Sport: Fine Weather for Ducks

It was just before dawn, and a cold fog hung over the marshes below Klamath Falls, Ore. Two men squatted in a crude blind. At 6:23 a.m., a flight of canvasback ducks wheeled confidently in. Muttered one of the men: “They got wrist watches on … they know it’s too early for shooting.” The hunters inhaled cigarettes, took a nip from a bottle of bourbon, and waited.

At 6:43, official sunrise time, they squared off like an alert antiaircraft crew—one watching the sky to the south, the other to the north. A few minutes later, two shots split the morning stillness and two canvasbacks fell into the water. In an hour, they had their bag of four ducks apiece, got back to town in time to shave and get to work by 9.

California Invaders. The marshes around Klamath Falls, on the east slope of the Cascades, are a duck hunter’s heaven. The two hunters last week, like other local citizens, want to keep it that way. But the fame of Klamath Falls has spread. Last week, hunters from as far away as Chicago swarmed into town. The natives were particularly scornful of what they call “California hunters,”* who swarm across the border, led by a Hollywood contingent in fancy hunting togs. Among movieland duck hunters: Clark Gable and Andy Devine.

This fall the North American duck population, which has gone down steadily for three years, is down to about 110 million.† In alarm, some states imposed a midseason holiday on hunting (in Oregon, the first half of the season ended last week). The U.S. Fish & Wild Life Service cut the daily limit of ducks per hunter from ten to seven—and now to four. But at some U.S. duck-hunting spots last week, there were not four ducks to be seen, much less shot.

Four Flyways. One of the warmest Indian summers in Canada’s history had kept the ducks at the sloughs and potholes of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where they breed and spend the summer. It takes a freeze to chase them south. Last week, a few weeks behind schedule, the mallards, redheads and green-winged teal began to go. They spread out over four major routes. The smallest contingent, about 15%, usually heads down the Atlantic flyway bound for Chesapeake Bay and the Carolina swamps, and get shot at by the smallest percentage of hunters (only 14%). About 25% take the Mississippi Valley, where the heaviest concentration of gunners (almost half the nation’s 2,000,000-odd duck hunters) wait for them. The heaviest duck traffic (33%) is found on the central flyway—over the Dakotas and Oklahoma to Texas.

Klamath Falls sits astride the Pacific flyway, which will be flown by some 30 million ducks this fall. Some of its marshes and lakes are fed by water that bubbles at 200° from hot mineral springs—and ducks like to break their journey there. For a lot of ducks, it’s the last stop.

* California, with 131,009 duck hunters, leads all other states, followed by Minnesota (130,757) and Texas (115,008).† Estimated by a sportsmen’s group, Ducks Un limited, after studying post-nesting season reports from farmers, trappers and sportsmen in Canada’s great duck-breeding area.