The Spring issue of California Waterfowl will soon be landing in members’ mailboxes, and we’ve got some great stories for our readers! Here are some of the highlights:

On the cover: Photographer Brandon Fien, a California Waterfowl Sprig member from Vacaville, found a large concentration of white-fronted geese in the Sacramento Valley on the last weekend in October, and he played it just right: As soon as he set up with his camera on a loafing pond, a big grind headed his way and he caught a great image of a speck dropping in.

Help for new hunters: Do you know someone who wants to learn to hunt, or a new hunter who needs a little help? CWA has a huge schedule of Hunter Education and hunter development events for both kids and adults. The schedule is online here - please share it!

The Great State of Duck Hunting: Which state kills the most geese? California! The most ducks? California! The most mallards? NOT California! (But we’re still up there.) We’ve got maps and graphs that lay it all out.

A $20 shotgun, $12 worth of decoys and a mail-order kayak: On Leonard Ackerman’s first duck hunt ever in the mid-1940s on Elkhorn Slough, he watched as ducks circled and circled before diving into a nearby duck club. Someday, he resolved, he would be in a club like that.

What new ammunition rules mean for hunters: The last of the ammunition restrictions approved by California lawmakers and voters in 2016 will go into effect this summer. Find out what the changes mean for hunters. Click here to read the article

Supporting California’s hunters: California Waterfowl's advocacy team is hard at work advocating for bills that will help hunters and waterfowl, and against those that will hurt us, including a slew of new gun-control bills. Click here to read the article.

Canine Corner: Our popular dog-training column, brought to you by our partners at SportDOG®, is now available online! Click here to read what trainer Josh Miller has to say about how you can improve your dog – and yourself – during the off-season.

California Wood Duck Program 2018 report: See what the largest citizen-science program of its kind - the California Wood Duck Program - accomplished in 2018. Click here to download the PDF of the report.