What's up with ducks?
There are several answers to the above question. Most of all, it’s not the number of wild ducks alive in North America. Most of the ducks which migrate through our area are born and reared in the region of the USA and Canada called the Prairie Potholes. A pothole is a pond formed as the glaciers melted thousands of years ago.
Potholes can range from less than an acre in size to, well, I don’t know what size makes a pothole into a pond or lake. From a duck-looking-to-nest point of view, the small potholes offer the better nesting opportunities than ones verging on becoming ponds or lakes.
Waterfowl biologists figured this out long ago and they also quickly figured out it’s much easier to count potholes than to try to count individual ducks. The potholes don’t fly, hide in the grass or move from one place to the next. Each year the number of potholes vary depending on winter and spring precipitation in the pothole region and that’s what the biologists observe.
They know if the number of dry potholes outnumber the number of potholes holding water, it’s not good news for ducks looking for nest sites. The spring “pothole” survey is perhaps the most important predictor of how duck populations will fare each year. The 2016 survey was much worse than those of the past several years so early indications pointed to less nesting, ducks nesting in less than ideal areas and poorer survival of ducklings from the time they hatch to the time they are able to fly. In short, there will be fewer ducks in the fall migration.
For waterfowl hunters in our area, fewer ducks may or may not impact the number of ducks available. Northern Indiana duck hunters have had “bang-up” seasons in years with poor duck populations and have had poor hunting in years predicted to be over the top. The hunting in our area depends more on the weather predictions than the fall flight predictions.
For hunters who just like to hunt ducks of any species, we have an ace in the hole in our area. It’s our home-grown duck, the wood duck. These ducks don’t depend on what’s happening out in the prairies or whether the potholes are wet or dry. Some nest in our area, making their homes in tree cavities or artificial nest boxes. The young ducks often do just fine along the Iroquois River or growing up on larger drainage ditches. Plenty of migrant woodies pass through our area as well, frequenting the same sort of places local wood ducks like to hang out.
If there’s a downside to wood ducks it’s they tend to migrate out of our area early in the season. Hunt wood ducks from the start of the season to early November, then start worrying when or if the migrating flocks will show up to replace them.
The number of migrating mallards, wigeon, pintails and other species that fly through our area depends on the winds and temperatures. Many species are content to linger as far north as possible. If they can get their feet wet and their bellies full, they won’t migrate. Most won’t push on south until the ponds, lakes and rivers freeze over up north and snow covers the grain fields where they glean left over corn, wheat or other seeds.
A perfect scenario is when that happens through the upper Midwest, but we are just enough south to avoid the ice and snow. Lot’s of migrant ducks are happy to make our area the next stop on their journey. The imperfect scenario is when the same cold front and snow freezes local waters and covers grain fields in our area. The migrant ducks over-fly us and keep heading south.
What will happen this year? We’ll have to wait to see.
In the meantime, duck season for our area of Indiana is set to be October 22nd to December 11th with a late season (in case of a late migration) set for December 24th to January first. Check on-line for season dates in other parts of the state and for daily harvest limits.