Many of California's lowland wildlife areas were developed to protect the rice crop, with hunting thrown in as an afterthought. Over the years, hunters began to rely on the attached shooting areas for early-season ducks, and management of those areas shifted in the hunter's favor.

Sure, the duck-season opener can still get delayed until the rice crop is harvested. But once it opens, the hunting opportunities rarely -- if ever -- get any better.

From state-of-the-art blinds on private leases to thousands of free-roam acres, from the Oregon border to the Southland, duck hunters throughout California find bountiful waterfowling opportunities. That doesn't mean ducks will line up waiting for you to take your best shots. Yep, you may have to work at it some to score your daily limit -- but that's the fun part, right?

If you're the occasional duck hunter, with limited time for striking afield, the waterfowl hunter's reservation system for state and federal lands guarantees a top blind when you draw a good number. For those with the time to hunt often and the energy to figure it out for themselves, thousands of acres of free-roam public land offer you areas where you can walk, wade or boat and get right to hunting.

Indeed, both these ways that California waterfowlers tackle their sport have advantages and drawbacks. Spaced blinds can shoot great at first light. You need a lucky draw to occupy one, and the shooting may not hold up all day.

Free-roam areas offer access without a reservation, and you can make adjustments when localized flight patterns change or for changes in the weather. But it takes a lot more time and effort to scout out a place to hunt.

That's why the editors at California Game & Fish hired me to talk to state and federal wildlife area managers across the Golden State to sort it all out for the first half of the season.

THE NORTHEAST
Any conversation about November ducks must start with the Klamath Basin. That's where the largest single concentration of ducks hang out during the first half of the California hunting season.

My personal favorite area is the marsh section of the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge running along the Oregon border south of Klamath Falls.

"Last season was pretty good," says Dave Menke, the area's recreation specialist. "The ducks were there, but hunter numbers were down by over 15 percent. This year, the water looks good with lots of space and lots of opportunity."

Phil Brown of Wild Times Guide Service claims that last season was the "best in 10 years" and that the "Klamath hunted like it used to."

Statistics bear him out. Last season, harvest checks conducted every third day averaged well over three birds per hunter -- with several days exceeding four birds per hunter, before posting a whopping average of 5.35 birds per hunter on December 1.

Open to hunting seven days a week until 1 p.m. during the early waterfowl season, Lower Klamath NWR features big water that's best hunted from a boat. It can be intimidating the first time out. A guide can help, and if you're short of time and unfamiliar with the area, it is the only way to go.

Obtain a list of guides, harvest numbers and the current refuge bird count on the Klamath website at http://klamathbasinrefuges.fws.gov/hunt.html. Then contact refuge headquarters on Hill Road in person or by phone at (530) 667-2231 to obtain a permit to hunt on refuge land.

Forty miles west as the crow flies, just 8 miles east of Yreka off Interstate 5, the Shasta Valley State Wildlife Area traditionally posts some big numbers during the first part of the waterfowl season.