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A wet spring usually means a good duckling hatch and plenty of water in the breeding ground up north. This seemed to be the case as all would agree that we saw many more ducks in the fall migration as they headed south through the Sacramento Valley.

When the season opened, duck hunters that had flooded fields to hunt from, experienced great results despite the warm weather and clear skies. That soon changed as ducks became aware of increased danger from hunters in the field.

By November the weather was a major factor in the low hunter take numbers as ducks stayed in the safe areas with no hunter pressure and no need to frequent the rice fields for food. Most stayed on the refuges during hunting hours and only ventured out after dark to feed at night.

In December when the hunting usually improves, duck hunters were delighted with good stormy weather and lots of ducks. Here's where things went south, so to speak. With all the rain in a short period of time around the holidays, the valley filled with flood water and all the migrating ducks headed south to Yolo bypass where the conditions were perfect and little or no hunting pressure. Just when things seemed great for duck hunters the ducks left the rice fields and all the valley duck clubs for safe, care free days in the flood water.

What started out to be a banner December ended with a dismal and unproductive January, with the exception a few good days. All duck hunters know that the fog can be a real good thing for duck hunters and it was, on the one or two days we saw it. What we really needed was a week or two of fog. That never happened and the duck hunting never really got good, just a few lost ducks flying around in the first hour or two of the day and then it was over.

The good news is that when the general seasoned ended, the ducks made it back up to the rice fields for the junior hunt the first weekend in February. All the reports for the junior hunts was that the hunting was exceptional and the kids had a great weekend.

It's not all bad, the clubs on the east side of the Sacramento River had good results at the end of the season as did the hunters fortunate to enough to get on one of the area refuges. In addition, hunters did take a large number of geese during the days with wind in January. It seemed that the geese were the only birds flying with the exception of a few ducks that stayed in the area around the refuges.