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Perhaps you care for some bottled "@#$%#" water http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02 ... latestnews

Anybody ck to see if foils has an alabi? I mean really....

jacklegs aint gonna be hunting sandhills.... and if low light is problem, make legal shooting hours sunrise like they do for arkansas teal season. Someone shot that whooper in a state with NO crane season, would a crane season make a difference? And if people started hunting cranes, you'd have a lot more support to try to spend the cheese to save the whoopers. travis

Cheese....yummy http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/us/07fat.html?_r=4&hp

I was being a little sarcastic with the 3 vs 8 ft wingspan -- sorry, it was late and I had been stuck in gridlock for five hours due to the snow.

The fact remains that whoopers are significantly larger, their calls are markedly different, and their colors are too. In TN, the plan is to have an on-site education course and an identification test to pass before the few lucky hunters that get drawn. I think if the message is clear that your life will be over if you accidentally kill a whooper will get the point across. That's a far cry from flock shooting snows and knocking down a speck.

When a whooper is killed, it is national news because it's so rare. Before this year (I think two have been killed -- GA and now AL), I believe the last was in Kansas in 2004. People get hammered legally and criminally when they kill one, as they should. There's no excuse.

But, in the face of the USFWS biologists' and Flyway Councils' recommendations, to say I don't think they should be hunted because we can't trust hunters to properly ID is an emotion-based argument. "We can shoot them biologically, but should we" is the rhetoric that the anti-hunters use. Just sayin.

Wingman, I know you are a great warden -- I can tell from reading your stuff over all the years. Not trying to attack you personally, just trying to shed light on the other side of the argument.

Goosebruce is right on -- more focus on cranes will beget more support of cranes.

We've proposed to start the hunt at sunrise to help with low-light ID issues, but it's more the threat of penalty than anything that will help in my mind.

If you shoot a bald eagle thinking it was a Canada goose, you're in deep &*^*

I would be the first to go up there if I was drawn to hunt, so don't think I'm against the season. I just see a lot of senseless crap and hate to see ethical hunters penalized because a whooper gets killed.

I would make it a mandatory day-long training class with a must-pass test and by the time folks left they'd have a phd in craneology. Sunrise shooting time and anything else you can do to minimize errors.

But what needs to happen right now is somebody find this knucklehead who shot the whooper and turn him inside out.

how fun would crane hunting really be? I don't like to just kill, I hunt for the HUNT....so I wonder about crane hunting...

I mean I am all for it if it's ok for conservation and all that, not gonna be against ethical and legal hunting (except bears or panthers/cougars/puma/whatever they are called; but that's another subject for another thread)...but I wonder to myself...."self....do you wanna setup on some cranes in your new Drake waterfowl jacket"

Seems like legalizing the summertime stalk of the illusive egret cow bird is a comparable adventure...

I don't know, maybe I am misinformed???

I can't believe that anyone in their right mind would want to keep whooping cranes around. Haven't you guys heard of whooping cough? I mean helloooooooo.......everyone knows that they are the carriers for that stuff. Why do you think it's named that?

SSSHHHHHH!!!! I still can't believe they aren't blaming an Albanian for killing it yet. I say it was an evil out of stater from Georgia or Tennessee.

Seriously, I hope they find the person, notice I didn't say hunter, that did this and put them in jail and slap them with some huge fines.

camlock wrote:how fun would crane hunting really be? I don't like to just kill, I hunt for the HUNT....so I wonder about crane hunting...

I mean I am all for it if it's ok for conservation and all that, not gonna be against ethical and legal hunting (except bears or panthers/cougars/puma/whatever they are called; but that's another subject for another thread)...but I wonder to myself...."self....do you wanna setup on some cranes in your new Drake waterfowl jacket"

Seems like legalizing the summertime stalk of the illusive egret cow bird is a comparable adventure...

I don't know, maybe I am misinformed???

I think sandhill crane hunting is pretty darned fun myself, especially when decoyed. And so much better eating than ducks there's no comparison.

Double R 2 wrote:

camlock wrote:how fun would crane hunting really be? I don't like to just kill, I hunt for the HUNT....so I wonder about crane hunting...

I mean I am all for it if it's ok for conservation and all that, not gonna be against ethical and legal hunting (except bears or panthers/cougars/puma/whatever they are called; but that's another subject for another thread)...but I wonder to myself...."self....do you wanna setup on some cranes in your new Drake waterfowl jacket"

Seems like legalizing the summertime stalk of the illusive egret cow bird is a comparable adventure...

I don't know, maybe I am misinformed???

I think sandhill crane hunting is pretty darned fun myself, especially when decoyed. And so much better eating than ducks there's no comparison.

Don't doubt it one bit and I'm all for it if it's sound in conservation...I just never heard much about it or really been exposed to it...

Supposedly they're hard as hell to decoy. Would love to hear some stories from those who have been.

Let them , or any other endangered species descide to live on your property and you'll sing a diggerent tune when the gov,. starts telling you you cant cut trees cause some damn woodpecker or owl lives in that kind of tree, or you cant bushog that area because that animal nest in that kind of grass, or you cant burn that area cause some snake or tortise lives there. Bash me if yall want, but i could care less about 100 cranes, spend it on a species that already has a sustainable population

I wonder how much easier my job would be if I could walk into a meeting talking about hunters being the number one conservationists in the country and not have to worry about some Congressman's staffer pulling up something like this thread and asking me why hunters only care about the animals they can shoot?

dead bird wrote:Supposedly they're hard as hell to decoy. Would love to hear some stories from those who have been.

They are not hard to decoy. It's just like goose hunting, you've gotta be where they want to be, and you HAVE to have crane decoys. It's a lot of fun to shoot them over the decoys. I've done it several times in the Texas panhandle.