Originally Posted by craigd
Originally Posted by Stanton Hillis
....the Pacific Northwest, which is normally very wet all summer, is experiencing the hottest and driest summer in recent history....
Many of the potholes are dry or very low up in the duck factory, and it's been a pretty noticeable Western fire season. I think the nesting success has been down, or at least that's what it looks like. It might be a tough fall waterfowl season.

I hear you, Craig. But, just as weather differs in various parts of the country, so do duck numbers due to that weather. I fully understand the importance of good nesting seasons to the overall duck numbers, but the biggest determining factor on how many big ducks we get down here isn't how good a nesting season they had, rather it's how cold it gets up there. It takes lots of extended cold up north to push any significant numbers of big ducks this far south. I'm hoping for lots of cold up there this winter!