LESS IS MORE

[tupe]

Not to get too mixed up here but I would vote for permanent 40 or 45 days with a three duck limit NO MALLARD HENS.
If pheasant hunters can do it so can waterfowlers.

M.B.

[Double_R]

I'm all for maximum sustainable harvest. It works in forestry, the discipline upon which wildlife management is predicated.

I remember well the 30/3 and was out there every day I could and will be next 30/3 go around, but the biologists say you simply can't stockpile ducks and I ain't out there to watch the sun rise.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

NO MALLARD HENS. If pheasant hunters can do it so can waterfowlers

That sounds like a great idea. I refrain from shooting hens as much as possibly and encourage every one to do so. Only problem is hunting at legal and dusk, when light's often poor for some folks to distinguish ducks in flight...by law, pheasant hunters start at noon in most states.

Who says you have to shoot the maximum allowable limit anyhow? Before the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and its "limits", several clubs and groups of sportsmen set club limits and rules.

Good thread.

[tupe]

I would be fine with going to sunrise-sunset if they would put in a no hen restriction. I have only hunted pheasant out in WA state, but there we got to start whenever, except on release sites, which were 8:00 am.

Heck if the points were adjusted properly I would love to see the point system come back. That would sure go a long way to making "duck hunters" take their shots closer and be dang sure of what they were shooting instead of the BANG-I killed a duck-wonder waht kind, stuff that is so popular with folks these days.
But hey I am old fashioned, and if I had my way, well you don't want to know [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

M.B.

[goosebruce]

You're reasoning is wrong hammer. Not from your thought process mind you, but from lack of knowledge about where ducks really are killed, and factors that don't really make sense.

I'll try to explain using the numbers given by the feds. Mind you, these numbers are arguable themselves, but for the point of this discussion, we'll assume they are valid as they are all we have to go on.

Lets compare MN & MS. MN hunters average 6 birds per hunter per season, and have, for 30 some odd years. In the bad years, short seasons & limits, and in the good years. Their harvest has actually went down since the bad old days. MS hunters I think averaged 17 this year, and 23 birds per hunter the year before. MS harvest is up 125% percent since the bad old years (some years slightly higher, some lower, but take 5 years chunks and it works out that way). Wow, 125%. Over twice as many ducks.... Do the math... 30 days 3 ducks vrs 60 days 6 ducks. Well hell yeah you'd kill twice as many birds. Everything else the same, go twice as much you gonna kill twice as many ducks. Limits really don't change the number of birds killed near as much as days do. The national average is 1.6 birds per hunter per trip, and in the few states that have done moto/ non moto studies that average jumped to 2.1. Doesnt sound like much difference, until you realize thats 25% more ducks kill for the year... Seeing the averages, you can see dropping the limit wont significantly change numbers of ducks killed, but days will. What your proposing is, shorter seasoned here & there will save ducks, causing better hunting here, and thats simply not true. It wont change their kill one iota (proven by 35 years of short and long seasons and their kill going down), but it will signifcatly drop our kill. The reason... is a different way of thinking/ doing it. MN kills 40% of their ducks on opening weekend, from 12 noon sat to sunday sundown. 40% of their season kill in 14 hours. They arent making trips all year, burning vacation, quiting jobs, and getting divorced over duck season. They arent making and flooding large tracts of duck habitit, they are sitting in a boat blind 3 or 4 times a year. They go opening weekend, and then sit around waiting for it to ice up for sum good fishing.... Oh, im sure their are hard core hunters, but by and large, its an opening weekend thing. The stats prove that. 40% kill in 14 hours. 6 ducks per hunter average. Remember our 1.6 number... thats nationwide. So that means 4 trips per average for MN hunters, yet 10 for ms hunters last year, and 16 the year before. Averages. Thats whut its all about.

Shorter seasons will reduce the kill in the southern states only. Thats why the yanks go $#!+ over extended season. We do in fact kill more ducks in extended seasons, simply from the fact we go more, and the more time you give us, the more ducks we kill. A weekend of duck season that overlaps deer season in november is NOT equal to a weekend in janurary where nothing is going on as far as numbers of ducks that are killed. We all know that.

Shorter seasons will only hurt southern states. It will not help the duck hunting, save for the fact some folks simply wont go (and wont rent, etc.). For that matter, this stock market in the crapper is gonna do the same thing. And in good years, it will not put any more ducks back in the sky.... Thats right, it wont SAVE any for the next year. 5 years of kick ass rain grew 5 years of bumper crops of ducks and 5 years of us burning them. It dried up a lil, they went down a lil, and our harvest went down a lil. Last year went down a lil, and our harvest went WAYYYY down, yet ducks will be even further down. In bad years, the numbers of ducks killed is important, but in good years, it makes little to no difference (in my opinion none). Make hay when the sun shines... and when there are a lot of ducks, let's kill them by the boatload. Dont cut my days permantly cause of a bad year. It will go down further, and it will come back higher. Give me every minute of duck season I can have, that the ducks can stand.

2 hens is a joke, and insult. Should have never been approved, and once its gone, i hope it never comes back. A hen is needed in the limit for the accident, or for those with bleacher seats just wanting to kill a duck and not get skunked that day. Neither of those reasons justify 2 hens. Make hens illegal, and you just made a lot of ducks get stomped into the mud.

The point system was brought up. I don't like it. Why is a duck more valuable to the remaining population depending on what time of day it was killed? Wheres the biology in that? travis

[Doc & Nash]

I like the the 45/4 but have it start Jan 1, I think the hens rule is out there. I would like to be able to go all year with out killing one but I do not have the patience.

[tupe]

My comment about the point sysytem was to try and bring some more reasonable ID talent back to waterfowling. If someone stomps a duck in the mud and gets caught, I say no more lisc. for them, period.

Bag reordering could and would happen of course but their is no way to enforce ethics, an outlaw is an outlaw.

M.B.

[goosebruce]

Oh I agree on that mb.... I understood the point you where making, merely pointing out the shortcomings. And duck reordering was typical, from normal law abiding people. In fact, party hunting in general has a very serious impact on total ducks killed. Sometimes you really dont know who killed what, but most of the time 3 guys figger they got 18 ducks coming to them, pile up as needed. With the point system, those 3 guys figgered after 3rd hen, to quit shooting the egg layers, cause they had already killed their last ducks.... Bad gig. travis

[Greenhead22]

As long as the season is open during my christmas break, Dec. 14 - Jan. 3, I'm ok with any season they decide to use.

[Hammer]

MISSISSIPPI DUCK HUNTERS ARE BETTER OFF WITH SHORTER SEASONS AND REDUCED BAG LIMITS.

My reasoning is this:

Since we are at the bottom of the flyway and the number of duck hunters north of us dwarfs our numbers, the shorter their seasons, the fewer ducks they shoot, leaving
more ducks wintering in Mississippi.

Question:

Is it possible that there really were record fall flights the last few years, but those birds never made it to Mississippi because of increased bag limits and longer seasons north of us?

Conclusion:

I support a permanent 40 or 45 day/4 bird/3 mallard/1 hen season.

TAKE YOUR SHOTS.

HAMMER

[MSDuckmen]

I support 3/30
two mallards one of which can be a hen

Need to move this sport out of being commerical and this type of restriction will go a long way in doing that.

[Hammer]

Travis if I understand your take correctly, we agree on the shorter season aspect but not the bag limit reduction aspect...

As for the bag reduction, I think you are largely ignoring at least three important angles:

A- WOUNDING
B- ILLEGAL HARVEST
C- COMMERCIAL IMPACT

Bigger bag limits mean more wounded ducks...Bigger bag limits mean more opportunity for illegal harvest since there is more shooting...Bigger bag limits mean more commercial outfitters in the business...All of which means more dead ducks and since we are at the bottom of the Flyway, that means we see less ducks...

Note that a reduced bag limit and shorter season lengths would have a larger impact on ARK and LA- the top duck kill states- which again helps MS...

A fourth aspect could be that the extended season argument now cuts both ways: we get a later season, the northern states get an earlier season= more dead ducks.

As for not being able to stockpile ducks,
I will never understand that argument.
I dont think it is as simple as that. In other words, I believe that some years you can stockpile some species of ducks in some areas.

All of the above suggests that in conjunction with habitat conservation/ restoration (DU) and habitat maximization (Delta Waterfowl via predator management) somebody needs to lead a duck hunter effort to establish stable season lengths and bag limits at somewhat reduced levels, rather than the politically charged process that currently exists...I think 40 or 45 and 4 would work for most guys...Think about it:
3 GH and an offbrand is a nice limit of ducks. Ditto for a couple of GADS and couple of WIGEON...

We Duck hunters often talk about "the experience" then we quickly run with the "cant stockpile ducks so we might as well shoot them" argument...Even if I am wrong and you cant stockpile ducks of any typoe, anywhere, ever, then it is still true that less ducks shot means more ducks seen and isnt that what the experience is all about?

HAMMER

[goosebruce]

Illegal harvest would remain the same at 3 ducks or 6. If you gonna shoot a totesack full, yur gonna shoot em. Once again the days would mean more on that (over limit is much more frequent than out of season, hard to hide being only one to shoot ducks on a given day).

The kill at commerical operations is once again a southern thing. True there are some outfits in canada, and the dakotas, but there seasons are typically determined by the weather. 30 days or 60, it doesnt matter its over when it freezes.So the kill at commerical operations is effected by limits up north more so than days afield, but days afield still make of an impact here in south. By law, nothing can happen before sept 1st up north, so longer season have no effect in the north (gerneally), but limits do... but then again, my orginal point is they aren't killing the ducks we are.

AR & LA are top duck killing states, along with CA... But take duck averages per hunter, and a lot of years ms is right in the mix. More hunting in those states (the geopraphy allows for more ducking) simply equals more ducks killed, the same as the antire arguement bout the days.

The expereince to me includes the chance to kill the crap out of a bunch of ducks. I enjoy killing ducks, and dont apologize a bit for it. When times are good, we SHOULD kill a lot of ducks. When times are bad, we should kill fewer, and be happy with what we can.

I agree poltics shouldnt be involved in season dates. But AHM is the best thing ever contrived by the feds for flyway wide management. A rotating system of days & ducks based on a myrid of factors is the best happy medium we could hope for.

I wont even discuss cripples, save for the fact to tell you, you hunt with me, a cripple down is in your limit, fetched or not. Be surpised how many tall shots are done away with after hearing that. No way to legislate that, unfortuanly. travis

[Jim]

I support all the dam days and all the dam birds that I can possbily shoot at.

I support a govt subsidy to make sure that anyone who wants one can get a free twirlie and enough batteries to run it for 60 days in Mississippi.

I support being real about the average hunters ability to stuff hens under a F'n log.

I support Ducks Unlimited getting their GD greedy hands out of our WRP budget and getting a local org like DWF to use the profits to put more pipes in the ground instead of buying pasture land in Iceland.

I support conservationist getting to shoot 8 ducks instead of 6 once a week. They earned it, I'm tired of this pay and play BS and the only ones that actually pay dont get to play.

I support the white decoy theory and suggest you paint all your decoys bright white.

I support Mississippi creating a $400 dollar out of state liscense the revenue from which goes to buy land so only Mississippi boys can hunt on to make up for the cluster FK our WMA's have become because the Dept Of Tourism thinks we need SC to shoot all their ducks HERE.

I support a $100 federal duck stamp and a $50 dollar state stamp and the money goes to do research on ANY new introduction to our tools to acess it's moratality contribution from DAY ONE of it's usage.

I support Minni-fn-sota shutting the hell up about us southern boys shootin all their ducks.

Just bring the ducks on I dont care if I shoot any or not and I support THAT philosophy most of ALL.........

[Jim]

I forgot to say I also support

Dan
Hammer
travis
G22
Anteater

All coming together in my duckhole once this year to celebrate conservation and it's bounty.

Yall drag up Judged and Gulf dump
and we will show them what duck hunting is while we at it..........

(Thats a formal invitation and I aint beggin)

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Old Salty ]

[Hammer]

The bigger the limit the more shots an outlaw can buy/shoot without attracting attention...

What does the ducks killed per hunter per day or per season have to do with my statemnet that a shorter season and smaller limit means more ducks for us? Fact is that if MINN hunters only killed 10,000 ducks per year and the season was closed in MINN, there would be 10,000 more ducks available to winter in MISS...This is about dead ducks not dead ducks killed per hunter per season per day...

Commercial hunting occurs throughout the Flyway...Reelfoot Lake for example... Southern Illinois for example...Even if you are talking about ARK and LA only, cutting their season length and bag limit is good for us...

It generally takes 2 flights of mallards for me to get the mallard limit...meaning 2 doubles and I am waiting for off brand ducks...It makes no difference to me if I instead shoot 1 double from the first flight and take a single from the second flight instead of a double...1 less mallard per hunter per hunt up and day the Flyway does not negatively affect our hunts but would add a bunch of ducks to the flight...
1 offbrand instead of 2 is no big deal either...

What I am saying is that 4 ducks instead of 6 is an acceptable trade off to be able to see and work more ducks...Ditto for 40 days instead of 60 in Mississippi especially since there are generally only about 40 quality days of hunting anyway...

Another aspect is that shooting the 5th and 6th duck means more hunting pressure not only in terms of dead ducks but spooked (thus educated) ducks which in turn leads to more skybusting (and thus wounded ducks) and more BS like Robo duck.

HAMMER