I know I mention the weather quite a bit but after the last couple of weeks, I think most would agree the severe weather has impacted hunters and anglers alike.

Elk and hunters share a common trait when it comes to weather. If it is extremely difficult to walk around and you are freezing no matter what you wear; chances are the elk do not like it either. Some popular areas down south and on the Olympics had some foul weather that pushed elk down to lower elevations and in some cases, to another game management unit.

This could be good or bad. Depending on the unit, your restrictions could be quite a bit more limiting than other units. Last year a few friends hunted down south and the weather turned sour just as it did this year, pushing the elk into a unit where any elk was legal. Good for hunters, bad for elk.

I haven’t talked to them yet but if that was the case this year, I’m sure one of them filled their tag.

Duck hunters love this type of weather — it gets the birds moving. The only drawback is there is so much standing water around and the ducks have more spots to land in. Therefore, if you want to have success, a good decoy set up and great calling are musts.

Everyone has their own way of setting decoys and in many different shapes from “J’s,” to “U’s,” to just a big group of decoys. I am pretty random when I set up. The rule of thumb is to set your decoys up-wind to get the ducks landing the way you want. Nothing is more frustrating than getting to a good spot and having the wind blow in your face. It makes it tough to get them to come in.

Another thing I find funny is how picky some hunters can get about their presentation. I’ve hunted spreads that have been sucking the ducks right in and my partner freaks out because the wind has blown a decoy on its side. Call me simple but if a bunch of ducks come flying into your spread and notice that there is a duck that just seems to hover over the water forever and then gets spooked because one of your decoys is taking a nap, then he is probably is one smart duck and wouldn’t have come in anyway.

The point is just go out and experiment. If the day is slow mix it up and see what happens, but make sure you leave space for the ducks to land in no matter how you choose to set up your decoys.

As for calling, practice, practice, practice is the key. Once you master your hail, feeder and general purpose calls then use it but don’t over use it. I can’t tell you how many ducks have come into my decoys because the guy down the way was just calling too much. If you observe ducks on the water, they tend not to quack at everything and you shouldn’t as well.

For anglers, the rivers flooding bring two distinct thoughts to mind.

One is that the water is just plain unfishable. You could have fished some of the streets in Mount Vernon and done better.

The second is what impact the flooding had on the eggs of the silvers and kings that have already spawned. Time will tell.

Now that the waters are a bit calmer, anglers can still get out and catch some chum salmon. These are not my favorite eating by far, but they are fun to catch and you might want to give it a try.