Gary Sanders (left) and Chris Jabs admire some wood ducks taken on a morning hunt in a backwater slough. Photo by Mark Fike.

The previous few waterfowl seasons have been tough for many Virginia hunters. Mild weather has kept some northern birds from pushing far enough south into Virginia during the hunting season to provide good hunting. Not everyone has a "honeyhole" that is a magnet for ducks and geese despite the conditions. Those that do not have learned quickly that they needed to change with the times and find alternate locations and methods to hunt.

Years ago I got together with a few buddies and we built our permitted two blinds on two local rivers. Depending on the wind, weather and tide, we would hunt those blinds every week and often get some good shooting in. Our locations were not the best in terms of food sources, but we had enough fly-over birds we were able to entice that we kept busy and enjoyed ourselves.

Two things happened. First, the drought that hit us really hard in 2000-2002 caused our tidal blinds to be subject to more salinity. Some of the freshwater vegetation died as a result and the puddle ducks, such as blacks, mallards and gadwalls, began frequenting other areas more often. Perhaps the food sources changed and other areas offered better feed. Whatever the reason, the drop-off in flights was noticeable. Our friends hunting farther inland and upriver did not see as much decline in flights.

Second, and likely more important, the winters have been much more mild the past three or four years. Mild winters push far fewer birds down to our area during the season. Often by the end of January, eastern Virginia is finally experiencing a good cold snap. February has been much more like the waterfowling weather hunters like to see. Our decoy spreads were lonely for some action and even the gadwalls and occasional widgeon were rare.

Once these two factors began cutting into our hunting and shooting opportunities, we knew we had to do something different. While we were deer hunting one day, we noticed a number of ducks flying over a freshly harvested corn field. The birds were low enough that we knew they were close to putting down for the night. That sparked an interest in what was going on. The following deer hunt we saw another small flock of birds wheeling overhead not far from a swamp. We decided to check things out. Frustrated with the lack of birds at our blinds, we decided one morning to hike down to the swamp and see what might be hanging out in the backwater area not far from the main river. It was the best decision we had made in our duck-hunting experiences up to that point. Since that day, we have had only one day that was slow enough that we did not get shots. We also have branched out and looked for other backwater areas to give our own little piece of paradise a break from constant shooting.

A look at weather data from northern Virginia showed the following. December temperatures normally range from a low of 31 to a high of 47. The temperatures in December of 2005 were normal to a tad low (depending on where you hunted). The following month of January 2006 when temperatures should have ranged from 26-42 degrees instead had a spread of 35-51 degrees, which is a full 9 degrees higher than normal! Some of the ducks that arrived in Virginia must have thought they overshot the flight by a few hundred miles. February 2006 temperatures were average.