Nebraska's Sandhills country has hundreds of shallow lakes and marshes. However, the smaller ones usually are iced up in late November or early December. They offer great duck action, as well as some Canada goose hunting, until the ice forces the birds to open water.

Open water in the hill country is fairly limited this time of year. Calamus Reservoir and the Loup rivers, as well as Merritt Reservoir and the Snake River above it, serve up most of the December and January hunting -- weather permitting

Biologist Ben Rutten, of Bassett, calls the shots in wildlife management in that area. In his view the water situation has improved greatly.

"Water conditions in the Sandhills are near normal or slightly above," he reported. "If things don't freeze up by early December, I would look to lakes such as Willow and Twin for some good mallard and Canada goose hunting. If they do, I would hunt Calamus Reservoir as well as the Calamus and Loup rivers along with Merritt Reservoir and the Snake River above it -- as well as Sherman Reservoir, if it isn't locked up with ice.

"Last year, late waterfowl hunting was only fair. The birds were late coming down, and then things froze up, so the reservoirs and rivers above them provided most of the action."

In northeastern Nebraska, the cold-weather hunters should find hunting on the rivers such as the Missouri, Platte, Elkhorn, Niobrara and Loup, as well as on the adjoining sloughs and oxbows, fair to good -- so said district wildlife manager Tom Welstead at Norfolk.

"Normally the late mallard and green-winged teal migration starts to show up about mid-November," he explained. "They'll use open water where they find it, but by the second week in December, most ducks and geese are concentrated on the larger reservoirs and warmwater sloughs along the Missouri, Platte, Elkhorn and Cedar rivers.

"Last year we had good hunting early, but the late migration went through pretty fast. This push of waterfowl is significant, but if the weather is really cold the birds can move through in a hurry. If the hunter isn't in the blind when these birds are coming through, he may miss the best part of the season.

"As far as public hunting areas are concerned, for late November and December hunting I would suggest the Bazile Creek WMA and the Santee area above Lewis and Clark Lake, Willow Creek Reservoir, Wood Duck WMA, Wilkinson WMA and Goose Lake WMA. If we get a real shot of cold weather, the areas likely to hold birds would be the Missouri River in the Bazile Creek and Santee areas. There is also a lot of good late hunting on private land along the rivers, especially the warm-water sloughs along the Platte, Elkhorn, Cedar and Missouri."

In the southeast, Pat Molini is the wildlife manager working out of the Lincoln office. "We had plenty of rain this past spring and it improved a lot of our marshes and wetlands," he said. "Our hunting success last fall was only fair -- the water tables were down a little. The push of ducks was good at the beginning of the season, but mallard hunting was tough. The late push of ducks was fair."

Molini's picks for late-season hunting in the southeast are Branched Oak and Pawnee reservoirs and Schilling and Kansas Bend WMAs along the Missouri. Some private-land field hunting for local Canada geese, which use the park ponds in Lincoln as well as Branched Oak Reservoir and the refuge on Twin Lakes, is available.

Mark Vrtiska, the waterfowl program manager for the NGPC in Lincoln, stated that water conditions statewide are much better than they have been for the past three to five years. As support for his assertion he cited a poll of hunters showing that an estimated 15,400 hunted ducks and 15,600 hunted geese during the 2005-06 season. They bagged an estimated 158,000 ducks (89,000 mallards) and 97,500 Canada geese. Hunter numbers were down from an estimated 20,000 for ducks and 16,000 for Canada's during the 2004-05 season, when scattergunners took 167,000 ducks and 62,000 Canadas.

Details on the seasons are available from the Lincoln office of the NGPC at 1-402-471-0641, or on the Web at www.outdoornebraska.org/wildlife/wildlife.html