A Flood of Ducks?
Hunters hope extremely wet conditions result in a super season
By David Hart
THE FIRST SNOWFLAKES of 2010 fell on Bismarck, N.D. on Sept. 17, early even by North Dakota standards. It didn’t stick. The temperature rose to 54. It was, however, an omen, a glimpse into what turned out to be the snowiest winter on record in parts of the Dakotas, eastern Montana and southern Canada.
In fact, the winter of 2010-2011 turned out to be a winter filled with superlatives. Williston, N.D., saw over 107 inches of snow, a foot more than the previous record set more than 100 years ago. Eastern Montana endured 163 days of snow cover, the third-longest string in history, thanks to 108 inches of snow, the most ever. It was even deeper in the headwaters of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, where snowfalls were up to 800 percent above normal.
The records didn’t stop falling after the last flakes fell in the spring. According to National Weather Service meteorologist John Martin, 24 of the previous 31 months were wetter than average in the Dakotas.
“The ground was saturated, so when the snow melted it didn’t have anywhere to go but into streams and rivers and all the pothole ponds,” he said.
And then it rained. One storm after another drifted across the prairie in May and June, dumping a half-inch, even an inch at a time. North Dakota’s Souris River crested at more than 5 feet above the previous high and other rivers broke records, as well. It was more water than anyone had ever witnessed, the most in 200 years. Potholes from one horizon to the other were brimming, rivers were well above designated flood stages, lakes were spilling over dams and mile upon mile of farmland was under water.
Strong Fall Flight
In July, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced another record: Nearly 46 million ducks returned to the nesting grounds this spring, the highest since 1955, the first year of the breeding population survey. Unlike precipitation records, duck numbers are something everyone, hunters in particular, can celebrate. Blue-winged teal, northern shovelers and redheads are at all-time highs. Mallards are 22 percent above the long-term average, and even northern pintails are up substantially.
So what does it all mean?
“By all accounts, this will be an incredible year for duck production and an incredible fall flight,” said Frank Rohwer, Delta Waterfowl scientific director.
In other words, it might seem like anyone with a box of shells, a sack of decoys and a rusty shotgun can fill a limit before sunrise.
Maybe. Maybe not.
“I can’t envision how it can’t be a good season, especially with so many young birds in the mix. We all know how easy they can be to decoy,” Rohwer said.
Duck hunting is rarely easy, of course, and ducks can be just as fickle as the weather itself. Some areas that are exceptionally wet going into the summer will start to dry out by September, and those areas experiencing record drought might get enough rain to refill dry marshes and lakes. However, as of mid-July, there was little reason to believe things would change much. Even if they do, it’s virtually impossible to predict hunter success, even with a record fall flight.
“History has shown us that harvest trends don’t necessarily follow fall flight numbers,” Rohwer said. “It really depends on weather patterns that move ducks around and make them available for more hunters. If, for instance, it stays mild in Missouri and Arkansas, hunters in Louisiana and Mississippi will harvest fewer birds.”
Too Much Water?
Ironically, Rohwer said hunters in the Dakotas might actually see fewer birds, as well. Blame it on the very reason duck production is so high: an abundance — make that an overabundance — of water. Instead of piling into a few large ponds, ducks and geese will use far more potholes and other areas under water. The good news, however, is there will be plenty of birds to go around. Even better, wet conditions provide more places to hunt.
“I think we will have really good shooting the first week or so, but the birds will get smart and figure out where they can go to get away from the pressure. It could get real tough real quick,” said Jon Lee, a hunter from Hillsboro, N.D. “There’s just too much water and we have a lot of pressure in October.”
Lee, 44, has seen floods before, but nothing like this one. He has experienced tough gunning when so much of the countryside was under water in the past.
“They just stop decoying,” he added. “They go find a pond where no one is hunting and stay there. You can scout and set up on a pond where you saw a ton of ducks, but they go somewhere else. Even with so many juveniles, it’s not going to be easy once they’ve been pressured.”
“Easy” is a relative term.
Rohwer, who also hunts the Dakotas, agrees that shooting ducks in the northern prairie states is rarely an issue. The questions are more likely, what species and how many will come in at a time?
“Will I only have a hundred mallards try to land in my decoys, or will it be a thousand? It’s going to be hard to say, but either way, I don’t think I will have any room to complain,” Rohwer said.
River Clubs Swamped
The flooding will have an impact on hunters farther south, especially on the Missouri and Mississippi river bottomlands. Much of the water in the Dakotas traveled through Nebraska and Missouri before meeting the already-swollen Mississippi River, flooding towns and fields along the way. That’s why Delta Waterfowl’s Pony Express chapter chairman Rusty Burnam is expecting a tough season around his hometown of St. Joseph, Mo. Levees have been breached and thousands of acres were under water for months.
“The bottom fields are just gone,” he said. “All the clubs along the (Missouri) river evacuated and cleaned out their buildings and sheds, pulled their pumps and farming equipment and got out as soon as they realized what was coming. It’s heart wrenching seeing what’s happening around here. We have at least 100,000 acres under water and I see no end in sight.”
Much of that flood water was trapped behind levees and will take weeks, even months, to find its way back to the river.
Burnam said many of the club members who hunt the Missouri River bottomlands are going to be facing a dismal season, even if they can get back to their hunting grounds this fall. They have no crops planted, even the moist-soil plants never had a chance to take root and produce the seeds necessary to feed ducks. So instead of hunting over flooded corn and other duck magnets, they’ll be facing empty ponds and water as far as they can see. Burnam figures there will be plenty of birds roosting and loafing on all the ponds and flooded low ground, but they will be traveling to feed.
“I think a lot of the club guys, especially the older ones, will sit the season out and hope for a better one next year, especially if they can’t get to their club land,” he said. “A lot of the younger club guys who stick it out are going to get a taste of the freelance life. We’ll all be competing for the fields on the higher ground that have crops. There’s plenty of food around, but I think the birds will be concentrated on certain fields.
“We are going to have to do a lot more scouting. It’s going to be hard, but if you can find birds and get permission, which may be difficult, you’ll probably do pretty well.”
The Other Extreme
The abundance of water will likely keep birds in the area as long as they aren’t pushed south by ice. If that happens, ducks and geese will be flying into an epic drought. Much of the south, including three-quarters of Texas, the southern reaches of Louisiana and Mississippi and southern New Mexico, were locked in what the U.S. Drought Monitor classifies as an “exceptional” drought, with other parts of the south in somewhat less severe states of drought.
Unless conditions change soon, finding ducks, even with a record number migrating south, will be as simple as finding water. But even that’s not a guarantee, according to Kevin Kraai, Texas Parks and Wildlife assistant waterfowl program leader.
“A large part of the state has seen the eight driest months on record this year,” he said. “There is no water anywhere and there is virtually no vegetation around dried lakes. Every living plant has been eaten by cattle. If things don’t change, I don’t expect to see any ducks in a large part of the state.”
In other words, some Texas waterfowl hunters might be looking at one of the worst seasons in years, despite the glowing flight forecasts coming from the north.
Ducks and geese have a built-in mechanism to avoid areas with no water, even before they get there, Kraai said. Instead of showing up to the dry regions, even if those regions held high-quality habitat in the past, the birds will simply bypass those areas and go elsewhere.
“Hunters around the larger reservoirs of east Texas could have a fantastic season if things don’t change, but I’m not so sure about the coastal regions. The salt marshes have a high salinity level because of the drought, which is not good for the aquatic vegetation the ducks rely on,” he noted.
Weather patterns in late summer and early fall will dictate waterfowl activity and hunter success. August marks the start of the state’s wet season, which lasts into October before shutting off like a faucet again.
“That’s our make-or-break period,” Kraai said.
But even if it does rain then, precipitation will need to be significant enough to refill reservoirs and natural lakes to levels that will attract and hold ducks.
“It’s too late to produce natural food, but we should have enough grain to feed the birds,” Kraai said. “Much of our grain crop is produced on irrigated land, and farmers should have a decent crop even with the drought, so food won’t be a factor.”
Brighter in the East
Atlantic Flyway hunters should see at least some spillover from the bumper crop of birds, according to Rohwer. Although most of the ducks that winter on Chesapeake Bay and the tidal wetlands in Virginia and the Carolinas are produced in the Maritime provinces and northern boreal forests in Canada, some come from the Prairie Pothole Region, particularly during years with a bumper crop of ducks.
“Atlantic Flyway mallards are typically produced in the East and their populations don’t fluctuate much, but the Atlantic Flyway doesn’t live on mallards alone,” Rohwer said. “There will certainly be some pintails and other species that traditionally breed in the pothole region that make their way to the east coast. I don’t see any reason why there won’t be more birds in the Atlantic Flyway, as well.”
David Hart is an avid waterfowl hunter from Rice, Va.