Ring-necked ducks and redheads are moving in to the northern portion of the Mississippi Flyway and Canada goose numbers continue to build each day. Shooting is underway in Minnesota and despite poor predictions, hunter success and waterfowl activity has been better than expected.
Hello folks, and, as always, welcome to Waterfowler.com.
As we enter the month of October, hunting reports from the north help fuel the anticipation for the season further south. As the first strong flights of ducks begin to move down the flyways, hunters that are south of those states with open seasons scour the WFC hunter reports and begin to create a theoretical timetable and prediction model for migrating fowl. The process is complex, fueled by years of observation, hunting experience and trends analysis.
Our knowledge-starved readers comb through state surveys, call friends and devour weather maps, solunar tables and almanacs as they wait for the season to open and that “perfect storm” to dump ducks on their hunting grounds.
Despite the need to feed on information, the secretive duck hunter who pursues their quarry in small, solitary groups tends to hold their cards close to chest and protect their hunting strategy infiltrators. At Waterfowler.com we have a word for readers like this and we like to call them “lurkers” – and we know tens of thousands of them.
The lurker, by definition, is a standard Internet breed of reader– they click, browse and download as much data as they can discover into their organic brain. While they are happy to take the data they find for their own personal use, they quickly click move on to the next link if they don’t find what they are looking for – rather than take a moment to share what they know about a topic.
There are also those who believe that if they post a successful hunting or migration map report, their favorite hunting spot will be overrun by competitive hunting parties the very next day. Well, considering a dot in the map (by scale) can cover a few cities and report location is input by the person posting the report, secrets can still be kept.
As we enter our thirteenth season of tracking the waterfowl migration, we remind our readers to post reports as often as possible even if the report is to let everyone know there isn’t much going on. More often than not, knowing that activity levels are low is as important as knowing when they are high.
ATLANTIC FLYWAY:
Teal, wood duck and Canada goose numbers are on the rise in the northern portion of the flyway. Black duck, mallard and pintail levels are average for this time of year. Sea duck number should begin to rise over the next few weeks as the first arrivals begin to show up in along the northeastern seaboard.
MISSISSIPPI FLYWAY
Ring-necked ducks and redheads are appearing in the far north in MN, WI and MI. The MN DNR reports that a good number of teal and wood ducks have left the state, teal and wood duck harvest remains good. Despite the prediction of a poor opener, MN hunters are reporting harvests better than 2009. Goose numbers continue to climb in MN, WI, IL and MI as cackling Canada Geese began to arrive over the past week.
CENTRAL FLYWAY
The abundance of water in ND has made location ducks difficult – it’s clearly a scouting game. Sheet water in inundated fields seems to be providing the best action with birds in the bag dependant on putting miles on the truck. In SD green-winged teal, shovelers and wood duck numbers are good to excellent, with mallards fair to good. While the bulk of blue-winged teal are well to the south, numbers remain good from Nebraska south.
PACIFIC FLYWAY
Goose numbers continue to build in WA, OR and ID with teal and wood ducks fair to good. As hunters await the rice harvest and the arrival of ducks in northern California we remind our western hunters to post their pre-season reports as often as possible.
Until next week, make a commitment to graduate from lurker to reporter in WFC. We look forward to hearing what’s going on in your area.
