By Taylor Finger, WDNR Migratory Game Bird Ecologist
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s October, 2019 eNewsletter.
Hello Waterfowlers,
Well, the regular duck season has arrived! It looks like it is going to be another wet start to the fall hunting season which may be ideal for ducks but not always great for duck hunters.
With the extra water on the landscape it tends to distribute the birds across a much larger area and not necessarily concentrate birds on the known “go to” hunting spots or bodies of water. That being said, if you do some scouting and find the areas where the birds want to be (i.e. flooded timber or flooded crops) you can definitely be successful. I know it may sound repetitive, but based on our surveys we have found that hunters that scout 3 or more times a year shoot on average 3 times as many birds as hunters that do not scout at all, and with this year’s conditions it is going to be important if you want to be successful.
Based on the reports I have been hearing from across the state, there has been a strong push of birds into and throughout Wisconsin over the past week to week and a half, so my expectations for the first part of the season are pretty high. I would like to wish all of you good luck, whether you are hunting on an isolated lake up north, the Mississippi River out west, Green Bay and Lake Michigan out east or a marsh in the central and southern parts of the state.
Wisconsin is truly unique in that we have 5 million acres of wetland, 15,000 lakes, the Mississippi River, 2 Great Lakes and the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the country. We as hunters have plenty of opportunities and I sincerely hope you have a successful and satisfactory hunting season this year!
Best of luck,
Taylor