With a good local hatch of mallards, teal, and gadwalls, coupled with sufficient water to flood seasonal wetlands, California is poised for a better-than-average start to the waterfowl hunting season. Most of the state opens October 24, though the Northeastern Zone opened October 10.
Many wetlands began flooding September 1, supporting the increased number of summer brood ponds. In the Grassland Ecological Area, the largest contiguous wetland west of the Mississippi River, northern pintails, shovelers, and American green-winged teal began arriving in late July at Volta State Wildlife Area and private wetlands south of Highway 152, where water was available early.
Joe Frangieh, a landowner in the southern Grasslands, reports that there appear to be “many more” ducks than there were at this time last year. His ponds have been flooded since the third week of August. “Some ponds are literally covered with ducks, mainly pintails, greenwings, shovelers, and wigeon,” Frangieh says. “It’s pretty impressive.”
Dennis Campini, president of the Grassland Resource Conservation District and the Stillbow Club, reports, “Our ponds are holding upward of 10,000 ducks, a mix of pintails, green-winged teal, and wigeon. The availability of good-quality early water makes all the difference.”
Reports from the northern Grasslands between Los Banos and Gustine have also been positive, with ducks responding to early available water. Mallards and gadwalls have been observed in good numbers in wetlands with tules and cattails, while pintails, teal, and shovelers are taking advantage of shallow sheet water and an abundant crop of swamp timothy produced by spring irrigation.
In the Sacramento Valley, the rice harvest is more than halfway complete, and white-fronted geese are feeding in the mornings in the unflooded fields before heading back to the Sacramento and Delevan National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) by evening.
“While white-fronted geese feed in the harvested dry rice fields, ducks do not have the same tendency,” says Gary Kramer, retired project leader of the refuges. Kramer reports good numbers of pintails and an earlier-than-normal arrival of greenwings at Sacramento and Colusa NWRs. White geese, however, have yet to migrate south to the Sacramento Valley in significant numbers.
Kramer anticipates more harvested rice fields will be flooded as autumn progresses to help decompose stubble, providing waterfowl with many more places to feed away from the refuges.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has some flooded seasonal wetlands, except on Mandeville, Venice, Jones Tract, and Medford Islands. In recent years, changes in cropping from wheat, corn, and asparagus to orchards, grapes, and blueberries have caused the Delta to lose much of its suitable habitat, leaving only about 6,000 acres of wetlands. Where there is water, local mallards and wood ducks are most common.
Farther west, in the Suisun Marsh, pintails, green-winged teal, and shovelers have made a good early showing on the West Coast’s largest remaining tidal marsh. The local mallard and gadwall hatch also appears solid.
In the desert of Southern California, field scout Colby Durnin says that Mystic Lake is nearly full, feeding private clubs such as Ramona and Mystic Lake as well as the state-operated wildlife area.
“We had 60 percent of our ponds fully flooded by mid-August, and that is attracting green-winged and cinnamon teal,” says Durnin.
Hunters in the state's Northeastern Zone have already gotten an early look at what this season may hold. The zone opened on October 10, two weeks ahead of the Balance of State Zone to coincide with Oregon, where the Klamath Basin refuges span both sides of the border.
State wildlife areas such as Butte Valley and Ash Creek produced good results, with mallards, gadwalls, and teal the top birds in the bag. Both areas are first-come, first-served and require no reservations.
At Lower Klamath and Tule Lake NWRs, results were more mixed, with per-bird averages below three and gadwalls accounting for most of the harvest. Field units at Tule Lake produced some Canada geese, along with a few whitefronts.
Across the border in Oregon, hunters at Summer Lake State Wildlife Area found mallards in short supply, but gadwalls filled most seven-bird straps. As a bonus, many waterfowlers also shot their one-bird limit of white-fronted geese, which came eagerly to the call.
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