YWD---Further DNR Hypocrisy

[Trigger]

I'm not against ywd, I'm against them using pressure on local ducks as a reason not to have an early teal season, them allow a ywd and early goose over water, which causes pressure on local ducks. Also, who is to say a teal season would cause ducks to leave the area like you are implying? When's the last time ducks were hunted in early September in Minnesota? 1965? Who here remembers what opener was like that year? No one I bet. So we have no knowledge of the affects. Besides the teal, ducks are not looking to migrate then, so my assumptions would be that they will stick around, but who knows.

[Fish Felon]

Why is it that many of the same guys that think that YWD is ruining our duck hunting are also all for a teal season and say it won't have much of an effect on the numbers of other ducks such as wood ducks available during the regular season. I hardly think that one day of a YWD is going to have anywhere near the effect on pushing birds out of an area as a teal season for a couple weeks would.

I take it you're against open water goose hunting that takes place for a couple weeks to over a month before regular duck opener?

With that being said I would say over the last 10 years of hunting MN openers less than half of my bag has been teal. So I feel that I would miss out on a lot of opportunity to hunt the wood ducks and mallards that make a large portion of the bag.

I have to ask, how many ducks do you need to shoot? Seriously, is your only consideration on what constitutes good hunting determined by the maximum number of quarry bagged?

Sorry, I had to...it never gets old!

I know that the majority here are going to completely disagree with most of what I said, but I also want you guys to see that not everybody wants a teal season, and some want to continue YWD.

That's great, thanks for sharing your opinion. Yes, I wanted a teal season so my personal opinion is different than yours. You know what I really want, much more than a teal season?

What I really want is for your opinion, my opinion, the commissioner's opinion, every other hunter's opinion, non-hunter opinions, or anti-hunter's opinions to not have any bearing into how hunting seasons and regulations are determined.

What I really want is a uniform systematic set of processes that result in consistent decisions that are justified from a science based approach in order to eliminate bias. It's the only way to ensure these decisions are made in the best interest of the wildlife they're supposedly protecting instead of becoming political or self-serving like they often are.

We all need to move past wanting what our personal opinion would dictate. It's great that you have fond memories of YWD, a lot of people do. Why should some positive opinions for YWD justify having it if it's not creating hunters? Or make it exempt from scientific studies to find out it's impact? Why should your opinion as the result of your positive experience be used as a reason to not hold a teal season, where I'm sure many positive experiences would also be made forming opinions to support it?

If we keep encouraging our opinions to matter in how these decisions are reached then we can't complain when other's opinions matter more than ours. The DNR is an agency in the executive branch of our government in charge of managing the natural resources in the best interest of the state's citizens. Citizens, not hunters. In court all citizens have to be treated equally, whether or not they bought a hunting license. Eventually they're going to figure that out. Eventually they and their opinions are going to vastly outnumber us and ours.

It might seem fine to have the popular opinion of duck hunters or the personal opinion of a commissioner stop a teal season now (only because you share the same opinion) but are you going to be fine when it's the popular opinion of the anti-hunting citizen majority to stop all hunting seasons? What about when some extreme liberal gets elected governor and appoints some PETA **** as commissioner....we do live in MN afterall....do you want her being able to use her personal opinion to decide if a season should be opened?

I don't.

[Mr. Lee]

YWD is another scam. Touted to increase the number of water fowlers…..yet IMO has the opposite effect. If something isn't working as intended…then change it. Try to fix it so it works or scrap it.

[ghggroundforce]

I take it you're against open water goose hunting that takes place for a couple weeks to over a month before regular duck opener?

You are correct, I am against the water hunting for early geese.

What I really want is for your opinion, my opinion, the commissioner's opinion, every other hunter's opinion, non-hunter opinions, or anti-hunter's opinions to not have any bearing into how hunting seasons and regulations are determined.

What I really want is a uniform systematic set of processes that result in consistent decisions that are justified from a science based approach in order to eliminate bias. It's the only way to ensure these decisions are made in the best interest of the wildlife they're supposedly protecting instead of becoming political or self-serving like they often are.

We all need to move past wanting what our personal opinion would dictate. It's great that you have fond memories of YWD, a lot of people do. Why should some positive opinions for YWD justify having it if it's not creating hunters? Or make it exempt from scientific studies to find out it's impact? Why should your opinion as the result of your positive experience be used as a reason to not hold a teal season, where I'm sure many positive experiences would also be made forming opinions to support it?

If we keep encouraging our opinions to matter in how these decisions are reached then we can't complain when other's opinions matter more than ours. The DNR is an agency in the executive branch of our government in charge of managing the natural resources in the best interest of the state's citizens. Citizens, not hunters. In court all citizens have to be treated equally, whether or not they bought a hunting license. Eventually they're going to figure that out. Eventually they and their opinions are going to vastly outnumber us and ours.

It might seem fine to have the popular opinion of duck hunters or the personal opinion of a commissioner stop a teal season now (only because you share the same opinion) but are you going to be fine when it's the popular opinion of the anti-hunting citizen majority to stop all hunting seasons? What about when some extreme liberal gets elected governor and appoints some PETA **** as commissioner....we do live in MN afterall....do you want her being able to use her personal opinion to decide if a season should be opened?

I don't.

I actually do agree with a lot of what you are saying here, and I wish there was a good way to use a science based approach to try and make decisions like these other than just what public opinion is. However I also think that there is a fine line with that. Scientifically without a teal season would teal become overpopulated and have detrimental impacts on the population? I hardly think so, but at the same time the reason some people want it is to be able to have more opportunity to get out and enjoy the resource.

I have no problem with that, for me I just think that it would create more days in the field, but less enjoyment per day. It is the same with the August goose season, it causes more birds to be harvested overall, but it results in less birds per day average and a lower satisfaction among hunters in the surveys I have seen anyway. In fact I don't think there is much for a duck season that we could scientifically prove was necessary for ducks. Now does it help out for paying for habitat conservation? Yes, it does tremendously, but if there was no hunting of them would they go extinct, maybe, but I doubt it. So I think we really need to be careful with what is scientifically necessary and what the public and the hunting public wants.

I also wish that there was a good way to try and measure whether or not YWD is recruiting hunters. I know when I was younger there were a few other types of hunting such as goose and pheasant hunting that I had bad experiences with. Mostly involving not being able to effectively harvest any birds because hunting in a group doesn't make very convenient for a kid that is just starting out. For many years I did not enjoy hunting geese and pheasants. I think that good experiences with duck hunting is what got me back into the geese a little, but to this day I do not enjoy hunting pheasants much, and that's what my dad absolutely loved to do when I was younger and still does. In all honesty my dad was not really much of a duck hunter, and had quit for a number of years until I was old enough, but he saw the opportunity to take me for YWD, and when he saw how much I enjoyed it he started to enjoy it more as well. To the point now that he makes it out quite a bit, and we try to make at least one trip somewhere per year to hunt ducks together.

I can't say for sure whether or not I would be a duck hunter without YWD, but I think it definitely made an impact on my life, and changed my perspectives.

And maybe I am wrong, but around me it seems like a teal season would have almost the same number of hunters as a normal opening day, but you would only be able to shoot at 1/3 to 1/2 of the birds. I feel it would add unnecessary pressure to the wood duck population that would find other spots to be before the season actually opens. But like you said it is just my opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own.

[gimpfinger]

First why would you only be able to shoot less birds during early teal. Their numbers are ridiculous before our normal season opens.

Second if you're in a wood duck spot during early teal you're probably not going to shoot at much anyway so you're not scaring all the wood ducks out of the state.



Team Power Dump

[Trigger]

You "feel" like a teal season would put unnecessary pressure on woodducks, and push them out of the area (yet you support a YWD?). That's assuming you hunt the same spot year after year and all you shoot are woodducks on opener. I sure wish I had a spot that required zero scouting and produced limits of woodducks that easily. And they were estimating 15,000 people would participate in the early teal season, so not nearly as many as opener. But wouldn't a 2-3 week gap between the end of teal season and regular opener give them time to return? Probably. But who knows. We chose not to have a season because of things we have no knowledge of and because of insignificant things that might happen.