Migration Alert: Hunting Improves Across Oregon as Weather Continues to Change

Warm, dry weather yielded a slow start to the Oregon duck season, but that axis is shifting with cool, wet, and windy conditions on tap, and the hunting should heat up.

“We're getting just what we need,” declares Kelly Warren, DU's regional biologist for western Oregon. “It will give ducks room to spread out, feed, and stick around.”

Dominic Aiello, who hunts in farm country near Forest Grove, west of Portland, agrees.

“There are lots of new birds around,” he notes. “We've seen numerous flocks of pintails, and there are definitely some fresh mallards.” Aiello also echoes reports from up and down the Willamette Valley of an unusually high number of colorful wood ducks so far this season.

Hunting programs continue as scheduled on federal refuges, but statistics aren't available during the federal furlough. However, Brandon Reishus, waterfowl coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, relies on more well-attended state hunts.

“I would say until last weekend it hasn't been exceptional anywhere,” he notes. “Sauvie Island had a slow opener, then tapered off. But we gave birds a four-day break and Saturday was exceptional.”

Reishus says new birds are on the move south, and as more wintry weather moves in, success spikes sharply upward at the state's largest and most popular public wildlife area near Portland.

“We're getting to that time of year when things can change rapidly,” he observes. “We're going to get plenty of water.”

Ladd Marsh in northeast Oregon, Summer Lake in the southeast desert, and Klamath on the state's southern border with California experienced the same slow start, he reports.

It's been uncharacteristically slow at Summer Lake, an oasis for flyway migrants looking for a rest area on their way to California.

However, Reishus advises, “There are plenty of ducks around and hunters who are having the most success are getting away from the dikes and out into the marsh.”

Klamath conditions are much better this season for ducks after a good water year, and the drenching from the remnants of severe California storms vastly increased their habitat and feeding opportunities.

That, not drought, accounts for the slower-than-usual hunting there, Reishus believes.

A vanguard wave of wigeon, mallards, pintails, and teal swept into the lower Columbia last week and kept hunters’ attention among the river's vast network of islands and sloughs.

“We haven't seen many divers yet,” reports Mike Stenner, who hunts the islands of the Lewis and Clark National Wildlife Refuge. “But it's been a long time since I've seen this many pintails.”

Ted Teufel of Pro Fish Guide Service, who also guides hunters on the north coast's estuaries, reports tons of teal arriving last week, although wigeon haven't yet worked their way south from the Columbia like they have in the Willamette Valley.

Teufel also passes along the same kind of extreme caution beachgoers are warned about in the period of king tides, windy weather, and even a rare tornado warning for the coast.

“It can get too windy to hunt, even in tidal marshes,” he warns. “The wind can pull you off your anchor and blow holes in your boat blind.”

Goose hunters are on their own hiatus in northwest Oregon until Nov. 22, but Chris Middleton, who hunts private land on Sauvie Island, says he's scored some cacklers in an otherwise slow-starting season.

Reishus believes cacklers may have had relatively good nesting conditions in Alaska, but avian influenza has returned with their arrival, and the department is fielding daily reports of dead and dying geese. While the disease isn't transmissible to humans, hunters are advised nevertheless to use latex gloves when processing their birds.