When I moved from my native northeast Ohio to western Washington in October of 1993, I had nearly two decades of waterfowl seasons under my admittedly young belt. I hadn't seen it all, but thanks to my father, some very kind landowners, and the late 1970s populations of mallards, black ducks, woodies and teal, I'd seen and experienced quite a bit. Little did I realize just how much I had yet to learn.

Settling into my new surroundings 19 miles southwest of Mount Saint Helens, I spent the remainder of October and the first couple weeks of November in the Cascades chasing black-tailed deer, Roosevelt elk, ruffed and blue grouse. Exciting, yes, but every small alpine pond that held a pair of buffleheads or a pocket of ring-necked ducks reminded me I was missing something. Finally, I could stand it no longer. My questions of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife led me to a handful of state-owned properties and public acreages. Closer to home, relatives of my lady friend pointed me to a dairy farmer whose property held sheet water late in the year -- a deep, dark 15-acre woodland pond surrounded by Douglas firs and hemlocks and a sandy spit jutting into the Columbia River.

By the end of the year, I had returned as a waterfowler. What's more, I had recorded into my journal five species which I, having grown up on a strict diet of the mallards, black ducks, woodies and teal, had never before encountered -- bluebills, hooded mergansers, wigeon, pintails and grey ducks. Over the next five years, other previously unknown birds -- surf and black scoters, canvasbacks, redheads, common goldeneyes and the almost mythical blue duck, the harlequin -- graced my waterfowling craft. It was variety to end all varieties, a mixed bag the likes of which I never thought existed.

Crash Course
For those of you unfamiliar with The Evergreen State, as I was during my Pacific Northwest debut in the early 1990s, please allow me an introduction. I divide Washington into four regions in terms of waterfowling: Saltwater or Tidal, the Cascade Range West, Cascade Range East, and the Big Rivers, which includes the Columbia, the Snake, and the Pend Oreille. Please note these are solely my regional separations, done simply to make the state and its waterfowling opportunities easier to understand.

Washington's west side and its variety of habitats offer the best opportunity for a mixed bag.

The Saltwater or Tidal Region can best be described with one word: huge. It encompasses an area from the Columbia River estuary near Ilwaco north past Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor, around the Olympic Peninsula, and into Puget Sound and the Hood Canal. Puddle ducks, divers and sea ducks all call it home, so Washington's saltwater attracts "one-for-the-wall" gunners from around the nation.

The Cascade Range West, by my definition, runs from the Cascade Mountains west to the coast. It is a land of environmental diversity -- tributary rivers to the Columbia, freshwater ponds, smaller estuaries and seasonal sheet water attract excellent numbers of puddle ducks. Refuges such as Ridgefield NWR offer opportunities, as do state-owned facilities such as Shillapoo WMA and others both east and west of the Interstate 5 corridor from Vancouver to the Canadian border.