30 Nebraskaland • October 2020
STORY AND PHOTOS BY ERIC FOWLER
I
n the dark of the early morning,
navigating the delta in the upper
end of Lewis and Clark Lake in a duck
boat can be intimidating if you haven't
been there before. Or even if you have.
But the maze of channels,
backwaters and chutes separated
by dense stands of bulrushes and
phragmites are a mecca for hundreds
of waterfowl hunters from across the
country each year, drawn by abundant
public land and spectacular fl ights of
migrating ducks and geese.
Terry Kostinec has been there before,
plenty of times. The Fremont native
fi rst hunted the area in 1983 while he
was a student at Wayne State College
and has been back nearly every year
since. He keeps coming back for the
same reason the birds do. "From the
air it's very attractive. When the birds
are migrating through this area, you've
got these winding back channels and
marsh after marsh after marsh, and it's
appealing to the birds following the
Missouri River," Kostinec said. "You're
always going to see birds along that
stretch of the river."
A resident of Vermillion, South
Dakota, Kostinec shares a cabin in
Running Water with a friend a mere
200 yards from the ramp where he
most often launches his duck boat.
He also hunts with friends who have
a cabin in Santee, and sometimes sets
out from the ramp there. From either
location, he has plenty of spots to
choose from in this massive marsh
that stretches more than 19 miles from
just above the mouth of the Niobrara
River into Lewis and Clark Lake.
The western portion of this reach
is still a river with sandbars, but also
with plenty of cattail marshes and
backwaters, Kostinec said. In the
eastern portion, which Kostinec and
others who frequent the area call
the "head end of the lake," the river
spreads out into braided channels
and chutes dotted with sandbars and
potholes.
Picking a good spot to hunt begins
with getting off the main channels,
which is swift and can be 20 to 30 feet
deep.
"Most of these ducks want shallow
sheet water with smartweed and
cocklebur and diff erent things growing
in it," Kostinec said. "You're going to
Ducks on
the Delta
