<P style="MARGIN: 0px">I went down to pay a friend a visit last night on the Ohio River. She lives on a House Boat year round on about 10 acres. I usually do a little duck hunting down there during the season. We started talking and I asked if she had seen a lot of ducklings yet. She said a few, but they don't last long with the turtles and fish. She said that she has seen more canada goslings this year than in the past 5-10 years. She said that every few days, you will see a family of newborn canadas come out of the woods. She has seen up to 12 different family groups already this year just on her 10 acres of riverfront property. The water level has been at pool stage for at least the past 3-4 weeks and I think that a lot of the nests that usually get flooded from spring rains have survived this year from the dry conditions.</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px"> </P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">Just a thought, but it might be a great early season here in the SW.</P>
My unscientific study of NE Ohio would say that we have had the biggest hatch that I have ever seen up here. Nearly every local pond, lake and reservoir is stuffed with newbies from nearly grown to small yellow fuzz balls. One local pond had two groups of Canadas with 15 young between them and a hen mallard with a brood of 11. I just hope that the crops come off early this fall. Early goose should be a blast.<br>
