My article that ran in The News Journal on Feb. 2, 2012.
I don’t think I’ve ever really complained about any aspect of hunting.
I have expressed opinions about discourteous hunters, questionable hunting laws and overzealous anti-hunters, but opinions aren’t necessarily complaints.
In all my years of hunting I haven’t complained about season lengths, missed opportunities or my personal harvest totals. In fact, I haven’t even complained about the weather.
Until now.
Did I step into a haunted teleportation device some time around Halloween and get transported to some parallel world where Delaware winter doesn’t exist? Was it really almost sixty degrees in the last week of January? Has Mother Nature finally bought into global warming and retired to Florida?
Before my non-hunting readers question my sanity for complaining about a Delaware winter with hardly any snow or extended cold spells, let me explain: Weather affects hunting.
Ask just about any Delaware duck or goose hunter how they fared this waterfowl season, and you’re bound to receive one of two answers: one, it stunk, or two, it really stunk. Many of us sat for hours in boats, duck blinds and goose pits day after day for the past three months with little more to show for our efforts than windburn, a few completed crossword puzzles, and lessons in humility.
I was lucky enough to harvest a few ducks early in the season, but I continue to receive horror stories from hunters who harvested no ducks at all. What’s worse, I’ve heard from Canada goose hunters who never saw a goose in close proximity to their hunting setups.
I don’t believe there’s a problem with the overall waterfowl populations. Instead, I, like many local hunters, believe that this season’s uncharacteristically mild weather from New England through the Mid Atlantic just hasn’t forced ducks, geese, and other migratory game birds to adhere to their usual migration patterns. If conditions are favorable for birds to find food and resting areas in the northern portions of their migration paths, they may be less apt to fly further south at their usual pace.
Migratory bird hunting wasn’t the only thing thrown out of whack by this season’s phantom winter.
Deer hunting has also been strange. Late season, (usually) cold-weather deer hunters typically count on deer herding together and often focus their hunting efforts near winter food sources. This tactic usually pays off, but this year’s winter food sources are similar to those from the early fall. Granted there is less foliage, but the lack of snow cover makes nuts and other food sources easily accessible (including green grass and tree buds, which have been strangely present at various times this winter). Like the migratory birds, deer seem to have deviated from their normal winter patterns as a result of our disordered winter, and have presented new challenges to hunters.
My complaining may be misguided since it addresses the weather’s adverse effects on hunter success rates. The game animals probably love this vacation from Delaware winter, and their survival rates will only lead to higher population numbers.
On second thought, I withdraw my complaint.
It’s good for the game animals to beat the hunters every now and then.