One of the most common laments of Pacific Northwest waterfowlers is that they must travel so far to hunt ducks. The desert marshes, reservoirs, and irrigated crops east of the Cascade Mountains are the region's duck-hunting breadbasket. But most people in Washington and Oregon live west of the mountains, which means that hunters must drive long distances -- often over snowy and ice-covered mountain passes -- to reach waterfowling destinations.

But if you're willing to break the mold of your assumptions about what constitutes good duck hunting, it's actually possible to enjoy excellent sport on the Northwest Coast.

It takes place on the estuaries and bays that punctuate the shoreline from Washington's Olympic Peninsula to the mouth of the Columbia River and down the coast of Oregon to the California state line. Even better, not that many waterfowlers take advantage of estuaries.

I hunt a state-owned tideland on Puget Sound's Hood Canal. It's a virtual template for the kind of place where you could pursue limits of tidewater ducks. Located at the mouth of a river, it's primarily salt marsh but also contains Sitka spruce, sloughs, snags, mudflats and uplands.

It's managed for shellfish and is crowded during the big clam tides of summer. But once the rains begin and the daytime low tides shift over to daytime highs, mallards, pintail, widgeon, green-winged teal and buffleheads replace the human beings.

A few hunters show up for opening weekend, but not many after that.

If I hunt during the week, I never see a soul.

I'm not going to reveal the name of that marsh, because it can handle only a party or two at a time. But there are dozens of publicly owned estuaries in Washington and Oregon.

Waterfowlers willing to exchange corn stubble for salt grass, snow for rain and a weather report for a tide book can find good and challenging duck hunting on many of them.

THE DESTINATIONS
As with any kind of hunting, you find the very best estuaries -- places like the marsh I just mentioned, which no one else hunts -- by poking around on your own.

However, well-known hunting areas give waterfowlers a good introduction to coastal marsh hunting.

Washington
The Skagit Wildlife Area is the largest public waterfowling area in Washington's, Puget Sound. Located on Fir Island between the north and south forks of the Skagit River, it covers more than 15,000 acres. The Nisqually Wildlife Area near Olympia is the most popular tidewater destination in the south sound.

Scores of creeks and rivers drain into Hood Canal, and many of them flow across state-owned tidelands and county parks.

None of these areas advertise that they're open for hunting. But unless there is a local "No shooting" ordinance or too many houses for safe hunting, it's probably OK. I always ask locally to make sure.

There are also many "boat-in only" shellfish beaches in the canal. If you can find one near a protected estuary and have a boat that can cope with winter seas, you'll almost certainly find ducks.

On the Washington coast, the John's River Wildlife Area has units on both Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay. The main John's River Wildlife Area is located on the southeast shore of Grays Harbor and contains intertidal reaches of the John's River.