By John McCoy

There are advantages to living off the beaten path. Just ask West Virginia's waterfowl hunters.

On any given day, a duck or goose hunting enthusiast can set up a blind and never have to worry that another sportsman might encroach on his spot.

"The best thing about hunting waterfowl in this state is that there's very little competition," says Steve Wilson, a principal waterfowl biologist for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR). "We only have about 2,000 licensed waterfowl hunters in the entire state."

During the midwinter season, when cold Canadian winds force ducks and geese southward in search of open water, the Mountain State becomes home to many more waterfowl than hunters. To die-hard waterfowling enthusiasts, it's a magic time.

In fact, Gary Wendell of St. Albans says the state's best duck hunting occurs when television weather forecasters are warning people to stay at home.

"I look for the nastiest conditions I can get," Wendell says. "I like it when it's cold as blue blazes, the wind is blowing, it's raining or snowing, and the cloud cover is so heavy and low it looks as if you could touch it."

Photo by John R. Ford

Like many waterfowl hunters, Wendell has tried practicing his favorite pastime during West Virginia's earlier seasons. He didn't much care for the experience.

"Conditions are never right during those early seasons," he complains. "During the September goose season, it's always too hot. During the early duck season, it's hard to find a place where there are enough hunters to keep the ducks stirred up and flying around. Plus, those early-season ducks tend to be resident birds that are very familiar with their surroundings. Your camouflage has to be nearly perfect to get those birds to come to your decoys and calls."

But between late November and late January, traditionally the final segment of the state's three-part waterfowl season, most resident birds have migrated south. In their place, Wendell finds flocks of migratory birds that winter winds have pushed down from the north.

"The migratory birds are easier to decoy and call," he says. "They don't know the area, so they don't realize that my boat isn't supposed to be a part of the landscape."

Because West Virginia lies between two of the nation's great waterfowl migration routes - the Atlantic and Mississippi flyways - weather patterns play an important role in determining which species are present. Winds from the northwest, for example, might bring in flights of canvasbacks or mergansers - two species that aren't usually seen in the Mountain State.

"Mostly, we get mallards and black ducks," Wendell says. "But it's nice when the weather pushes in something exotic, like widgeons, pintails or buffleheads."

State biologists try to time their midwinter waterfowl surveys to coincide with the season's most wretched weather. Last year, they missed it by a hair.

"Our midwinter count wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be," says waterfowl biologist Wilson. "The total was 6,356 birds, mostly along the Ohio and Kanawha rivers and a few other selected spots. Of those, 2,600 were ducks and 3,700 were geese."

As if to demonstrate the capricious nature of midwinter waterfowl migrations, however, a cold front blew in thousands more birds just a few days later.

"The number of birds is strictly dependent on weather," Wilson says. "A few years ago, we hit it just right and counted more than 20,000 birds. You just never know what you're going to find."

Wilson describes last year's total as "about average." And by the way, he says it's fairly normal for the midwinter count to turn up more geese than ducks.

"Not only do we have a lot of resident birds, we have quite a few James Bay birds that come through about that time of the year," he explains.

Because the number of birds was average at best, so was the hunting season.

"We had some good stuff and some bad stuff," Wilson says. "It was kind of dry during the early October season, which didn't make for very good hunting. Things got rolling a little better during the second segment of the season. Ohio River birds came in good numbers; by the second week of January, the birds piled up there. The last two weeks of the season were about as good as waterfowl hunting gets."

Though this season's outcome also will hinge on winter's fickle nature, Wilson says the state's resident ducks and geese should provide ample action for hunters until migrant birds start flocking in.

"This should be a decent season for resident wood ducks and mallards," he says. "We had some flooding that disrupted some nesting, but at the same time that water provided excellent brood habitat and protection for the hatchlings in those nests where the eggs managed to hatch."

Canada geese, present in ever-increasing numbers since the DNR introduced them in 1977, have also added to their flocks.

"The flooding caused some nests to be lost early on, but many of those geese simply re-nested," Wilson says. "During our banding surveys in late June and early July, we saw huge ranges in the ages of goslings, which was a sure-fire indicator of re-nesting success. Overall, goose production turned out pretty good."

Though Atlantic Flyway brood surveys hadn't been evaluated at press time, Wilson doesn't anticipate any major changes in the number of migratory birds expected to pass through, either.

"We don't anticipate any major declines in migrant populations," he says. "Atlantic Flyway birds don't usually have the big population swings that Mississippi Flyway birds seem to have."

The upshot to Mountain State hunters is that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the agency that controls season length and bag limits, ordinarily is generous to West Virginia.

"We usually get the 'liberal package,' a 60-day season with a six-bird limit," Wilson says. "There's no reason to believe this year will be any different."

(Editor's note: The USFWS' regulations also were scheduled to come out after this article went to press, so would-be waterfowl hunters should check the DNR's Web site, www.dnr.state.wv.us, to confirm season dates and bag limits. Regulation brochures also are available at DNR offices statewide.)

Regulators are likely to be most generous with Canada goose limits and seasons. Much to wildlife officials' chagrin, West Virginia has stacked up an overabundance of the big white-cheeked birds in the 26 years since they were first stocked.

"We've been at the point of having too many geese for years, at least in certain places," Wilson says. "Unfortunately, the biggest overpopulation problems seem to develop in places where the birds can't be hunted.

"Geese that are out in the countryside usually get hunted, and their numbers stay pretty stable. But in towns, on golf courses and in parks, we have way too many birds. Problem is the country birds are learning to seek refuge in towns. There are simply too many places where geese can't be hunted, because it's not physically possible or because it's restricted by regulation. It's an unfortunate situation, but from a hunting standpoint, there's not much we can do about it."

None ranks higher than the McClintic Wildlife Management Area (WMA), located in rural Mason County, just north of Point Pleasant. This 3,655-acre tract is a wildlife-rich patchwork of wetlands, farmland, timberland and scrub growth. Thirty-one ponds are scattered across the rolling landscape, and when the winter winds howl, those ponds fill with waterfowl of almost every description.

"During the midwinter part of the season, you get everything in there," Wilson says. "Redheads, canvasbacks - even scaup and ringnecks."

Ironically, many hunters don't bother to hunt McClintic during the winter months, opting instead to participate in a lottery-drawn hunt during the season's October early segment. The wood duck hunting is better in October, but Wilson says even that pales in comparison to the mixed-bag potential of the December-January segment.

"The Ohio River, which is just a few miles away, collects a huge number of waterfowl during winter cold snaps, Wilson says. "Those birds don't always stay on the river. Sometimes they move to outlying areas to rest or feed. A lot of them end up at McClintic."

Several McClintic ponds offer flooded timber, and DNR crews have constructed fixed blinds at several ponds. A portion of the WMA, however, is open only during the season's early segment. A call to the resident manager at (304) 675-0871 should clear up any questions.

Access is from state Route (SR) 62 by way of Fairgrounds Road, five miles north of Point Pleasant.

Corps officials built a levee at the downstream end of the swamp and constructed a station that allows water to be pumped from the nearby Ohio River to keep the vast wetland from drying up. While they were at it, construction crews also installed two artificial marshes. The upshot is that Green Bottom is twice the waterfowl magnet it once was, and it was good even then.

Hunters have 40 acres of open water and 180 acres of wetlands in which to set up their blinds. In addition, 680 acres of agricultural land lie nearby. Many of those acres have been planted with crops specifically to attract waterfowl.

Because the WMA sits hard by the Ohio, its swamps and marshes attract most of the waterfowl and shore birds that migrate along the river. "Like McClintic, Green Bottom gets a little bit of everything during the winter," Wilson says.

The WMA also offers some of the easiest access available to sportsmen. Its grounds are spread along a three-mile segment of SR 2, roughly 20 miles north of Huntington.

True waterfowl enthusiasts, however, recognize the 2,374-acre tract for what it is - a marvelous and largely overlooked wetlands complex.

Wilson says the area is best known for its wood ducks, which vamoose for more southerly climes by late October. "But Meadow River also pulls in a lot of good stuff when the migrants come through in December and January," he adds. "Especially black ducks. Greenbrier County historically is one of our better areas for black ducks."

Though they're tucked into an upland setting surrounded by high mountains, the Meadow River's headwaters flow through a relatively flat series of wet meadows and swamps punctuated by stands of flooded timber.

The area is accessible from the Dawson or Sam Black Church exits of Interstate 64. Larger wetland tracts can be reached via county Route 60/18, which intersects U.S. Route 60 near Rupert.

In fact, hunters were frequenting the 14,000-acre tract well before Congress granted it refuge status in 1994. Sportsmen already knew all about the vast, perched wetlands that surround the upper Blackwater River, and they know that migrating waterfowl congregate there to escape the snows, which always seem to blanket the 3,200-foot-high valley.

"Canaan Valley is just a little west of the Atlantic Flyway, so you can get just about any species there," Wilson says. "It has a lot of resident wood ducks and mallards and a few black ducks in spots."

And there are geese. Lots and lots of geese, courtesy of a nearby state park golf course.

Hunting on the NWR requires a special refuge permit, which is available at the USFWS office located in the valley. The refuge encompasses 6,700 acres of wetlands, so finding room to hunt shouldn't present a problem.

U.S. Route 219 skirts the valley's northern end near the town of Davis, a little tourist town just north of the wetlands.

The 3,030-acre tract, located on the border of Barbour and Taylor counties between Philippi and Grafton, borders on Tygart Lake. The lake's 1,750-acre size ensures the presence of at least some open water except during the harshest of winters, and the Doe Run mini-impoundment and two artificial wetlands provide plenty of habitat.

"All that water attracts migrant birds," Wilson says. "A late-season cold snap pushes birds in there before the lake starts to freeze. In a mild winter, the lake stays open and the hunting stays good."

Access to the property is excellent, via U.S. routes 119 and 250.

Hunting West Virginia's midwinter waterfowl isn't easy. By this late in the season, most ducks and geese are pretty well educated to hunters' ways. To shift the odds in his favor, veteran hunter Gary Wendell has developed a few specialized techniques.

"I look for small areas of open water and array my decoys so that they'll create an empty landing area near the boat," he says. "Then I'll back my boat up against the bank, flip up the camouflage curtains, and I'm ready to start calling."

Unlike many hunters, Wendell refuses to use the so-called "tried-and-true" decoy arrays touted in waterfowl-hunting reference books. "By the time they get down to West Virginia, these birds have seen every 'J-hook' or 'horseshoe' pattern on the market - and can recognize them on sight," he says.

Though he ignores set patterns, Wendell does like to incorporate some movement into his decoy spreads. With every dozen decoys or so, he tosses out a couple of battery-operated "shakers," disc-shaped devices that wobble and create the same sort of ripples as a flock of feeding ducks might.

"The motion really helps," he says. "It adds life to the decoy spread, and really helps to bring flights of ducks in for a closer look."

Curiously, Wendell tends to avoid morning hunts. Though purists might blanch at such a breach of tradition, Wendell considers his preference for afternoons to be a matter of self-preservation.

"The Kanawha and Ohio rivers can be awfully scary places in the dark," he says. "There's a lot of barge traffic, and there's a lot of early-morning fog. When you combine those two factors with a river channel that's constricted by ice, you have a really dangerous situation. When it's like that, I'll confine my hunting to the afternoon hours every time."

Because West Virginia isn't exactly the center of the waterfowling universe, success tends to come and go.

"It's like that sometimes," Wendell says. "Midwinter hunting is never a sure thing. Sometimes the ducks come in to your decoys all day long, and you end up getting a limit. Other days, you sit in the boat and all you do is drink coffee.

"For my money, though, this is the very best time of year to be a waterfowl hunter. It may not be easy, but it's always enjoyable."