary scouting I feel that a hunter can easily find where the ducks want to be and have a much higher rate of success.

To be honest, having a down year doesn't really bother me too much but I still reserve the right to bitch about it as much as I want. Besides, the shitty seasons make the good ones all the more memorable.

A 30 duck day during the extremely wet 2004-05 duck season