After sitting down with our good friend, Joel Kleefisch, to discuss the Midwest’s recent rainfalls and what this means for the upcoming hunting season, our minds were racing with excitement. Here’s what Joel had to say about the Midwest 2024 waterfowl season, kicking off in only a few short weeks!
Last fall, Midwest waterfowl enthusiasts were shaking in their dry wader over the low-precip winter. Marshes were dry, and you could walk across river tributaries without getting your feet wet. The dry year wreaked havoc on the Mississippi flyway, and continued low rainfall would have meant the same fate for this year’s Midwest bird numbers. But recently, almost as if it were an act of God, Wisconsin and surrounding states were blessed with clouds rolling in. Like Walmart on a black Friday, rain has poured into the previously empty duck and goose habitat.
Unfortunately, according to Taylor Finger, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, ecologist bird numbers were taken before the rain appeared to have saved the upcoming season. Now as farmers harvest wheat early and even find themselves taking off grasses like alfalfa and swamp hay, the refilled waterways, puddles, scrapes, ponds, tributaries, and lakes are drawing birds like never before.
The evidence is anecdotal at this point, but when a scrape in the middle of an unharvested cornfield is packed ear to ear with green heads, long necks, and coots, you can’t help but think it will be a banner year for those who blow the whistles of “come hither.”
Certainly, with only a few weeks before Wisconsin's Canada goose season starts Sept. 1, a great deal of the water will be around and may push corn harvests deep into the fall because of moisture content. Your hunting style may have to change. What may have been a productive early-cut corn field last year and the year before may be standing corn, pushing the hunter to water. Conversely, new opportunities for hybrid water/crop hunts will be abundant, and hiding in standing crops next to a waterway may be an advantage rarely seen throughout the Midwest. Birds will rely far more on decoy spreads and precision calling since they’ve simply got so many places to go eat and frolic. So while you’re waiting for seasons to open, get on the horn and practice, practice, practice. There will undoubtedly be more hunter competition, as bands of waterfowl chasing renegades light up like the night before Christmas getting their first glimpse of presents under the tree.
Don’t wait until the day or even the week before the season opens to get permission. Start now with sincerity, homemade baked goods, a case of beer, and a good attitude; because this may well be one of the Midwest's most successful waterfowl seasons in decades.
The tricky part for bird counters will be to set duck limits this year since they’ll be going on numbers before the rain came. Should a shortened season be necessary, the pressure will escalate.
Already, subspecies such as mourning dove, woodcock, and upland birds are thriving with habitat improvement because rains mixed with heat and sun have produced record crops. Record crops mean record food.
As the resource, the provider, and the non-participating citizen start their yearly dance, it’s surely a better opportunity for conservation to be at the forefront of harvest. Tune your boats and calls, and get your camo ready.
The avian army prepares for battle.
