December 23rd and 24th, 2003. The south wind howled through the trees, all night long. I got up two or three times to make sure that it was not subsiding, listening at the window for any sign of diminishment. I heard none. Indeed, the storm seemed to intensify as dawn approached. I have no wind gauge other than experience – but I estimated wind speed at close to forty by the time I stepped out to go to the blind. It took substantial effort to walk against it. The gusts – the pulses that rushed over the riparian forest that borders my hunting area – staggered me more than once.

I hunt most frequently on the east side of the California’s Sacramento Valley between Marysville and Oroville, roughly fifty miles north of Sacramento. In that area, stormy weather typically improves the hunting. The area is part of what is known as the American Basin, identified in the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture Implementation Plan as one of the most important areas for waterfowl in the Central Valley. The North American Migratory Bird Treaty documents identify the Central Valley as one of the most important wintering grounds on the North American continent. So we are located in a component ground zero of a larger ground zero – an area noted for its wintering concentrations, a reputation seemingly justified by perceived reality until about three years ago

I have always loved to hunt in storms, the rowdier the better. About five years back, we had a full-fledged hurricane during waterfowl season. It hit on a weekday. I made a feeble excuse at work and took off for the hunting grounds. It would have been impossible to stay in the office and watch that event unfold from a city-bound perch. After all, the work lasts, the storms do not.

Winds topped seventy miles per hour in the Sacramento Valley that day, approaching one hundred on San Francisco Bay. It was front page news, complete with massive power outages, local flooding, downed trees, closed bridges, etc. Rain fell in torrents. Turning to watch birds swinging upwind at the height of that blow was like sticking your face into a fire hose.

I stayed out in it for three hours, coming in with a fine limit of ducks and geese and a soul on fire with delight at the sight of so many waterfowl on the move against a tattered sky, against the backdrop of wind roaring through forest. The number of shells I expended attempting to connect with birds, often flying backwards and never actually moving in the direction they were headed, shall remain classified information.

This year has been one of frustration for storm lovers. We have experienced a few pulses of weather and significant rain, but almost never when predicted. Episodes of stout airflow – winds above twenty miles per hour – have been rare. More often, our rain has fallen out of a low domed overcast with no wind at all, one of the worst conditions for waterfowl hunting in our Valley. So I staggered out to the blind on December 24th, buffeted by robust winds and filled with anticipation born of pent up frustration as well as my love for the conditions. Even in years of unusually turbulent weather, a man is lucky to catch three or four storms exactly right and here I was, at the exact right moment.

One problem: No birds. Oh sure, that’s an exaggeration. There were a few. Having learned a little about shooting in the wind through hours spent on a sporting clay course in a gusty location, I took advantage of most of my opportunities and came in with a respectable strap. But the flight was a pitiful remnant of what one should have seen on a day like that, at this time of year in that location. Perhaps the problem comes down to my frame of reference. I remember what a sky like that is supposed to look like.

The perceived condition of our flocks – what hunters experience in the field as opposed to what biologists proclaim from computer projections or official counters declare from their low-flying airplanes – is that of steady and serious decline in numbers over the last three years. That continues a long-term trend that seemed to reverse for a few years in the middle ‘90s, but is now back on downward course.

For many years, the area where I hunt most often, and with which I am most familiar, held its own while other parts of the Valley slipped. When the west side went into the tank after the drought of ’77, wise men declared that the flyway had moved east, in response to unknown factors. When the Grasslands (in the San Joaquin Valley) declined, other wise men blamed the reservoirs where the birds allegedly rafted up during daylight hours. Pollution and nearby development took the blame for deterioration in the Suisun Marsh. And so forth. According to the pundits, we have the same number of birds (more or less). They are just in a different location. The problem is that no one can exactly pinpoint where that might be.

We Californians do not endure these declining trends alone. In fact, we are probably better off than most. From what I am told, waterfowlers might as well hold a requiem for the Atlantic Flyway where hunters on the fabled Eastern Shore would see nothing over their blinds were it not for thousands of pen-raised mallards released every year to provide a sorry reminder of lost glory days. Can you still call it a “flyway” under those conditions? Think about that. No meaningful migratory wild bird flight on Chesapeake Bay, the traditional heartland of waterfowling in America.

The Arkansas Wildlife Federation report, that we have mentioned often in these columns, chronicles the dramatic decline of duck hunting in that state, the state that proclaims itself the Waterfowl Capital of the nation. Jim Phillips has provided similar numbers for several of the midwestern states, including his native Indiana where populations currently stand at less than ten percent of what they when he was a kid. That roughly mirrors the decline of the Saskatchewan pintail population (just to pick a random example from a long list of appropriate candidates) over the same period.

I won’t add length to this sorry list by further examples. Every informed reader could probably supplement it from his or her own experience. But the interesting question is this: Where in the publications and pronouncements of Ducks Unlimited, the various state waterfowl associations, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the state fish and game departments of any state, have you seen or heard a forthright confrontation of these conditions and a clarion call of alarm? I have neither seen nor heard anything of the sort and would appreciate referral to such by any reader with a different experience. My impression is that we are like inhabitants of a house on fire, while the persons supposedly in charge of fire safety are having a party, celebrating themselves and their self-proclaimed accomplishments. Worse, we paid for their booze, their dip, the tortillas and the rock band, all the while believing that we were investing in fire protection.

Why is it so hard to get hunters suitably alarmed over the decline? Perhaps because it happens in small increments. Perhaps because by August, anticipation of the upcoming season overwhelms the disappointments of the previous year. Perhaps because the hunters who measure success by kill numbers decide that the season couldn’t have been too bad so long as they killed almost as many birds as the year before. The fevered anticipation of another opening day obscures the dismal import of the long-term trend line.

In short, the dreaded syndrome of the boiled frog lulls us into complacency. Drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, and he jumps out. Place him in a pot of cold water, bring it slowly to a boil and he sits there until cooked.

Anyone who has been as relentlessly critical as I have been has an obligation to make a positive proposal. Catcalls from the cheap seats are not an agenda, in and of themselves, contrary to what a number of politicians would want us to believe. So here’s my diagnosis and my proposed cure. Read it and take your best shots.

Diagnosis: We are killing too many of our waterfowl. Our populations simply do not justify liberal season lengths and bag limits. The compensatory kill theory that led us into this pit of error should be seen for the fig leaf that it is – a pseudo-scientific, non-provable “justification” for the killer mentality and commercialism that has taken command of our sport, bringing it to the brink of ruin.

The cure: Recognize the ethical imperatives required to justify hunting in modern times, when virtually none of us hunt to subsist, and adopt principles of fair chase and resource enhancement as the touchstones by which we set our regulations. Specifically, outlaw the use of modern gadgetry and manage for optimum use of the nesting grounds. The question should not be “how many birds can we kill based on last spring’s production,” but rather “how many birds should we strive to return to the nesting ground for optimum production next spring – and the next, etc?” Methods and means should be relentlessly measured against standards of fair chase and demands that hunters employ skill in pursuit of their quarry. The contest is already uneven enough when conducted in strict accordance with traditional standards.

We will make no progress along these lines without altering the mindset of the average hunter who measures the quality of his or her day afield by the number, species and gender of the birds on the strap. So long as the objective of the hunt remains the kill rather than the experience as a whole, and the skills required to enhance the experience, the impetus to invent theories to justify more killing than our birds can stand will overwhelm whatever will to resist our regulators can muster. The money of commercial interests co-opts our associations and fires our politicians to create pressure that is just too strong.

A long-term project? You bet. I frankly don’t expect to live long enough to see it through, even if it takes off today and proceeds directly to a successful conclusion. There’s just too much work to be done. But in the meantime, we can all make our little contributions from day to day, making converts one at a time in a form of personal persuasion, a one on one application of the healing powers of shame.

Two weeks ago, I hosted two friends for a hunt at a very special place. The guide who runs the program on the property in question is typically booked several months or more in advance of the season opener – and his list is more or less restricted to friends of the ownership. Limits are almost a foregone conclusion for anyone interested in that as a goal -- and the grounds are beautiful riparian forest habitat, a Mecca for wintering waterfowl and other species. The guide is a fine man, a great caller and a true student of waterfowl. He enjoys a towering local reputation, earned over many years of doing the little things as well as the big. (You won’t find any spent shell cases or inadequate brushing in or around any of his blinds, for example). Like most guides, however, he wants his customers to kill ducks, the maximum number the law allows and as quickly as possible – because he assumes that that is what the customers want.

As we were pulling on our waders, the guide (not being a regular reader of Madduck) asked me if he should bring spinning-wing decoys – rotoducks – on our hunt. He apparently used them with most of his parties, even though they are absolutely unnecessary on that ground, under any theory. I will quote our short conversation on the subject verbatim:

“Do your mind if we use rotos?”

“Do you mind if I shoot them?”

We, of course, did without and enjoyed a wonderful hunt. At every lull in the action, I worked on the guide. “Why don’t you take out a full page ad in the local paper proclaiming that you can’t kill birds without spinners, even though you did just fine before they were invented?” And on and on in that vein. We are still friends. He’s still a user. But the question grows in his mind like fungus. He admits that he is no longer comfortable. He leaves the gizmos behind when guiding experienced hunters – unless they make a special request. A subtle shift in onus has taken place here.

It will take a large bundle of such shifts to get us where we need to be, but it’s a start. This is a battle that will be won on fair chase grounds or it will not be won at all – because too many of the powers that be reject the overwhelming evidence of gadget lethality and the potential lethality of most soon to be deployed, next generation of modern gadgetry. Above all, they reject the notion that we are killing too many ducks and/or that fair chase is their responsibility. (In fairness, a few states have banned spinners on fair chase grounds. That’s part of the onus shifting for which we must work).

I also urge all like-minded hunters to preach ethics, starting with our younger hunters. Aldo Leopold’s writings provide a good third party source if you are dealing offspring or buddies who tune you out whenever your message takes on a tone uncongenial with their preconceived notions. Self-restraint does not sell itself. It is an acquired taste.

I sometimes wonder why this has become so important to me. I have no son or nephew to step into my waders when I kick the bucket. My shotguns and other gear will probably go on E-Bay, as soon as my wife and daughters can figure out how to do it. Whatever the reason, the fight will go on. Because I believe that certain valuable treasures that we have been allowed to enjoy should not be defiled, at the expense of future generations, whether relatives, friends or strangers. I believe that every person of character, somewhere inside, harbors the will to embrace that premise. If I am right, then it is only a matter of shining a light on the defilement – and not allowing others to look away.

Pass the double A batteries brother. My light may be small but it is tightly focused and hopefully bright. Let the naysayers boil someone else’s frog.