Wyoming

Wyoming's C rating is no reflection on the quality of duck hunting there. It's more of a quantity rating: There's just not enough solid habitat in this high and mostly dry place.

But that can be a good thing for the waterfowler willing to venture to Wyoming: It's not difficult to figure out where the ducks will to be.

Start with the river drainages, east and west. In the eastern part of the state, it's the Powder, Sweetwater, Laramie, North Platte and their tributaries. This part of the state gets a nice spillover migration from Alberta and Montana as ducks work south. In the western part of the state, river hunting is available in the Snake, Green and Bear valleys for Pacific Flyway birds. In the north, it's the Bighorn River and adjacent sloughs.

Prairie pothole hunting can be good on the eastern plains. Check out Wyoming's hunting access page, and pay special attention to Walk-In Area lands, which are usually thought of only for big-game hunting but can often have some decent duck habitat or at least stock dams and potholes to jump-shoot.

Scouting is the key to Wyoming duck hunting success. Find some water, and birds will likely be close.

— Compiled and written by Tom Carpenter

Seasons and Bag Limits