Umatilla area duck hunting

crawdad · 12-31-2003, 04:11 PM

Does anyone know what the regulations are about hunting the Umatilla refuge on the Washington side? Are those units open and if so what days? Do you have to draw for them or can you just go and hunt? Also are there other areas of the Columbia on the Washington side nearby that you can hunt out of a boat? I'm not looking for honey holes. I just want to know what areas are legal and accesible. Many thanks

steelheadslayer · 12-31-2003, 04:41 PM

Crawdad, It's been awhile since I've hunted over there but I'll try and help you, If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. In believe it's open Sat, Sun and Wed. only. If you're talking the Patterson Unit there aren't any set blinds for draws. Just be the first to where you want to hunt. I remember something about it not opening until 5AM. They have an agent parked at the entrance to make sure of this. Hope this helps, maybe someone else can clarify some things if I'm not all that correct. SHS

billc_sbio · 12-31-2003, 07:56 PM

Crawdad,

For what it's worth, before I went over and hunted Umatilla (or even that area), I'd check the results pretty carefully.

I have a good friend who's gone over to the Boarman area the past two weekends. This guy has permission to hunt on some of the BEST lands, many not accessable to the rest of us. He also used to hunt the refuge a lot and was very successful.

Both of the past two Saturdays he's gone over there and NOT FIRED A SHOT!

He told me that last Saturday hunters hunting the McCormack Slough Unit shot less than 1 duck per hunter.

I know when I was there on Thanksgiving Day, hopefully hunting Geese (and we did manage to shoot 2 of the 6 that were shot that day out of 47 hunters), I saw most of the geese getting up off the river and making a left turn and heading fairly far back...into the fields of Washington.

I was totally underwhelmed at the lack of shots that I heard from the slough blinds! I heard less than 20 shots all morning including the 2 shots we fired! Those 47 hunters took 9 ducks!

Hunting over there hasn't been a pretty picture this year...just thought I'd throw that out for you to think about before making the long drive.

kaaruchi · 01-02-2004, 08:55 AM

I can't give you any info about the Washington side but I did want to share my adventure from last weekend. A buddy of mine got a draw for Boardman on the 28th and invited me out. We left Saturday morning and hunted standby Saturday afternoon. Had shots early but they quit flying around 2:00. Sunday was a much better day as we took down 5 Greenheads between us.

Again it got slow from 2:00 on. :whazzup: Plenty of birds flying around even though the weather was against us, little to no wind and relatively clear. I think a lot more birds were sitting on the river. The area is only open Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. The people that drew go first and then there is a standby list that opens up right after they are done with the lottery numbers. Even if you didn't have a draw, chances were fair you could get a blind for the day. Good Luck and hope this helps.....