Waterfowl hunting in Wyoming and elsewhere in the region has been not-so-great this season for a simple reason — the birds up north aren’t budging.
Unusually warm fall and early winter conditions extending up into parts of Montana and Canada has kept ducks and geese from heading south and into the decoy spreads of Wyoming hunters.
After two fantastic seasons of dropping honkers and greenhead mallards in the Torrington area, the 2022-2023 season has been frustratingly slow, waterfowl hunting guide Aaron Garcia told Cowboy State Daily.
“There’s just no snow up north in Canada, or even in Montana or in the Dakotas. Usually by now most, if not all, the geese are already out of Canada because they have so much snow on the ground,” said Garcia, who owns High Plains Wingshooters guiding service.
In northcentral Montana, it’s much the same, wildlife biologist Brent Lonner told Cowboy State Daily.
“We just never got much of a migration at all; that’s from ducks and Canada geese to swans so snow geese and everything else,” Lonner said.
He works at the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks (FWP) Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area. Freezout Lake is a major stopover for waterfowl migrating from Canada.
Similar To Other Birds
Migrations of all artic bird species into and through Wyoming has been unusually slow this year, as recently reported by Cowboy State Daily.
High plains country in Canada, dotted with small ponds or “potholes,” is a major breeding ground for the ducks and geese sought by hunters in Wyoming, Montana and elsewhere in the West.
Waterfowl seasons are winding down in Wyoming, but some later seasons, particularly for Canada geese, stretch into February.
Garcia said he’s counting on anticipated colder weather in Canada and Montana in the next few weeks to perhaps salvage the late goose seasons by driving some king-sized honkers south.
“It looks like they are starting to get pretty low temperatures now for the next week or two, and Montana is supposed to have some cold weather as well, so that could be a saving grace for us,” he said.
‘Freaky Warm’
Lonner said that many of the ducks and geese that usually use Freezout as a stopover were apparently still holed up on open water in Canada. When they finally do move, they might skip Freezout entirely.
“You sometimes see them flying over, way high, not stopping as they just keep going south,” he said.
The lake also is a premier site for snow geese. A “pulse” of them come though during the third week of December, Lonner said.
“The peak of snow goose migration is typically the first couple weeks of November, so the migration this year was more than a month behind,” he said. “By the calendar, it’s winter. But when you look outside, it looks like it’s still October here.”
At FWP regional headquarters in Great Falls, Montana, it was still “freaky warm” on Thursday, area wildlife biologist Alex Kunkel told Cowboy State Daily.
He said he hadn’t seen much waterfowl from north in Canada come through yet, and the resident ducks and geese were still happily camping out on rivers, creeks and ponds that are usually frozen solid by now.
Still Loves What He Does
Garcia said that despite the slow waterfowl traffic, this year hasn’t been a total bust for his business, and he’s not worried about the long-term outlook.
“Yeah, we’re getting some birds here and there having some decent hunts, but it’s nothing like the last two years,” he said. “But I guess everything goes in cycles so just grateful to still be doing what I love to do.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
