"We just didn't have any birds (ducks) around in November, but the Canada goose hunting got pretty good in December and early January. I hosted five or six hunters a day in the latter part of the season and we averaged about 10 geese a day."

Cunningham varies his spread of decoys to fit the weather and the migration. "I've hunted over as few as 10 big-foot decoys and as many as 600 to 800 duck and goose decoys," he offered. "In calling the birds, I follow the teachings of Ralph. I asked him years ago what his secret was to calling ducks and geese. He replied, 'Watch the birds; they will tell you when to call.'"

If the farm ponds and small watershed lakes freeze over by December, Jeff Hoffman, assistant game division manager for the NGPC in Lincoln, looks for flowing water at areas such as the creek running through the Jack Sinn WMA near Ceresco, or at sites along the Missouri River like William Gilmour, Langdon, Hamburg, and Kansas bends. "I don't hunt geese very much," he stated, "but there is some pretty good hunting around Lincoln on the resident flocks of Canadas."

The Rainwater Basin area in south-central Nebraska is prime duck country before freeze-up. It offers scores of public hunting areas managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the NGPC.

Brad Seitz, a game biologist with the NGPC who lives near Alexandria, hunts the basin marshes regularly. "The small marshes usually begin to freeze up in late October," he explained. "The larger ones may stay open as late as December, but even if they freeze up there are guys who set out decoys on the ice and do well -- especially on geese.

"Once the majority of the marshes in the southeastern basin country freeze over, the birds, particularly mallards, will begin using the creeks and rivers in the Fairbury area such as the Big Blue, Little Blue and Sandy Creek. Access to these streams is basically all on private land, so the hunters must get permission to hunt them from the landowners."

Bob Meduna, the NGPC's wildlife manager at Kearney, thinks that the month's best hunting will be found along the Platte Valley in his district. "There are a number of wildlife management areas along the river that offer waterfowl hunting opportunity," he said. "They include Martin's Reach, Bassway Strip, East Odessa, Blue Hole, Dogwood, Darr Strip and Cozad.

"Last year our duck hunting was not very good, with the exception of a few days in the middle of December, when the mallards piled in and stayed for just a short time. The Canada goose hunting was quite exceptional in January along the Platte. The weather turned mild, and the birds that overflew us earlier came back north and stayed quite awhile along the river."

Sargent's Shawn Bickford manages Comstock Lodge, headquarters for the Nebraska Wildlife Ranch Company -- (308) 527-4199 -- a hunting preserve along the Calamus River a few miles north of that small town. The preserve encompasses about 40,000 acres, and in addition to waterfowl offers other game such as elk, deer, buffalo, prairie grouse and pheasants.

"We do offer waterfowl hunting on the Calamus River as well some sloughs along it," he said. "Most of the birds we see are mallards and Canadas that stage on Calamus Reservoir a few miles east of us. December offers good hunting on the river and sloughs."