PLATTEVILLE — While Washington politicians are tossing around favors like petals at a rose festival, they might consider some sort of bailout for Colorado waterfowl hunters.
Send ducks before the season collapses. We’re talking real hardship here.
A Sunday outing along the South Platte River south of Greeley produced a consequence this hunter never had experienced in more than four decades prowling the wetlands of Colorado. After four hours searching a sky as blue as cornflowers, I saw not a single duck or goose. Not one.
I watched flocks of Eurasian collared doves come for a drink, traced the path of a kingfisher on his daily rounds, followed the erratic flight of flickers through gnarled cottonwoods, monitored a running quarrel among a gaggle of unruly jays, heard bird sounds as disparate as an owl’s hoot and a pheasant’s cackle.
But nary a quack.
The jays should have been the first clue. A thin-feathered visitor not common to the Colorado icebox, these noisy birds frolicked as if they were in the tropics — which tells us much about why the main waterfowl migration will not arrive in time for Thanksgiving. Or maybe anytime soon.
Make no mistake, there are waterfowl in the region. One man’s misfortune to the contrary, various reports indicate that a fair number of ducks and geese occupy the territory along the Platte north and east of Denver.
Trouble is, nearly all of the ducks are rafted up on larger lakes that show not the slightest tendency to collect ice. One veteran observer reports more than 30,000 ducks collected on Woods Lake northwest of Greeley, along with 15,000 geese on Windsor Reservoir.
Hunters with access to smaller, ice-free ponds enjoy sporadic success. But with all this open-water sanctuary available, river activity has been minimal.
Goose action has begun to accelerate, but again with a caveat. Nearly all the birds gathered at various reservoirs in the Platte Valley are lesser Canada geese — fun to hunt, but not as desirable as the big birds that will come later.
How much later remains to be seen. Reports from the Canadian prairie provinces tell of large numbers of ducks and geese still luxuriating in relative comfort on open water. A glance at the continental weather map indicates that little is likely to change north of the border over the next few days.
The same boring weather forecast holds for the upper United States. Large numbers of migrating waterfowl also remain in the Dakotas and in eastern Montana, where conditions suggest little reason for them to move soon.
Locally, hunters have little reason for weather optimism. A peek at the map shows nothing but mild temperature and sunshine for the next week or longer.
Colorado waterfowl hunters generally have been cursed with unfavorable weather in recent years. This season, another negative element has been added to the mix, particularly for goose enthusiasts who hunt in cut cornfields.
The same delayed corn harvest that has plagued pheasant hunters continues to keep goose hunters at bay. Many haven’t even been able to dig their pits, let alone get into the fields to hunt.
With November awaiting a flip of the calendar, we can only hope for better days during the last two months of the season.
Charlie Meyers: 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
Southeast waterfowl count
Aerial survey taken Nov. 17
Snow geese: John Martin 60,000, Nee Gronda 10,000, Meredith 9,500, Holly Gravel Pit 4,000.
Canada geese: Huerfano Lake 3,125, Rocky Ford Gravel Pit 510, Lake Henry 400, Meredith 319, Arkansas River 274, Nee Noshe 130, Nee Gronda 100, Clay’s Pond 100.
Ducks: John Martin 7,052, Arkansas River 3,253, Verhoeff Ponds 1,950, Clay’s Ponds 1,139, Meredith 930, Huerfano Lake 800.
