'Gonzo Waterfowling'
Experiencing California's Public Hunting System
By Tori J. McCormick - Associate Editor
The shotgun reports—three in rapid succession, if memory serves—rippled through the early-morning fog like an echo through a valley, the kind of shots that simultaneously stun—and shake—your very soul.
Hunkered in knee-high sweet clover on a small almond-shaped island, we crouched on one knee, the moist morning air cooling our faces, our eyes squinting into the hazy beyond as the sky began to rain droplets of… nontoxic shot—first a sprinkle, then a shower.
“What the *&%#…,” said a barbed-wired tongued Doug Thomas, cursing, if I were to lay odds, not only their presence but very existence. “They’re way, way too close.”
“I might have to go over there,” piped in Brian Olson, in language befitting a State Department diplomat. “You know they’re close when you can smell the burnt gunpowder. Let’s wait a minute and see what happens.”
The early-morning hunt, on an increasingly popular state wildlife area just minutes from the state Capitol in Sacramento, was the final leg of a nearly week-long odyssey through the heart of California’s 42,000-square-mile Central Valley—the state’s waterfowling—and agricultural—epicenter.
Sandwiched between the Sierra Nevada Range to the east and the Coast Range to the west, The Valley, as it’s called in local shorthand, is a major Pacific Flyway wintering ground for millions of ducks and geese and other migratory birds—birds, especially the ducks, so fully plumed and stunningly multi-chromatic in winter that you’d swear they’d been individually painted by some celestial being, even God himself.
Delta photographer Fred Greenslade (view photographs from the trip) and I were dispatched there last January to document the ways and means of California’s impressive, if not mind-boggling complicated and crowded, public hunting program—one of the nation’s largest, and arguably most intensively managed, for waterfowl hunters. Along the way, and like a two-man anthropological forensics team, we hoped to collect enough compelling strands of cultural DNA to piece together an accurate profile of California’s public-ground waterfowlers—a culturally, ethnically and socially diverse lot, many of whom, we’d come to learn, gifted in the high art of commentary.
Confession: The last time I stepped onto California soil, as an Army specialist nearly two decades ago, I spent 40-plus blistering-hot summer days humping through the Mohave Desert, attempting to ward off dehydration, scorpions, exhaustion and my own nasty stench.
I swore I’d never go back—not even for Uncle Sam, apple pie or a free Chevrolet.
Still, California is impossible to escape, regardless of where you live in North America, for “The Land of Milk and Honey” casts a long historical and cultural shadow. If you like good wine and food, there’s Napa and Sonoma valleys and beyond. If you’re interested in famous (if not infamous) political figures (dead or alive), there’s Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown and the Terminator himself. If you’re gaga over the entertainment industry and the celebrity Zeitgeist, there’s Hollywood and all its trappings. If you covet creativity and entrepreneurship, high-tech and computers, there’s Silicon Valley.
California has a lot of people (more than 38 million, the most of any state) and a lot of everything else—including, as Fred and I, complete outsiders, would find out, waterfowl, waterfowl hunters and waterfowl-hunting opportunities, many of which on public lands throughout the sprawling and increasingly congested Central Valley.
One such area is the 15,000-acre Yolo Bypass State Wildlife Area, where Fred and I met the aforementioned Doug Thomas and Brian Olson, both Delta Waterfowl graduate students at the University of California-Davis, as well as a handful of others. The time: 4:30 a.m.
We weren’t alone. It was Saturday, and roughly 200 other hunters were camo-clad and wader-drawn at the check station, some waiting for their numbers to be called from the lottery draw held the night before. Still others would wait in the “sweat line,” hoping against hope to get drawn before the day started to burn hot and muggy.
The short story: We eventually “got our number punched” and quickly packed into two vehicles, one a truck whose box had a mountain bike wedged between two decoys bags. I didn’t think much of it at the time, although I remember thinking, “What the heck is the bike for?”
Fred and I would soon find out.
Playing ‘The System’
Brian Olson waiting for news at Little Dry Creek. View more photographs from California.
On the night before hunting at Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, Brian Olson graciously offered to give us a taste of “The System,” the term that some regulars have given to the process of hunting waterfowl on California’s public areas.
Olson, an avid duck hunter who hopes to work in the field after graduation, has put on thousands of miles over the years hunting public ground in California, typically north of Sacramento. He knows how “The System” works.
It’s one thing to have an opportunity to hunt ducks and geese on state and federal land. But it’s quite another, Olson says, to understand “The System” well enough to actually kill some birds. There’s the multi-layered reservation and lottery process that still baffles some, me included, and likely detours some from hunting. There are the rules and regulations for each “hunting unit” (federal and federal) that even regulars say can be mystifying to understand, complete with a detailed 70-plus page regulations guidebook that looks as welcoming as the Wall Street Journal. And then there’s the Rubiks Cube-like conundrum of actually learning how to hunt the public waterfowl areas themselves, which can take years to figure out, let alone master.
“It isn’t easy at all,” said Olson. “It takes years to learn. Refuges are crowded and competition can be fierce. There’s a steep learning curve—in applying and understanding the rules and actually hunting. If you’re new to hunting public areas you can’t expect to roll in one morning and kill a bunch of ducks. That rarely happens.”
California sells roughly 70,000 state duck stamps each year, a number that’s stayed roughly flat since the late 1980s. While not all duck stamp purchasers hunt waterfowl (some are merely stamp collectors), federal estimates as recently as 2008 show that California had roughly 58,000 “active” duck hunters. Of that number, state waterfowl officials believe that anywhere from a quarter to one-third “use the system.”
Californians have always had terrific waterfowl-hunting opportunities (there are public waterfowl areas literally from end of the state to other). But many officials believe that having a “public system” has kept thousands of waterfowlers from leaving the heritage because they can’t afford duck-club memberships, guide fees or purchasing a lease on private ground.
“If the state of California didn’t have a hunt program for waterfowl hunters on public lands, we’d loose a big slice of our hunters and an important constituency for conservation and other hunting issues,” said Mark Hennelly, vice president of the California Outdoor Heritage Alliance. “Nowadays it’s almost impossible to get permission to hunt private ground if you aren’t willing to buy access, and most guys can’t afford to. Some of the middle of the road leases cost as much $2,500 to $3,000, and while it costs money to hunt the public areas, it’s not near that much.”
Added Hennelly: “Also keep in mind that most waterfowl hunters in California start hunting on public lands. We have to make sure we keep these public opportunities intact and as easy to understand as possible.”
To hunt the most popular “Type A” public areas in California, you can apply for a reservation in advance, apply in the lottery the night before the hunt and hope your draw is good enough to get on the following day or wait in “sweat” line the day of the hunt and hope you eventually get on. Only hunters with day-of reservations are guaranteed to hunt. Spots not filled by reservation hunters (some don’t show up) are filled through the lottery draw list, after which “sweat liners” are allowed on—on first come, first served basis.
The “Type A” areas have hunting on only Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays throughout the season and are typically the highest in demand. “Many try to get a reservation on some of these better areas but never get drawn because they’re so popular and the demand is so high,” said Hennelly, who always purchases a “Type A” season pass for about $125 (a daily pass, for one day of public hunting, is $15.75). “The odds can be 50-, 60-1, even higher that you’ll ever get drawn. It can be tough. The good new is that if you’re willing to wait in line, you can get on most refuges on any single day, particularly in the middle of the season. You may have to wait until the afternoon, but you’ll likely get on.”
On this night, Olson, Fred and I were waiting for our lottery number at Little Dry Creek (regulars call it LDC), a very popular state hunting unit.
Dozens of other hunters were milling about in the parking lot or near the check station, most dressed traditional hunting attire, the building’s lights washing over them. The mood was upbeat and festive. Many hunters were drinking beer, grilling food and telling old “war” stories. The longer we waited, the louder it got. The atmosphere had the feel of an open-air frat party. Some hunters had already made the decision to camp in the parking lot. While most had trailers, one hunter was busy making his bed in his lay-out blind. “If I can hunt in it, I can sleep in it too,” he said.
The LDR draw was a bust. Olson was already on the phone trying to find how the draw went at Yolo Bypass State Wildlife Area, where he applied earlier in the evening. “Guys—it looks like Yolo in the morning,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
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Delevan’s Divas
Eighty miles north of Sacramento, the 5,797-acre federal refuge has 4,500 acres of “intensively managed” wetlands—wetlands that each winter attract more than 200,000 ducks, 100,000 geese and more than 7,000 waterfowl hunter, according to the USFWS.
“How’s everyone doing?” says Mensik, who is deputy manager of the Sacramento Complex.
Most everyone—particular Delevan’s regulars—know Mensik and treat him as their equal or peer, even though some quibble and complain about how he (and others) “manage” the Sacramento complex for waterfowlers. Mensik gets a tacit pass because he has street cred—he’s a serious duck hunter who routinely hunts public ground in the Sacramento Valley.
“I hunt the refuge system like everyone else, I apply like everyone else, and I’m lucky because I know the refuges and the habitat pretty well,” he says. “But I will tell you that lot of folks know this system far, far better than I do.”
Charlie Peebles is one of them. Peebles, 59, who lives near Lucerne, California, is walking from the check station to his truck in the gravel parking lot. He didn’t kill his seven-duck limit in the morning, so he’s preparing for an afternoon hunt. He’s serious about his waterfowl hunting, as the inscription on his hat not-so-subtly demonstrates: “Shut up and Hunt.”
Peebles, who’s retired from the Navy, has hunted ducks and geese at Delevan NWR since 1964. In fact, he rarely hunts anywhere else. “It’s a fantastic area, and I know it like the back of my hand,” he says, a satisfied grin stretching across his face. “Most years I hunt just about every shoot day and kill a lot of ducks, sometimes 300 a year.”
He grins again, pauses, and then continues speaking: “I may shoot a lot of ducks, but I’ve been known, after I’m done, just to go set decoys and watch the birds work. It’s just something I love.”
Peebles also loves to mentor young hunters, and since he knows the refuge so well, few hunters are more qualified. “I take them out a few days, show them the ropes and turn them loose,’’ he said. “If I find a young guy in the parking lot here looking lost, I’ll take him out. We need more new blood.”
Peebles, who prefers to hunt alone, doesn’t like to be restricted when he’s waterfowling, so he hunts Delevan’s “free roam” areas, which accommodate roughly 60 hunters daily. When some opt for the comfort and certainty of hunting assigned blinds or other site-specific hunt areas, Peebles prefers the option of improvisation. “You know never know what the weather is going to do and how the migration is going to unfold, so I like to have that freedom to move around and change tactics,” he said. “I’ll drive in the parking lot the day I’m hunting and know in seconds precisely where I’m going to hunt. Experience has its privileges.”
Peebles has developed many friendships at Delevan NWR throughout the years, saying three months out of the year we’re “all best friends” and during the off-season “we’re estranged.” “I’ve been hunting with one guy for 30 years and we’re best friends during the season and barely talk out of it,” Peebles said. “It’s a pretty close-knit group around here.”
Indeed, the check station at Delevan NWR has the feel of a neighborhood bar—everyone knows your name, lot in life, gory details and all, and aren’t afraid to occasionally stick the needle in. It’s not a place for the thin-skinned.
Diane King - AKA the "Delevan Diva". View more photographs from California.
I promise you this much: If you’re a regular (even a semi-regular) at Delevan NWR, you know Dianne King—the “Delevan Diva,” the “Dragon Lady,” the dirty-blonde-haired woman who makes the trains run on time.
King has worked for the California Department of Game and Fish’s waterfowl program for 25 years, the last three of which as Delevan’s check-station manager. Everyone says she’s tougher than ten men, but she says she’s misunderstood. Sort of.
“I’ve been known to be nice on occasion,” she says with a laugh at the check-station window, a “No Whining” sign greeting hunters nearby.
King says that when the north wind starts to blow, Delevan is the most popular refuge in The Valley, attracting a storm of hunters and their sometimes unruly ways. Sometimes, she said, she has to rule with an iron fist (one hunter, quite obviously a history buff, endearingly called King the “Iron Lady,” the nickname given to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister).
“We’ll process more than 200 hunters a day on the weekend and that can get pretty crazy,” King said. “When you have so many people hunting, field conflicts—sometimes even fist fights—can happen. The way we have the system set up now we rarely have any problems. But I’m not afraid to tackle problems when I need to.”
No one doubts her.
“She can stop the rowdy ones in their tracks right quick,” said one Delevan regular, who says he respects King because she runs a “tight ship.” “Diane isn’t to be messed with, and very few do.”
Said the Delevan Diva: “I love my job; I really do…because it’s probably the only place I can go where I can tell men what to do.”
Down the road apiece, Mensik, Fred and I happen across two more hunters, Mitch Burchard of Sayler and Ron Wellemeyer of Fall River Mills. They’ve just finished hunting, and their faces are semi-burned in varying shades of crimson from the sun and the wind.
“We’ve been best friends since we met playing football our senior year in high school,” said Burchard, who drives roughly 175 miles one way to hunt and typically camps overnight in his buddy’s trailer. “We try to hunt as much as we can together. Depending on the year, I get out a half-dozen times a year.”
Burchard is a proud public-ground hunter who brings with him a streak of sentimentality. “If we didn’t have these public areas to hunt, I don’t know if I’d hunt waterfowl anymore. It’s just too expensive to hunt private land—either on a lease or in a club.
“I like the fact that we have our places to hunt and that a multi-millionaire can be hunting his private club five minutes a way,” he added. “I’m just grateful I have a place to go.”
Bearded and bespectacled with sunglasses, Burchard says he never hunts waterfowl without his grandfather’s 1940s-era duck-hunting hat. “I hunted two or three times with him as a kid, and I remembered that hat,” he said. “My grandfather gave it to my father, and my father never wore it, so I kept asking him to give it to me. He finally did as a Christmas present.
“It’s a funny-looking hat, and some guys tell me its dorky-looking…but everyday I go duck hunting I wear this hat,” he added proudly. “It’s seen a lot of sunrises on the marsh.”
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The Finale
The Race is on. View more photographs from California.
When our lottery number was finally called at the Yolo Bypass check station, the morning’s pace went from sleepy to kinetic. The group sprinted to their vehicles, and Fred and I followed like sheep.
In our rigs, headlights on, we sped off quickly, gravel spitting and singing beneath our tires as we hit a stretch of windy gravel that finally led to our entry point—a free-roam area that has a series of islands from which Olson and company had killed several birds in day’s past.
Little did we know we were in a race to “plant our flag” in the Olson’s desired location, but we were. Enter the mountain bike and the Tour de Yolo. One hunter in our group strapped on his backpack and took off, flashlight in tow. Shrouded in fog, he looked like he was pedaling in slow motion, in a dream, perhaps even on Mars.
From outsider’s perspective, it was beyond bizarre. In fact, I remember thinking that I was suddenly living in a new Hunter S. Thompson novel—Gonzo Waterfowling: Dispatches from California.
Fred and I followed Olson to our hunting area, a 1.5 mile slog over land and water. How he knew where he was going in the low, dense “tule” fog, I do not know, because we were lost.
The morning, muggy and warm, was dead calm. Not a breath of wind. We set a few decoys, found some cover in the sweet clover and the wait was on…until the shotgun reports rang out and the nontoxic shot started to fall near us.
No problem. We were fine. A few salty words were exchanged back and forth and we had achieved detente. Free roam areas have a way of self-regulating, I would come to learn.
By morning’s end, tule fog long burned off, we ended up killing a few birds, most notably a drake cinnamon teal, a bird that I had never seen in-hand before. Beautiful. It was worth the trip and the madness of the morning. Finales rarely have such intrigue and drama.
Said Olson, in an email days after the trip: “As crazy as our experience may have seemed, it was actually pretty close to the norm at most of California’s refuges. This balance between quality of hunting and opportunity to hunt is a big issue in CA. Finding that perfect balance is key to ensuring that folks continue to buy hunting licenses in this state. If guys can’t get on a refuge and go duck hunting, they’re going to find something else to do with their time and money.”
Tori J. McCormick is associate editor of Delta Waterfowl magazine. Reach him at tmccormick@deltawaterfowl.org.