Fay Slough Wildlife Area

Fay Slough shuts to everyone for about two months every late winter. CDFW closes the wildlife area to all public use from the Monday following the Youth Waterfowl Hunt, usually the first week of February, until April 1. That's not a hunting-season closure that birders can work around. It's a full closure, and it catches out visitors who assume a state wildlife area is open year round.

The rest of the year the friction is unusually low. Fay Slough is a Type C area, so no hunting pass is needed to enter, and it doesn't appear on CDFW's list of Northern Region properties requiring a Lands Pass. No pass, no fee.

What you get for that is 484 acres of restored wetland on the east side of Arcata Bay, two miles north of Eureka on Highway 101, next to Harper Motors. Easy to drive past without noticing it.

Facilities are listed as none. There's no trail system, no restroom, and access is from the designated parking area only. This is a place for people with their own optics and boots, not a place for a casual stroll.

Resident and migratory songbirds use the habitat, along with egrets, herons and a range of raptors. Northern red-legged frogs, Pacific chorus frogs, northwestern salamanders and newts live here too. Riparian woodland along the eastern and southern edges runs to red alder and willow. Waterfowl, coot and snipe may be present, and hunting is active in season, so expect shooting during waterfowl and upland bird months.

The land was reclaimed farm and grazing ground. CDFW bought the 350-acre Mid-City Ranch in 1987, the Fish and Game Commission designated it a wildlife area in 1988, and a neighboring 150-acre ranch came in 1989 to make 484 acres.