Cacklers in Klamath Falls???

FeatherBusterOSU · 10-11-2006, 12:19 AM

While we were duck and goose hunting over in Klamath Falls this past weekend we noticed somthing that I thought was kinda odd

. I was sitting in a clump of reeds out in the marsh when all of the sudden I heard a familiar sound. The high pitch sound of 100+ cacklers is easily identified. We saw two large flocks of these little guys flying high overhead. Anyway I was just wondering if this is in anyway normal because I thought that cacklers wintered exclusively in the willamete valley. What do you think?

-Jimmy

billc_sbio · 10-11-2006, 05:35 AM

Once upon a time I used to shoot them frequently down in the San Joaquin Valley.

But I've also shot them in the Klamath Basin plenty of times too.

Just the other day some Honkers flew over my house low and I was surprised to see a couple of really small geese in their little V.

The little guys were pretty light, so they might have been Tavs.

Bill Monroe · 10-11-2006, 05:55 AM

They used to winter exclusively in California...got detoured into Oregon a couple of decades ago when the duskys were protected and the cacklers found they weren't shot at nearly as much...the progeny of those birds learned to stop in Oregon instead of moving on...Now that more hunting is allowed here, they're probably beginning to return to past patterns. Some also probably continued to move farther south...

thehunt · 10-11-2006, 06:52 AM

And next year mourning doves will winter in oregon instead of Mexico because they don't get shot at here after the end of september

jvp · 10-11-2006, 07:42 AM

Lived there off and on my whole life and never haven't seen cacklers. heck first goose i kill cackler right on klamth lake down from my house. 35 or so years ago.

billc_sbio · 10-11-2006, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Lived there off and on my whole life and never haven't seen cacklers. heck first goose i kill cackler right on klamth lake down from my house. 35 or so years ago.

Yep, they're all OVER the entire Flyway.

I've shot 'em over in eastern Oregon also.

However the bulk of the migration used to winter in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Valley, and now they're up here in the Willamette Valley, so maybe not so many of them go down and stage in the Klamath Basin before flying across by Mt. Lassen then into the Sacramento Valley.

They're still some down in Cali, although I guess the bulk of them are up here now...

FeatherBusterOSU · 10-11-2006, 09:27 AM

Interesting...It's funny how you can only shoot 2 cacks here in the valley and shoot limits everywhere else.

Wingmaster · 10-11-2006, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Interesting...It's funny how you can only shoot 2 cacks here in the valley and shoot limits everywhere else.

All of Oregon (except the new Southwest zone) has a one cackler limit with the NW Permit zone set at 2 cacklers like last year.

wife&3kids · 10-11-2006, 11:32 AM

Bill,

I think farming practice changes had something to do with the change in behavior of the cacklers..

billc_sbio · 10-11-2006, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Bill,

I think farming practice changes had something to do with the change in behavior of the cacklers..

Must be all the Spinach they're growing down there now?!!

FeatherBusterOSU · 10-11-2006, 01:33 PM

[quote]

Quote:

All of Oregon (except the new Southwest zone) has a one cackler limit with the NW Permit zone set at 2 cacklers like last year.

Oh ok well I guess that I don't hunt over east enough.

Bill Monroe · 10-11-2006, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Bill,

I think farming practice changes had something to do with the change in behavior of the cacklers..

Not really, and I've been covering this since 1976...At that time, farming had already largely shifted to grass seed. The additional expansion may have attracted a few more cacklers, but they were minority birds in the wintering goose populations of the valley. In fact, there weren't many other geese at all because the valley was so heavily hunted. Duskys, in fact started disappearing before the effects of the 64 quake upheaved the Copper River Delta. They were hunted too hard, so the feds bought the three refuges to control their wintering areas. Limited hunting was allowed (I shot a leg-banded dusky that year, in fact, on Finley). I interviewed Jimmy Doolittle during one of his favorite hunts on Glaser Farms near Tangent.

Once the Delta nesting crashed and duskys slumped, the state and feds enacted restrictions and for at least some years there was no hunting at all...Cacklers stopped over because they weren't shot at...older cacklers still went to Sacramento (and Modoc, as I recall), but the progeny of those stopping in the valley simply reproduced more young of their own that never knew anything but the valley...the explosion of geese occurred in less than a decade as others started stopping as well...

That's about it...I suspect some still went to California, but now a similar situation has developed in Klamath County and along the south coast (with Aleutians).

Goose populations are very volatile and adaptable (except the duskys, I guess we'd have to say, although they, too, eventually spread out of the valley and up to Sauvie and the lower Columbia).

fishinpoor · 10-11-2006, 07:52 PM

not unusual at all,saw some everyday this week out in the marsh while we were depleting the duck population

jvp · 10-12-2006, 09:58 AM

[quoteThat's about it...I suspect some still went to California, but now a similar situation has developed in Klamath County and along the south coast (with Aleutians).

[/quote]

I am confused Bill for 40+ years that i know of cacklers were and are abundant in the basin. as far back as i can remember flock after flock of all types of geese coming and going. They may not have wintered there as much as now but they came through in droves. it is right in the middle of the pacific flyway and the basin is one of the main stop overs for migrating waterfowl.