DuckSouth.com

Looks like the Canvasback will be off limits to the Mississippi Flyway this year!

http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/26161839.html?location_refer=Homepage:11

Ouch. That hurts. I'm no statistician, but I cannot for the life of me figure how it is that in one single year we went from the most liberal canvasback season in my hunting life (2) to the most restrictive (0) [granted there was a 5-year moratorium back in the early 90's]. Either there were too few last year to sustain the 2 per day harvest, or we didn't need to shoot them at all; in either instance FWS erred.

An interesting quote that makes me scratch my chin and go, hhhmmmmm...

At issue is a scaup population whose numbers have declined in recent decades, to about 3.7 million birds this spring. Still, scaup remain the third most abundant duck on the continent.

Thank God I enjoyed a great trip Down River last year.

AHM needs an overhaul. i agree ramsey, it makes no sense.

but, i don't know if this is final or not......seems that there are a few folks at odds w/ the feds on this -- but, that probably won't matter.

gator

At least we get an extra woody..

HOORAYYY! for the extra WOODY...

And this will be the year I will have a huge bull can sit down in the spread and refuse to leave, knowning I have never killed one and laughing at me for not being able to.

Oh well, one more woody aint bad.

quackerbarrell wrote:HOORAYYY! for the extra WOODY...

At my age I will take any extra wood I can!!

If I had a bull can sit down and look at me...well then I might hafta just come to terms with my inner criminal.

greenheadgrimreaper wrote:If I had a bull can sit down and look at me...well then I might hafta just come to terms with my inner criminal.

It's in me, and it would likely come out....

greenheadgrimreaper wrote:If I had a bull can sit down and look at me...well then I might hafta just come to terms with my inner criminal.

I am a certified "inner criminal" therapist. Shoot the can, I will be there to help.

I hate it, too. I love nothing more than to walk the levees on our ponds in search of a big bull can. I shot a pair last year that I plan to mount. Looks like those days are gone for at least a year.

Best one-liner I've heard around here in a while!

I am a certified "inner criminal" therapist.

I can always say it's been in my freezer for a year....

I think there is something wrong with the system for sure. This is twice in the last ten years that a duck in major trouble has had the limits dramatically increased by the USF&WS. Last time they did this with pintails, we went to two. Had a great year on pintail and then next year it was back to one and the next year down to a 30 day season.

Now look at the cans, last year two, and then this year none!!????? I am in complete agreement with everyone else, how can this be? Something seems to me to be wrong with the counting system? At least it needs to be questioned. If the cans are in that much trouble, why were we allowed two last year? Seems something is way out of wack.

Granted I would guess that close to 70% of hunters in our flyway don't kill cans on a regular basis, so it sucks for them too, but they aren't dramatically effected. For me, Pintail and Canvasbacks are part of my limit EVERY day the season is open. It would be like closing the season on mallards for the other 70%. If the season needs to be closed so be it, but I would like an explanation of how everything could go from cake to Sh*t in less than a year. I just can't believe the kill was that much last year. Can someone help me out here?

shoot first.. ask questions later..


i thought that was a redhead?

This is actually an argument FOR AHM, not against it.

There has been lots of complaints about using "mallard only" numbers to set frameworks as long as I can remember (1960s & 1970s). AHM still uses just the mallard numbers to set frameworks, although other species with special problems (scaup, pintails, cans for example) get additional restrictions.

The timing of the spring/summer bird survey is designed to be optimal for mallards. Other species migrate earlier and later and when they count birds on the aerial surveys, they may either miss or double count these other species (including cans).

Probably what happened last year was that the count was high and this year the count is low; conclusion, big drop in cans.

If we abandon AHM and its mallard-centric process, we will have to address the fact that for other species, the data used to set frameworks, is nowhere near are precise as for mallards. Thus we may get situations where the "numbers" say we could have a two bird limit of, say cans, but the precision behind those numjbers is so loose that the end limit is zero.