2016 USFWS Waterfowl framework already proposed

[Fish Felon]

Yes, ducks are essentially monogamous

Huh???

No they're not. They're the furthest thing from monogamous.

Is it possible a hen is courted by a drake and she makes it back North and only is fertilized by that drake's seed? Yes.

Even in that scenario as soon as she's ready to get on the nest that drake is gone. She'll most likely never see him again...ever. He's off looking to hump a different hen that isn't full up with other drake's jizz, which he's probably been trying to do whenever he's not on the look out for other drake's trying to hump "his" hen and do the same. A drake mallard will hump a friggin' basketball given the chance. When you see a single hen in the spring trying to escape the dozen drakes on her tail, explain to me what you think is happening there? It's not that uncommon for hens not on the nest later than average to be drowned once all those drakes do catch her. I've seen it happen.

If you think southern hunters shooting ducks later than they are now is going to break up "pair-bonds" and hurt productivity you're wrong. You could shoot the drake from a pair in April and that hen is still going to be copulated and lay her eggs. I've always thought the whole pair bonding thing as justification to not let seasons run later down South was just sour grapes by Northern hunters.

Are you sure you're not confusing ducks with geese? Because geese are essentially monogamous.

What's funny is that I've never heard any mention of breaking up "pairs" as an added benefit to the spring season on snows. Hmm, I wonder why that is? If what you're saying is correct how come that has never been brought up as a main effect and justification for the spring season? You'd think we would have had that one beat over our heads by those supporting a spring season, especially in the early years while it was still somewhat controversial.

Maybe the reason why not is because if you think a female snow goose is going to have a tough time finding a replacement mate after her guy gets shot in March or April before she hits the tundra you are wong, and we wouldn't have so much trouble trying to reduce their numbers if that was the case. And they're geese, they form a much stronger bond that is actually close to monogamous.

They're all just animals which means their one ultimate goal is to breed and pass on their DNA through their offspring and to do it as much as possible before they die. That's what drives them. Do you think losing a mate will stop them from trying to achieve that? Do you think they won't try out of "mourning" (for lack of a better word) their lost mate that was never intended to be anything more than temporary???


Think about it.

[Fish Felon]

It'll start being liberal when we finally get a spring season. There's no reason we couldn't have a spring drakes only season other than outdated regulations and laws written a long time ago.

I had the same idea once and thought it was great enough to run it by several in the USFWS. My thoughts were to allow a couple drake duck tags that would cost a hundred bucks to raise money for conservation and let Northern hunters harvest a couple prime mounters.

They basically treated me like I was retarded as nicely as they could, which makes sense because the idea is retarded. Not only would it be an enforcement nightmare but can you imagine how many hens would be pushed out once 70,000 duck hunters went afield?

I'll still contend that shooting ducks later isn't going to mess things up down South but once they hit the nesting grounds we probably shouldn't be disturbing them too much, like a MN duck season would. There's a reason why WPA's are closed for nesting in the spring.

Sorry Quack, I didn't read this thoroughly and thought there was something in regards to Southern seasons running late that you were commenting on. By no means am I in favor of seeing a spring duck season. Everything I previously posted I'll stick by but it was typed with zero intention of supporting a spring season, which it looks like I was doing.....




Before anyone gets confused by my logic, mentally picture a small piece of public land consisting of prairie and a small wetland complex that runs up to a gravel road. There's a nesting pair of mallards using it this hypothetical spring. Now if you were to drive by and plunk the drake with a rimfire rifle or even get out and dust the drake out of the ditch with a shotgun that hen will spook but she'll come back, that same day. If she's already picked that spot she'll come back. She'll find a different drake (or ten) to fertilize her eggs so she can lay them in her nest and then try to raise them to flight stage. Killing that drake will have little bearing on whether or not she successfully raises a brood. Could it? Of course. Most likely it won't though.

If you held a two week spring duck season where a group or two of hunters and their dogs are out there putting out decoys and setting up and hunting for half the days the season is open....

....I can almost assure you that hen won't nest there.

[get-n-birdy]

I know they'd never even consider a spring hunt. Just a pipe dream to shoot a plumed out sprig. If it was made into a "trophy" style hunt with limited tags and you paid dearly for it, it could really raise some serious cash for habitat. Most seriously mental waterfowl hunters couldn't pass up a chance at truly adult, fully plumaged birds for mounting, and some would pay some hefty big bags of cabbage to do it. If it was on a limited tag basis, timed right, there'd be less intrusion than the spring snow goose season on nesting ducks. But it'll never happen.

WPA's are closed in the spring? I know some are, but not many, unless I am missing something? There's a surprising amount of photography that goes on, in the spring on WPA's. Finding out certain rules on WPA's is entertaining.

[Nershi]

Or you could just head south to shoot plummed birds. Sure, not everyone can afford that but those who can't probably wouldn't want to be forking out hundreds of dollars just to shoot a couple plummed ducks in the spring anyhow.

I'm heading down to hunt the Texas gulf coast in a couple weeks. I've never mounted a bird but a big pinner with a nice sprig might change that. I've shot plenty of nice ones but they don't usually have sprigs up here and I don't want a fake one like a lot of guys do.

[Quack]

Huh???

No they're not. They're the furthest thing from monogamous.

I assure you I sit here on the edge of my seat waiting for you and getnbirdy to rewrite the book on waterfowl management but until then I'm going with the accepted "theory" that ducks are, essentially, seasonally monogamous. Although I will tip my hat to you and say maybe it would be more accurate to say hens are seasonally monogamous.

Yes, duck rape isn't exactly a rarity but it certainly isn't the way most duck eggs are made.

All I said was thinning paired drakes probably wouldn't be stellar for productivity which you eventually came around on, by re-reading my post.

The most productive hens are the ones who are paired, arrive on good breeding habitat, and pull off their first nest attempt without predation.

Hens don't just pick a mate at a moments notice and they only have the time and nutritional potential to make so many eggs.

In the big picture, just like the argument about how many "incremental" ducks in the fall flight can be attributed to hen houses, it's tough to say if it really matters, but it's obvious delayed nesting and renesting results in fewer ducklings.

[get-n-birdy]

A) liberal is one of three labels the fws uses for duck seasons. The other two are moderate & restrictive, although apparently it's almost impossible to have anything but liberal

B) Ducks start courting and forming pair bonds now through spring, as they have for eons. I'm sure thinning out paired drakes just as the hens start nesting would be stellar for productivity.

Quack,

Not trying to be a smart a$$, just hate the unrealistic, idealistic mentality some waterfowl hunters take towards the sport. As well as how it's managed so ultra conservatively, based off of old models, frame works and almost no thought of hunter numbers dropping drastically. The latter of which seems suspect, if you start running hunter numbers, harvest numbers and paper duck numbers. With supposedly continental duck numbers at spikes in their populations, hunter numbers falling off across the continent and at record lows, if you start doing the math, daily limits and possession limits start to seem like they aren't fluid, and continued because of tradition vs doing the math.

The heavily regulated system in place was put into motion by hunters to protect an overly utilized resource. When you start looking at why our heavy handed regulations were put into place, it was to safeguard the resource by hunters. Now it's a heavily regulated resource, that's heavily regulated because that's the way it's been and there's little more reason it's stayed that way, other than tradition. And the ones regulating it are not the hunters who fought to protect it. At times it seems regulated to limit hunters opportunities or stop them all together, not for conservation of the resource, but to just stay overly conservative for no reason other than it seems the better thing to do because it's cutting off an opportunity. Hunters have been met with brick walls for even suggesting any small hint at changes.

Why are the reasons we had a noon starting time on opening day.

Why did it then go to 9?

Then why did it go to 1/2 hour before sunrise?

Why was there a 2 days possession limit, and now it's 3?

On a side bar why can we harvest 3 roosters later in the season now?

Why do snow geese get hunted south down the flyway, then back up it and it barely makes a dent in their population.

We had a 3 wood duck limit for ever. Now it's 3. Why was it 2 for so long, now the USFWS determined the population could sustain a 3 bird limit, why? Was there some grand amount of acres and acres of wood duck habitat that increased enough to warrant raising the limit?

Or was it a drop in hunter numbers?

Or a change in what was thought to be sustainable?

Or just re-tooling the math?

There's literally teal seasons all the way down the flyway now, why? Because there's a sustainable population of teal. Why doesn't Minnesota take advantage of a teal season? Two main reasons from what I can glean from reading between the lines and the words our states leaders and managers use.

One-they view us hunters as ignorant idiots that can't id anything.

Two-we already have enough opportunities.

Number two is the ultra conservative bull chit I'm sick of. Even though it's sustainable, other states around us and to the south of us are doing it, and not destroying teal numbers. But we are lead by a group of purist a$$ holes who view it's constituents as to dumb too take part in something a lot of other states are completely capable of.

So forgive me if I don't buy everything I read or hear regurgitating from the powers that be.

The reason they are putting the reg's out earlier is because hunting has little effect on duck populations overall and they know as hunter numbers drop, hunters will have even less of an impact on waterfowl populations. So why wait for the funky, futile spring math to take place?

[9manfan]

""As well as how it's managed so ultra conservatively,""


Besides not having a early Teal season, what is so conservative with the frame work we have now ?? Just curious.......

[Bullet21XD]

The season length...

The daily limits...

Need anything else?

[9manfan]

The season length...

The daily limits...

Need anything else?

That's all it would take.......

[get-n-birdy]

Hunter numbers are declining at a pretty good rate. If that trend continues, and there's no catastrophic decline in waterfowl populations, hunters will harvest less and less waterfowl. If there's less hunters, harvesting less waterfowl, what the purpose of keeping regulations the same? If there's a sustainable number of waterfowl for 140,000 hunters to have a 6/60 season, then we drop to 70,000 hunters, does the safely harvest-able number stay the same? Or do limits and season lengths stay the same because we don't want to seem like game hogs?

The NWR system, which interestingly enough was paid for by what and created by whom? Seems intent on less and less areas within their borders for less and less hunting opportunities. A couple whopping crane gets anywhere near certain area's open to public hunting and they shut areas down, this stuff is idiotic.

Hunters pay for stamps and licenses, yet are increasingly asked to fund areas they can't hunt. All the while birders enjoy our refuge system bought and paid for by hunters, for free. And they want to cut off access to hunt nwr's, yet enjoy using them for free. This is the mind set that's infected way to many gray haired mn waterfowl hunters.

The amount of birds across this state that are becoming less and less huntable because of refuge scenarios concerns me a lot. I'm not for getting rid of refuge systems or areas or times where birds can rest. But birds are so habituated to exact, specific areas, that many come into those areas and never give hunters any opportunities. The state and Fed's seem happy hunter opportunities are shrinking, yet in the same breath scratch their heads because hunter participation is dwindling. Seems like there's no one paying any real attention to some connection between the lost opportunities and dwindling hunters.