52 Week Season is a project featuring interviews with mid-Atlantic hunting and fishing guides, biologists, and other wildlife experts. The focus of the site is the "sportsman's calendar" and the mindset that you could hunt or fish for some kind of critter in our region pretty much every week week of the year.

From black bear in December to diving ducks in January to muskie in February, below is a rundown of the winter months.

Read the full Interviews here.

DECEMBER

Week 40. Black Bear

“I would rather hunt bear right now and chase bear than I would deer,” says lifelong bear and deer hunter Sean Clarkson of Virginia.

Why is that?  “First of all, I love the meat. I think it’s a much better meat flavor-wise and more versatile than deer. But as far as the animal is concerned itself, an old deer is going to be six and half, seven and a half years old. An old bear is going to be 20. You have an animal that has some degree of problem solving and mental capability. You have an animal that has a nose that blows a dear’s nose out of the water. A big mature whitetail buck’s home range might be a square mile. A big mature 12-15-year-old boar bear may have a home range of 500 square miles. They’re just a completely different animal.”

 Week 41. Upland: Bobwhite Quail and Pheasant

Picture your typical Eastern Shore, Northern Neck, or Piedmont farm in January.  It’s cold and windy, and dusting of snow blankets a field of harvested corn or soybeans that is cleanly cut all the way to the tree line, where a canopy of mature hardwoods begins. You can almost see the Canadas tolling in and sense that big whitetail abound in the woods. 

But what’s missing from this picture is good upland bird habitat. There was a time in the mid-Atlantic, between the Civil War and World War II, when that farm wasn’t mechanically picked (it was a bit scragglier) and that hardwood forest was an annex farm plot separated by a fence-line brier patch. It wasn’t as good for geese or whitetail, but it was great habitat for bobwhite quail and pheasant! 

A southern gentleman, Mr. Bob White is at about the northern end of his range in the mid-Atlantic and is generally a social animal that prefers the company of others and doesn’t stray too far from home. “In the winter, quail form up into coveys, of about 10-15,” says Marc Puckett, quail lead for Virginia DGIF. “Generally speaking, the further east you got, the better the population. They did very well in the coastal plain and well in the piedmont, and historically, quail also did well in in the mountainous region.” 

Like quail, ring-necked pheasants have also suffered from a lack of family farms and fencerows and are at a fraction of their peak populations in the mid-Atlantic. They can still be found in some upland farming areas, but like bobwhite quail, the best shot a pheasant in our area is in a hunting preserve. 

Week 42. Mallards

Mallards are so ubiquitous in the Atlantic Flyway these days that it’s sometimes hard to remember that they are ancestral creatures of the continental interior.

Mallards were once mostly a western bird, more comfortable in the prairie potholes, braided rivers, and inland lakes of Mississippi, Central, and Pacific flyways. Reports from John Audubon in the 1800s described the mallard as “so rare it is scarcely known” and not much more than a “wanderer” east of the Appalachians. The Atlantic marshes were the domain of the black duck, and the vast eastern woodlands mostly acted as a barrier.

It wasn’t until the late 1960s that mallards had overtaken black ducks in the east according to mid-winter surveys. Some of this can be attributed to hybridization and a change in habitat, but a lot also had to do with mallards’ behavior.

“Mallards are a bit more aggressive though and are pretty pliable, and it’s no secret why they’re the most abundant duck,” says Delta Waterfowl’s John Davney. “They can find a way to make a living anywhere! You won’t see a black duck or widgeon nesting in your mother’s flowerpot but you wouldn’t be surprised to see a mallard.” 

Two studies looked at the peak southern and northern migrations to the Chesapeake region for migratory waterfowl, one in 1958 and one concluding 2013. To no hunters’ surprise, almost all of the 21 waterfowl species were arriving later and leaving earlier. The one exception were mallards. The data showed that somehow mallards were moving in earlier and leaving later today than they were sixty years ago. A simple explanation would suggest an expanding range and population into mid-Atlantic.

Thankfully, mallards are one of the best ducks at responding to calls and also one of the tastiest.

Week 43. Black Ducks

If a pair of mallards were a guest at your dinner party, they might barge in and start gorging themselves on everything on the table, from bread to condiments to even scraps of napkin. Black ducks, on the other hand, might take a few discerning looks around the table, and only start eating once they felt the company was suitable and everything was properly in place. The outgoing mallard thrived in recent decades while the discerning black duck, who prefers the solitude of quiet marshes that are tougher and tougher to find with suburbanization, has declined. But thankfully, that trend has stabilized in recent years.  

“Over the past 25 years, the number of black ducks has held pretty steady,” says US Fish & Wildlife Service Atlantic Flyway Representative Paul Padding. “This upcoming season [in 2019-20], we’ll have a two-bird daily bag limit on black ducks, as the harvest strategy's population model advised us to do. We shall see if it has an impact but I’m very excited about it.” 

Week 44. Other Puddle Ducks

“As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens.” It’s an old proverb that is particularly true in the mid-Atlantic, where the coldest days of the years are in early January. 

This is great news for duck hunters. By the turn of the calendar year, the prairie potholes of North Dakota, cornfields of Ontario, and marshes or New Brunswick are a winter wonderland, which means the ducks have pushed south. 

“As a general rule, dabbling-duck species tend to migrate earlier than diver-ducks,” says DU regional biologist Jake McPherson. “Dabblers may be pushed from northern staging areas by cold weather or snow that freezes shallow wetlands or covers agricultural food sources.”

The mallard is of course the most common puddle duck in the region and the most prevalent duck in general in North America, but the Eastern Shore also sees some Northern pintails, gadwall, and widgeon.  

Week 45. Brant and Scoters

The same conditions that make Chincoteague oysters famous worldwide -- briny estuaries filtered twice daily by tidal currents -- also makes it a favorite habitat of sea ducks and Atlantic brant. Three types of scoters -- white-wing, black, and surf -- are found in abundance in the Delmarva’s tidal waters. Atlantic brant, a sea-going goose, rarely if ever leave the salty confines of the coast and back bays. 

“Scoters fly on the calendar -- it could be 80 degrees, but they’re flying by the calendar,” says Jeff “Pittboss Waterfowl” Coats. “White-wing, we don’t see as much -- they stay to the north of us. On a morning hunt, it’s usually about 50/50 surf and black scoter, with a white wing mixed in here and there.”

“Brant spend their summers at the Arctic Circle, but they are typically the first waterfowl to arrive, and the last to leave,” says Chincoteague guide Pete Wallace. But timing a brant hunt is anything but predictable. “Wind, tides, currents, ice and coastal storms can move the eelgrass and brant salad miles from where the brant have been feeding. If the location of their food changes, so does their flight path.”

Week 46. Canada Geese

As long as people have inhabited the Eastern Shore, they have counted on hundreds of thousands of Canada geese arriving each fall. 

Eastern Shore waterfowler Sean Mann says the first waves start arriving in mid-September, but it’s usually not until around Thanksgiving that we get our first major push of birds. A cold front will usually slam into the region overnight, bringing thousands of Canada geese riding in on a northwest wind. 

“But this time of year [in January] is my sweet spot,” says Mann. “When the holidays wrap up, a lot of people have checked waterfowling off their list, but we’re just getting started! New waves of Canadas are coming in. If you’re going to have friendly, fresh new birds, you’re going to have them in January.” 

On some of the colder winters, the Shore can hold half a million geese, or over half the Atlantic Flyway population. But Mann says the birds in Kent County, Cecil County, Queen Anne, and on the Sassafras and Chester rivers, don’t always act like the birds in Talbot or Dorchester Counties. “They’re very different birds up there,” he says. There’s also multiple kinds of Canadas and multiple kinds of snow geese, and they all act differently and talk differently.

Week 47. Canvasback

Weighing in over three pounds with a brick-red head and a cream-white body, the canvasback bull is the king of ducks -- known in many parts simply as King Can. Not only is a canvasback an exceptionally large, fast, and handsome duck, but it is excellent table fare as well thanks to its preferred diet of wild celery.

In his thoroughly-researched waterfowling history book Outlook Gunner, Harry Walsh documents that a pair of canvasback “primes” would go for $5-7 at the market in Baltimore a hundred years ago, which in 2019 value is about $134-188. By comparison, a goose at the time cost $2 and a black duck was $1.25.  

Because they are so hardy, “canvasback is one of the latest fall migrants,” says US Fish & Wildlife Service Atlantic Flyway Representative Paul Padding. “They don’t really start arriving sometimes till December and might not reach their peak until January. 

Week 48. Diving Ducks

Though the canvasback might rightfully be considered the King, there are several other species of divers that hold their own in the rough seas of late winter.

Redheads and bluebills (a.k.a. scaup or blackheads) can be found on big rivers, and oldsquaws are excellent stream-lined divers. Goldeneyes and bufflehead are found in the shallower, protected bays.

The big open water of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem -- the Susquehanna Flats, Choptank River, and Tangier Sound -- provide perfect habitat for diving ducks where they can find “a buffet of vegetation, fish, and aquatic invertebrates,” says DU regional biologist Jake McPherson. “Diver duck habitats don’t freeze until extended periods of cold weather, so they’re not forced to leave areas up north as early.” 

Week 49. Snow Geese

The greatest concentration of snows in the country are on the Delmarva, and because they travel in flocks of thousands that can destroy a farmer’s field in one night, the bag limits are liberal. But the work is tough. If you going to move a flock of thousands, you need to set up hundreds of decoys and scout their movement well in advance.  

Early February is the snowiest time of the year in the mid-Atlantic, and what better time, when the rest of the waterfowl seasons have closed, to don some white camo like the 10th Mountain Division and kill a snow goose or twelve. 

Week 50. Small Game: Rabbits and Squirrels

Charles Rodney is in his element when the dogs are making music. “When they are squealing – and I mean squealing at the top of their lungs,” says Rodney with an accent that reveals his Louisiana roots, “that’s when the dogs are running a rabbit real hard and run him down, and they’re coming back and barking in unison… we call that beagle music.” 

When you hear beagle music, it means a lot has gone right. It means that his dogs – from his lead jump-dog Hank on down to number-six dog Bozo – have found a rabbit, stayed on its trail as it bobbed and weaved through some of the thickest brier patches and tangles it can find, and that the rabbit is doubling back within range of his 20-gauge. It means that Rodney is likely to dust it with some Creole seasoning later and toss it in a roux, brown it, make a gravy, and serve it up over rice, just like they did back home.

Rabbit hunting, and small game in general, is a great way to extend the hunting season into what the native Americans would call the month of the Hunger Moon. Most states in the Mid-Atlantic have long small game seasons that stretch well into February. 

 Late season is good for a few reasons. First, “you want to have a couple of good frosts,” he says, to kill off grasses and leaf cover, as well as parasites and ticks. But more important, “February is the busiest time because some aspect of deer or waterfowl goes until the last days of January,” says Rodney. “When they finish, I have a whole lot of folks saying, ‘Charles, we’re done, let’s go! We’ve been seein’ a lot of rabbits when we go to the deer stand and when we go to the blind.’”

Week 51. Coyotes

When Lewis and Clark journeyed across the continent, they saw an unfamiliar tan-colored canine that they called the prairie wolf. It wasn’t until settlers ventured into the southwest deserts that they learned the local name of the wily four-legged critter, the coyote.    

The coyote thrived on the western high plains but were alien to the eastern woodlands where mountain lions and wolves reined as the apex predators. Fast-forward a couple of hundred years, and coyotes have filled the vacuum left behind by the extirpation of wolves and retreat of lions in the East. 

Coyotes followed two routes east: Across the Mississippi River and through the rural South, and through the Canadian woodlands and around the Great Lakes. The Mid-Atlantic was actually the last place in the continental United States that they populated.  

As they moved east through Canada, coyotes interbred with gray wolves, and today the eastern coyote is distinctly bigger than its western cousin, often reaching 60 pounds. But the easterner – or coywolf as they’re sometime called – retained the coyote’s cleverness and tendency to produce bigger litters when under pressure.  

It’s because of this resiliency and difficulty to hunt that coyotes have year-round, no-limit seasons in many states, including Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.  

“Pound for pound, nothing is tougher game than coyote,” says Pete Aheron, who grew up hunting turkey and whitetail but wanted more of a challenge.  “Usually around January and February, they get territorial and are breeding. In February, it's denning season and hunting gets hot.” 

Week 52. Muskie

Muskie can be one of the most frustrating fish, but when they hit and explode on your fly with an ancient anger, it’s all worth it. Muskie were imported to Virginia rivers in the 1930s from their cold native waters in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes and have taken hold in some of the commonwealth’s deep rivers. 

“The top month in my opinion is February. The pre-spawn fish are feeding more, and you have a better chance to catch a big female,” says James River guide Matt Miles. “The reason you want to fish for them that time of year, is that they've moved to their big wintering holes. when they're stacked up in there, you have so many eyeballs. Chances are higher if you put the fly across more fish.”