GOODRICH — After months of contemplation and weeks of consternation, the same question remains: Is there really a logical, or enduring, explanation to Colorado’s duck dilemma?
Solutions are another matter entirely.
Certainly none appeared from the raging blizzard that Sunday delivered another cruel joke to hunters along the South Platte River. Promised a rare and agreeable weekend storm with temperature in the mid-teens with moderate winds, hunters found instead a dangerous broadside that provided more a challenge of survival than of sport. Careful what you wish for.
Large, skeletal cottonwoods swayed beneath gale-force winds blowing horizontal snow. Trees no more than 50 yards away appeared, then receded in the mist, like scenery at the ballet.
“If ducks actually came, we wouldn’t be able to see them,” Tom Swanson said, staring out on a slough where greenhead decoys turned snow white before his eyes.
No sooner had he said it than a small flock of mallards, the only one of the day, darted in and was gone before he could touch frozen fingers to his gun.
Later, the sound of geese came from a distance, grew louder, then reached a crescendo as they passed very close, but unseen.
Where the storm pounded its worst, it quickly made two pilgrims up from the relative comforts of Denver wonder why they had come.
“Nasty,” Swanson hissed at the blizzard, a word he would use often before finally blowing retreat.
But storms, like concentrations of ducks, are not everywhere the same. Reports from 50 miles upstream told of better weather, sporadic flights of mallards and limits of greenies.
We heard other stories: ducks leaving the north country, then overflying the Platte completely; thousands of birds departing the North Platte around Oshkosh, Neb., then disappearing into thin air; other thousands forsaking a frozen Riverside Reservoir, but then nowhere to be found.
Ducks do strange things besides quack and walk funny.
Other accounts, more official, gave more hope for what has become a shrinking calendar. The mere fact that we are debating duck patterns at the midpoint of December says much about the problem.
A series of aerial surveys by the Colorado Division of Wildlife tell a more optimistic story. The agency counted a mere 7,000 ducks in the basin in October, 25,000 in November and then 30,000 last week in advance of the big storm.
“I think our count might be immediately outdated,” observed Jim Gammonley, state waterfowl czar. “Hopefully, the storm pushed a lot of new birds our way.”
He expects a final count in January to deliver a clearer picture.
Gammonley also gave credence to what hunters had supposed all along — that hunting had been lousy in November.
“The small ponds were frozen, but there wasn’t enough ice to push birds to the river. Most ducks were sitting on the large reservoirs where no one could reach them.”
Gammonley believes most river ducks are packed into relatively smaller areas where they are less disturbed, mostly along the western reaches of the river. At any rate, the stage is set for the crux of the DOW study to map local migration patterns, particularly as they involve hunter activity.
The exercise involves comparing various types of state wildlife areas using alternate hunting days, half-day hunts and reservation systems.
“We’ve received good cooperation from hunters. We’re getting good feedback,” Gammonley said.
Meanwhile, a more current report comes from Matt Reddy, Ducks Unlimited biologist who roamed the river earlier this week in the wake of the storm.
“There are quite a few mallards around Fort Morgan and Brush where there is open water — along the river, in the sloughs and in the DU recharge areas. We have more ducks than a week ago.”
Which, when one puts his mind to it, sounds about as logical as anyone could expect.
Charlie Meyers: 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
