[ ONS Home ] [ Newsletters ] [ Outdoor News ]

The waterfowl report is published each week during the waterfowl hunting season on this site, usually updated on Monday afternoons. We encourage hunters to send photographs and updated information to augment this report. Our goal is to make this report the most comprehensive waterfowl hunting report available for Southern California hunters -- with all of the information in a single place. Updates, photographs, and comments should be e-mailed to Jim Matthews at odwriter@earthlink.net.
 

February 5, 2008

San Jacinto Wildlife Area junior hunter
shoots a limit his first time in a blind

The San Jacinto Wildlife Area had 50 junior hunters for it’s special junior waterfowl hunting day this past Saturday, the highest number of hunters for all of the public hunting areas in Southern California. And it was an opportunity for at least one youngster to shoot his first duck.
Christian Ballin of San Jacinto had never hunted waterfowl before, but he applied for the special junior’s-only hunt at San Jacinto. Without a hunting mentor to show him the ropes, the staff at San Jacinto hooked him up with one of the regulars at the area, Jeremy Voss.
“It was his very first hunt ever,” said Tom Trakes with the Department of Fish and Game at San Jacinto. “His grandfather had called us and said that the young man wanted to do this but he didn’t have anyone to accompany him and help him.”
Trakes said that many local hunters had volunteered to help the junior hunters out during the special hunt, and they paired Ballin with Voss, who’s known as a fine duck caller. The pair ended up on Marsh A, and Ballin not only shot his first duck, but he ended the day with the only limit of birds to be posted by the junior hunters on Saturday. He went home with three cinnamon teal, three shovelers, and a ruddy duck.
The 50 juniors shot a total of 64 ducks and six coots for a 1.4 average overall, slightly better than the area had been shooting the last three weeks of the regular season.
“This is the most hunters we’ve ever seen come out for a junior hunt,” said Trakes. “It went great.”
Besides the hunting, the volunteers had a pancake breakfast for the kids at “0-dark-thirty” before they went to the blinds, a big barbecue after the hunting, and a raffle that included two free ocean fishing trips, a new shotgun, and a flight over the San Jacinto Wildlife Area donated by Jim Sconyers of Chino. The raffle also included hundreds of dollars in prizes, mostly duck hunting gear, donated by local hunters, Turner’s Outdoorsman, Bass Pro Shops, and BJ’s Sporting Goods in Hemet.
San Jacinto will have its post-season volunteer day to clean up blind sites and plant willows starting 7 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. The work effort will be followed by a pot-luck barbecue. You can call the wildlife area at 951-928-0580 or visit the area web site at www.sjwa.us for more information.
Similar end-of-the-season junior hunting events were held at most of the other public hunting areas in the region. The juniors had excellent hunts at the Kern National Wildlife Refuge and the Sonny Bono-Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge.
The 41 junior hunters at Kern had nearly four-bird (3.63) averages on the Saturday hunt, and the eight junior hunters on Sunday at the Salton Sea refuge shot limits of snow geese (four birds each) along with a handful of ducks and two white-fronts. The kids averaged 4.88 waterfowl the final shoot day of the 2007-08 waterfowl hunting season in California.
Junior hunters at the Wister Unit of the Imperial Wildlife Area shot 1.9 birds each on Saturday and 1.4 birds on Sunday.
The general waterfowl season closed Sunday, Jan. 27, but the special junior’s-only hunt was Feb. 2-3.

What follows is the area-by-area breakdown for junior hunters at the public hunting areas this past weekend:

At the SAN JACINTO WILDLIFE AREA, there were 50 junior hunters this past Saturday, Feb. 2, who shot 64 ducks and six coots for a 1.4 average. The duck bag was made up of 23 shovelers, 17 cinnamon teal, six ruddy ducks, five wigeon, four gadwall, three greenwing teal, three redheads, two mallards, and one pintail. San Jacinto is open to waterfowl hunting through the state reservation system or a daily drawing for remaining sites after all reservation holders are admitted to the area. Refills are also permitted until 2 p.m. Shoot days are Wednesday and Saturday. For more information, contact the wildlife area at 951-928-0580 or visit the web site at www.sjwa.us.
At the WISTER UNIT of the IMPERIAL WILDLIFE AREA on the Salton Sea, there were 39 junior hunters on Saturday who shot 62 ducks, 12 snow geese, and one coot for a 1.90 average. The duck bag was made up of 27 greenwings, 14 shovelers, six pintail, five wigeon, five cinnamons, three ruddies, and one canvasback. On Sunday, there were 32 juniors who shot 20 ducks, 19 snow geese, four coots, and a Ross’ goose for a 1.38 average. The duck kill included seven pintail, four greenwings, three wigeon, two mallards, two shovelers, one gadwall, and one cinnamon. Wister is open to waterfowl hunting through the state reservation system and a daily drawing for sites after all reservation holders are admitted to the area. Refills are permitted. Shoot days are Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. For more information, contact the unit at 760-359-0577.
At the SONNY BONO-SALTON SEA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, there were six junior hunters on Saturday who shot four snow geese, four greenwing teal, and two shovelers, for a 1.67 average. On Sunday, there were eight juniors who shot 29 snow geese, three Ross’ geese, two whitefronts, one gadwall, one wigeon, one pintail, one greenwing, and one cinnamon for a 4.89 average. The refuge is managed as part of the Wister Unit. For more information, contact the Wister Unit at 760-359-0577.
At the KERN NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, there were 41 junior hunters on Saturday who shot 149 ducks for a 3.63 average. The duck bag consisted of 36 shovelers, 30 cinnamons, 25 greenwings, 23 gadwall, 14 mallards, seven wigeon, five pintail, four ruddies, three bufflehead, one redhead, and one merganser. Kern is open to waterfowl hunting through the state reservation system or a daily drawing for remaining sites after all reservation holders are admitted to the area. Refills are also permitted throughout the shoot day. Shoot days are Wednesday and Saturday. For more information, call 661-725-2767 or the comprehensive hunter's hotline at 661-725-6504, normally updated after each hunt day.

Hunters who would like to contribute information and photographs to this report should e-mail the information to Jim Matthews at odwriter@earthlink.net.

The waterfowl report is copyrighted and any use or reposting of the report, or portions of the report, is prohibited without written permission. Posting of links to the fish report on the Outdoor News Service web site is allowed.