Dialog Good Start for The Bakken

I attended a very interesting session this week called the Sporting and Oil Industry Forum. The purpose of the meeting was to establish a dialog between North Dakota’s oil and gas industry and the State’s conservation leaders. Hunters and fisherman were represented by virtually all of the conservation/hunting groups. I was representing Delta.  Pheasants Forever, DU, Mule Deer Foundation, NWTF, RMEF, Audubon and several others were there as well.

North Dakota, long the butt of countless jokes and only in the news when 14 foot drifts cover our highways or someone dies of lutefisk poisoning, finds itself in the rare position of being newsworthy. Unemployment is staggeringly low, the agricultural economy is strong and oil and gas development is proceeding at a frantic pace. North Dakota is well endowed with great duck and other habitat. It has wonderfully nice people.  It is also blessed with remarkable resources. Coal, a long-term staple in the State is now joined by wind development and the emergence of the Bakken formation, one of the largest domestic sources of oil and natural gas. North Dakota news outlets refer to the Bakken as the American Saudi Arabia. The people of North Dakota are movin’ on up.

Got Winter? Not on the Prairies…Yet!

A miraculous thing happened the other day in Bismarck—it snowed. A light skiff of snow finally put a white frosting on a brown landscape in the Dakotas. Duck hunters everywhere have been waiting endlessly for a cold front and some snow “Up North” to dislodge the ducks and reenergize the migration. Up here, our sleds haven’t left the shed, our winter boots are still in the closet and a brown Christmas was had by nearly all. 

I haven’t had to spend time on my 4-wheeler plowing the driveway or shoveling, and while that has been a nice reprieve, it certainly ruined my treasured late-season pheasant hunting. In fact, my buddies who chase deer with a bow feel a little cheated too.

What is extraordinary is how quickly weather changes. Just mere months ago, flooding across the prairies made big headlines; crops couldn’t be planted due to flooded fields, and everyone was just flat-out soaked. Virtually every nook and cranny of the prairies was wetter than heck and set the table for nesting ducks.

CRP: Cost Versus Value

Let’s Understand The Facts Before Gutting Program 

The U.S. fiscal crisis has put all government expenditures under the microscope or on the chopping block. Politicians of every persuasion are talking about ways to remedy our burgeoning federal deficit. Super committees have been created and have died. And despite the rhetoric from pundits and economic experts, there is no clear pathway forward to address our chronic problem of too much expense and too little revenue in our federal government. 

For the record, I am a fiscal conservative who is wary of burgeoning spending. I, too, am concerned about the litany of reports of governmental inefficiency or out-right waste.

But a recent indictment of the Conservation Reserve Program from policymakers, duck hunters and other sportsmen and women indicate an information vacuum of epic proportions. Boiled down, the perception is one of program costs versus program benefits. 

CRP is continually the focus of policymaker’s budget thrashing. It is, after all, the 900-pound gorilla of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s conservation programming. It impacts more acreage, is costly and thusly gets more scrutiny than any other conservation action. CRP is also in the crosshairs of some interests groups because they believe eliminating CRP would increase crop acreage, increase commodity inventory and drive commodity prices down. 

See Ya! Adios! Sayonara!

I watched the final flights of birds -- waves upon waves of snow geese, Canada’s and mallards -- depart North Dakota on Saturday with the same sort of sadness I always do. But I also recognized that while we were blessed by a long, productive season, it is now someone else’s chance to enjoy the birds.  

The duck season here lived up to expectations (at least for me anyway). We had remarkable duck numbers early. My favorite marsh was jammed-packed with birds. And the teal. Oh my! The teal…

I enjoyed some of the best blue-wing shooting I have ever enjoyed. Strong breeding numbers, coupled with the appearance of great production and favorable habitat conditions meant we had blue wings far longer and in greater abundance than I can remember. There were days that were simply staggering with flights of teal in untold numbers. I have never gunned teal in Nicaragua or Mexico, but I can only imagine our hunts here rivaled those more exotic locales. While I could have easily filled straps with shabby mallards and pintail, I chose the fat, juicy teal I would relish as much at the table as the marsh.

Status of November Quandary

As of yet no big bucks have fallen (or little bucks or does, for that matter) but I did steal a few hours on the 12th to enjoy what will likely be my last hurrah of the North Dakota duck season.

After breaking ice I found a little open water on my favorite duck marsh (location withheld for obvious reasons) and promptly shot a limit of greenwing drakes. I was so excited I could barely contain myself; I can’t recollect shooting a limit of greenwing drakes. I must say they plucked up nicely.

The water is hard now and the ducks and geese have moved southward. The good news: I have until the 20th to shoot my deer. My November Quandary is now over. I had a great duck season here…but now my single focus is to put venison in the freezer.

My November Quandary

I hate November. 

Hunting with Seamus

But I must say there was a day when I relished the month. November used to mean the exclusive domain over (or nearly so) the big flights of diving ducks that would wing their way through Minnesota’s Great Lakes: Leech, Winni and the like. 

In Minnesota, the first week of November meant deer season, a time when the cervid-crazed masses would chase Bambi and Buck through timber and corn country. Which, of course, left the ducks essentially to, well, the nine of us who didn’t hunt deer. 

Almost without fail, the deer opener coincided with the peak of the migration too. That meant I had these new, fat and unsuspecting bluebills, ringnecks and whistlers to myself. Oh, the experiences I had; alone on thousands of acres of unclaimed country to do as I pleased. 

But then I moved to North Dakota and, worse yet, I developed a fondness for venison. In the early years, my insatiable appetite was easily satisfied—I could always find folks who were willing to part with some back straps or roasts so I could continue to pursue ducks. It was a truly symbiotic relationship with no tradeoffs, no pain. But all of the folks who had enabled me as a charity case for lo those many years cut me off, declaring that I should shoot my own deer and that I may actually like it! 

So I went deer hunting, and while I enjoyed it, I had a fairly practical view of the world. It was grocery hunting with a rifle: get a doe tag, kill Bambi quickly (with little energy invested, of course) and get back to chasing ducks. That worked…for a while.