Posted By:
Rolly99
Guest
Greenhead 11-29-2005 12:37
Cloudy, Occassional Rain Showers – 45-50 Degrees
Hunted Greenhead on Friday. Two of us got 6 Gadwall. Hunted til about Noon and got out when it started lightning. Hunted the north side. Not too many people out there and the hunting was decent, so it was a good day.
Rolly
Posted By:
hunterox
Guest
Private Club Churchill/Greenhead 11-29-2005 00:16
Cloudy, High Winds – 40-45 Degrees
Hunted some private ground on Friday, 11/25. We kicked about 50 mallards out and none came back. Saturday 11/26, we went to Greenhead to the sprig pond. There were a few birds and we managed 4, 2 widgeon, 1 sprig, and 1 buff. For the perfect ducky conditions, a strong north wind, there really weren’t very many birds. Is anyone else hunting? If you are, why aren’t you posting?
Feetdown!
[Edited By hunterox on 2005-11-29 00:17]
Posted By:
Norm-Saake
Web Member
Stillwater NWR 11-24-2005 00:31
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – 35-40 Degrees
Went out to the refuge on Friday and Saturday to help with a research project on Swans. A grad student for NM was looking for parasites in swns that had never been found in N. Amer. We had a pretty good group on both days and managed to collect 12 swan samples and the blood vessel parasites were found. The swan migration appears to be about two weeks behind schedule this year and few swan were seen on the area. The aerial survey I flew on the 14th only recorded 426 swans on STillwater and 610 on the Humboldt WMA. A call to my friend in Utah revealed that they still had 40,000 on the GSL on thier last survey on the 15th.
While duck numbers increased to over 91,000, most of the birds stay on the refuge once they are disturbed in the hunting area and don’t come out until after dark. There are lots of cans now, but almost all were recorded on Stillwater Point Reservoir.
Results of the November survey by area should be on the NWA site by mid-week. Next month I will have to fly the area a little earlier in the month, because I have to go to NM for a week-long aerial survey in the middle of the month.
[Edited By Norm-Saake on 2005-11-24 00:37]
Posted By:
Norm-Saake
Web Member
Franklin Lake 11-24-2005 00:03
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 0-10 Degrees – Ice
Went to Franklin Lake on 11/15-16, but temperatures dropped to 8 degrees the day we arrived. Had a great shoot with the highest number of sprig I have seen in NV in over 5 years. Interestley, they were 99% drakes. Saw less than a dozen hens the whole day. The next night tempratures were 12 and the marsh froze up pretty solid. Looks like over 90% of the ducks are gone for this year. The last day only saw three sprig. Did see a fair number af mallrds way out in the marsh, but only managed a pair of adult greenheads. When I flew the area in Oct. there were probably over 30K ducks on the area. In past years, when the lake has had water there were lots of Cans, but this was not the case this year.
Remember that the north half of this area is private property and NOT open to the general public. Only the south half is a state wildlife area.
Hope for another good water year next year.
Posted By:
nvchukar
Supporting Member
Franklin Lake 11-13-2005 10:00
Cloudy, High Winds – 45-50 Degrees
Water levels at Franklin have dropped substantially since early October. Much of the then submerged duck food is now on mud flats. About half the number of ducks there now as compared to a month ago. Majority of ducks are sprig and spoonies, which poses a challenge when the limit is one sprig and spoonies are not the duck of first choice. Managed three ducks (greenhead, sprig, widgeon) in the last hour and a half on 11/11, and picked up four more (sprig, three greenheads) the morning of 11/12, but had to leave at noon when the ducks were really starting to move.
Posted By:
Norm-Saake
Web Member
Great Salt Lake – Utah 10-31-2005 19:33
Cloudy, Occassional Rain Showers – 60-65 Degrees
Just got back from a very fun and successful trip to hunt with a very close friend of mine on the Great Salt Lake. In four days we managed to shoot six limits of ducks, with the fastest limit taking only 19 minutes. Tom is the best duck hunter I have ever hunted with and he sure didn’t let me down at all this trip. I tried using my Ithaca 12 ga. side-by-side with a set of 28 ga. Seminole Chamber Mates. They worked great and on one the first day I was able to kill a limit with only nine shots.
Before we hunted over there, I got to participate in the weekly aerial swan survey on the GSL. The week before they had counted only 358 swans. This week the numbers had jumped to over 9,000 birds with most of them on the Bear River Refuge and adjacent Bear River Club. While we weren’t counting ducks on this flight, we estimated that there were well over 1 million birds on the lake. Normally they have started to leave by now, but with warmer weather they appear to have slowed their migration
We did get rained out for one day, which allowed use to spend some time and $$$ in the new Cabela’s store over there.
Hope to get down to Stillwater some time this week to see if I can get a can and a few redheads for the freezer. Will also try to get a teal shoot at the Carson Lake if time permits.
Next flight for western Nevada is on the 14th, and the swans should be coming in by them. I expect that duck numbers will be starting to decline by then.
Don’t forget the Nevada Waterfowl Association dinner on November 12th, they need your support.
Posted By:
hunterox
Guest
Stillwater 10/28-10/29 10-31-2005 15:18
Cloudy, Winds Calm – 45-50 Degrees
Saw a few birds at Stillwater on Nevada Day, and managed 1 Drake Gadwall in limited hunting. Found the spot for Saturday, mission accomplished.
Saturday morning a bit of rain and really light winds and no one in the parking lot, yes. Bad news, however, upon getting to the pond, an annoying flashlight from the spot I wanted. We were forced into a spot out of the middle of the pond and we were a complete afterthought for the ducks. I wished for a better time, since a first-timer youth was with me…We managed a drake mallard for him at another location, and he did enjoy himself. He is excited to go again, which is encouraging!
Feet Down and God Bless!
Posted By:
nvchukar
Supporting Member
Humboldt Sink 10-24-2005 23:43
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – Over 70 Degrees
Plenty of ducks at the Humboldt Sink, but calm, clear, warm weather isn’t making many of them want to take flight. Also, the lower river area is simply too large with those conditions to concentrate the few ducks that come off the open water. Managed only one greenhead and several mosquito bites.
Posted By:
Norm-Saake
Web Member
Western and NE NV 10-20-2005 10:42
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – Over 70 Degrees
I just finished fly the Ruby Valley and western Nevada on Monday. Water levels are better than last year, although they are dropping on Franklin Lake and the Humboldt Sink. Even though there was a good spill of water from Rye Patch, no water made it into the Toulon Unit of the Humboldt WMA and the area remains dry for this year. Water is flowing into both Stillwater and Carson Lake and should at least through the middle of next month. There are a lot of birds at Walker Lake, but they would be hard to hunt. I am putting the results at the end of the report, but not sure how this will work. If you want to see the numbers, check the NWA website later in the week.
I shot the Carson Lake last Saturday. I didn’t get setup until noon and managed to shoot 4 birds by 4:00. Looked like a great day in the morning, but the wind kept shifting and then finally died. Had to set up twice to get the right spot to get a few shots.
We had a great shoot in Canada again this year, but not sure that two weeks was enough. Did manage to shoot a Atlantic brant while I was there, which was kind a new wrinkle for me and the first for that species. Water conditions are the best that I have seen in over ten years of going up there and could set the stage for a good production year in 2006.
I will be doing some fly in Utah and New Mexico on waterfowl surveys later in the seaosn. It will be interesting to see how their bird numbers compare to Nevada’s
LOOKS LIKE IT DIDN’T WORK. THE NUMBERS ARE THERE, BUT ARE HARD TO INTERPRET. CHECK THE nwa WEBSITE NEXT WEEK AND THEY SHOULD BE POSTED.
10/17/2005
Unit Stillwater NWR Canvasback Carson Lake Humboldt WMA Walker Lake Leter Res Harmon Tribal Total
Water- % of Full 61% 85% 68% 80% 100% 60% 100% 90%
Mallard 2,640 80 750 1080 40 20 5 4,615
Gadwall 16,820 1,590 3430 6140 7040 130 10 35160
Pintail 12,050 3,530 960 2070 30 18640
G.W.Teal 15,730 170 4220 950 60 10 10 21150
Cinn.Teal 30 40 30 100
Widgeon 7,290 230 860 5110 3240 10 16740
Shoveler 16,910 980 7130 460 1820 27300
Redhead 2,660 30 210 2190 8080 13170
Canvasback 4,720 10 170 4900
Ringneck 1,410 10 10 1430
Scaup 0 0
Bufflehead 20 40 30 10 100
Ruddy Duck 420 30 180 70 2450 3150
0 0
Total Ducks 80,700 6,690 17,830 18,270 22,770 170 20 5 146,455
Merganser 0 0
0 0
Canada G. 930 80 0 670 100 100 1,880
Snow G. 0 1 1 2
_______Goose 0 0
Total Geese 930 80 0 670 101 0 101 0 1,882
Swan 0 0
Coot 48,590 2,530 9,170 28,450 87,610 210 87,610 30 264,200
Total Birds 130,220 9,300 27,000 47,390 110,481 380 87,731 35 412,537
Flown by Norm Saake
[Edited By Norm-Saake on 2005-10-20 10:44]
Posted By:
nvchukar
Supporting Member
Franklin Lake 10-19-2005 13:47
Cloudy, High Winds – 50-60 Degrees
Opening at Franklin good on Saturday, phenominal on Sunday. Wind on Saturday seemed to keep ducks from flying. With copious amounts of duck food in shallow water, wind couldn’t get any wave action going, so most birds held tight. South end (Saturday shoot) characterized by lots of sprig, so took til noon to limit. On Sunday, went further north into some pot holes and limited on four Greenheads and three drake Gadwall. Franklin had tens of thousands of ducks getting very fat, contrary to the report published in the Reno Gazette Journal which said ducks don’t go through NE NV any more. (Similar problem to today’s picture in that newspaper of a shorthair retreiving a “chukar” – it was NOT a chukar) Problem with Franklin is the 6000 foot elevation – it gets cold early and ducks usually gone by early November. Already some very light ice on the Sunday morning shoot.
