hunting reported<\/a> early for local birds and the usual push of early migrants.<\/p>\nThings went south (figuratively and literally) as November and December brought heavy rains, with severe flooding across Oregon and Washington, which spread birds out. Many waterfowl headed south or simply didn’t show up through most of the month.<\/p>\n
Then came the good news.<\/p>\n
Slowly but surely, hunting unexpectedly picked up in January, and as the season passed the month’s midpoint, hunters in many areas reported some of the best shooting of the season.<\/p>\n
Speculation from both biologists and hunters runs the gamut, but for the best chances on the last weekend, Puget Sound and the lower Columbia south through Oregon’s Willamette Valley are the places to be.<\/p>\n
Washington<\/p>\n
Kyle Spragens, waterfowl section manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), reports an influx of pintails at the popular Samish Flats on north Puget Sound along with an uptick in wigeon.<\/p>\n
The downside, he speculates, lies in the aftermath of heavy flooding from repeated tropical rains across most of the state\u2019s west side. The water not only spread birds out into areas where they aren’t usually seen, the flooding \u201cscoured the area of much of the remaining food,\u201d Spragens reasons.<\/p>\n
Backing up his hypothesis is a corresponding recent rise in daily birds-per-hunter bags at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge near Vancouver and across the Columbia River at Sauvie Island Wildlife Area near Portland (more on that in a moment).<\/p>\n
Spragens also notes an increase in band recoveries from local birds, but attributes that largely to the holidays when more hunters had time off.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd maybe ducks are finding pockets of food here and there,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
East of the Cascades, hunting \u201chas been pretty stale,\u201d observes Matthew Wilson, Yakima-based state waterfowl specialist for the WDFW. \u201cWe’ve had stale weather and stale birds.\u201d<\/p>\n
With unusually warm weather, \u201cwe don’t have much ice anywhere,\u201d Wilson adds. \u201cThere appear to be good numbers of birds on both the west and east sides of the Cascades but also plenty of places for them to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year it gets less predictable because the weather is less predictable,\u201d Wilson laments.<\/p>\n
Oregon<\/p>\n
In a pleasant surprise for local waterfowlers, hunters at Oregon\u2019s Sauvie Island Wildlife Area recently recorded an unheard of 3.5 birds-per-gun in the season’s final week\u2014more than double typical numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s weird,\u201d observes a perplexed state wildlife area manager Mark Nebeker. \u201cThere’s no reason they should be shooting the way they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
While balmy, sunny weather only attracts die-hard hunters who know where to go and what to do, Nebeker doesn’t think it’s the only reason for late-season success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a ton of eagles on the area,\u201d he notes. \u201cMaybe they’re cruising the large refuge lake a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric Strand of S2 Outfitters offers perhaps a more-plausible explanation: \u201cWe’re seeing a reverse migration of birds coming back north,\u201d he believes, noting heavy rains in California.<\/p>\n
Kelly Warren, Ducks Unlimited regional biologist for western Oregon, adds: \u201cIt’s been all or nothing; some hunters have done really well and others have struggled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warren has observed a lack of mallards, more wood ducks than usual, and \u201cthe most wigeon I’ve seen in the Willamette Valley in more than a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eastern Oregon has been hit and miss, with Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge hunters faring on the low side and Summer Lake’s wildlife area also reporting generally slow hunting.<\/p>\n
Idaho<\/p>\n
Hunting in Idaho has been generally slow, at least in comparison to typical years. The state depends on frigid cold snaps in Prairie Canada to drive ducks south, but that didn’t happen as frequently as usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was okay with our early local production,\u201d explains Jeff Knetter, upland game and migratory game bird coordinator for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. \u201cSince then, it’s been well below average.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canadian birds never really showed up, he reports, and \u201clocal birds dispersed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just hasn’t been cold enough,\u201d agrees Scott McGann of Emmett, located northwest of Boise along the Payette River. \u201cThe birds aren’t around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Panhandle hunters had largely the same lackluster success, although divers kept some hunters occupied.<\/p>\n
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Close<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil Kahnke As most of the duck season comes to an end this weekend in the Pacific Northwest,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-428923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}