No "Can" trophies this year!

[Jeff]

Skip, that is very good points. I have heard information to this over the years, however I have never read anything to support it. Have you read anything along these lines? Of course it won't change the outcome of the seasons, but it would help me.

I come from an area where if you kill 10 mallards all season you had an incredible year. Mallard numbers mean nothing to me. I would love to see more information about what you are talking about.

[tica-tica]

Well my hast to get these can blocks painted and the layout boat touched up just faded.... what the hell.. it's August and I need a nap.

[Skip OK]

[quote="Jeff"]Skip, that is very good points. I have heard information to this over the years, however I have never read anything to support it. Have you read anything along these lines? Of course it won't change the outcome of the seasons, but it would help me.

I come from an area where if you kill 10 mallards all season you had an incredible year. Mallard numbers mean nothing to me. I would love to see more information about what you are talking about.[/quote]



There are a bunch of items in my post, so I'll try to give you a cite for most of them. Sometimes what I have is from magazine articles, some from "popular" (as opposed to "scholarly") books on waterfowl/hunting/management, and some comes for discussions I have had both face to face and on line.

First, about using mallards (specifically PPR mallard) to base the frameworks on, I would suggest looking up an OLD waterfowling book titled "Getting the most out of Modern Waterfowling" by John O. Cartier. This was really a collection of articles he had written about waterfolwing for various magazine in the years before he collected them into a book, so I can't tell you exactly when he wrote the part about waterfowl migration corridors, research done by Frank Bellrose (that research was published in 1968-69) and so so. His thesis back then was that using prairie mallards as a foundation for the season frameworks cheated him and his fellow Michigan diver hunters.

I seem to recall that some of the quotes he used in that chapter also alluded to the fact that :

1. Mallards have, BY FAR, the largest amount of research performed.

2. We know to a much greater extent than with other birds, how "good mallard years" translated into "good widgeon years" etc.

3. Because of that, the powers that be are more confident in their projections when mallard data is used than otherwise;

However, that may be ME reading more into the story than is there.

As far as AHM being adapted to other species, the first I heard of this was in 1999, when I got to go to the Central Flyway Technical Committee meeting (it was held about 15 miles from my house, so I took a couple of days off to see what was going on. At that meeting they had a "proposed" pintail AHM strategy paper presented. I have lost my copy years ago, but at least for the Central Flyway the "results" of this strategy were pretty much identical to what we were getting off of the "regular" process, although the "precise" numbers were a tough low (I remember one scenario allowing 0.78 pintail per day; translation--one sprig).

As to different birds migrating/nesting at different times. I can't give you a single citation. I have "always" known that pintails nest before mallards who nest before scaup who nest before redheads, and so on. I am sure there are many books and articles and I think even the DU Calendar may show the difference.

As for having birds either counted twice or missed, so that there is a big difference by species in how good the count data is, well I think I heard that first from Larry Reynolds back in ther SPAV days when he went by LAR. He was talking about scaup, and how the "numbers" for scaup show much bigger year to year swings (high vs low) than the Mallard "numbers". Part of that is that scaup prefer to nest in the Boreal Forest (where aerial counts are hard to do) but part of it is the missed/double counting problem.

[Jeff]

Skip, thanks for the reply back. I too remember LAR/Steel 3's getting hammered back in the SPAV days. He however gave out a ton of very wonderful information back then. It's a shame he doesn't have time to surf the net like he used to back in those days. I once rode with him from his home in Baton Rouge to El Campo Texas for a goose hunt and learned as much in a 6 hour car ride as I had in maybe five years previous about duck research.

I will head to the library this week and see if I can track down the book by John Cartier. If not I'll head to amazon.

I still wonder when the Feds will do something about Weidgon. They are another duck that has either been counted incorrectly over the past few years, or is in trouble. However we are still allowed 6/day. Seems to me that this could cause a problem sooner or later.

Thanks again for the reply, I appreciate it, hope you hang out here a little more often as you appear to be a wealth of knowledge.

[Skip OK]

There is a newer (1980s) edition of that book that has a different title, but I don't recall what it is off hand.

I don't know if you like "tips & tricks" type of books (I like them far less than I used to), but most of the "tips & tricks" I have tried out of this book have worked.

It IS dated; I don't think he even mentions steel shot for instance, and some of his methods could use updating, but his ideas are pretty sound.

I appreciate the kind words. I mainly lurk here, since I don't live close enough to have the regional outlook.