Damn Yankees

[JABIII]

BELLEVILLE, Ill. Some hunters in southern and central Illinois want duck hunting season to start earlier.

The president of Migratory Waterfowl Hunters Incorporated has filed a 16-page complaint with the state inspector general.

Robert Bryant says most of the ducks will be gone by the end of the season that starts for central zone hunters on October 30th. And southern zone hunters can't start until November 13th.

Bryant says ponds will probably be frozen for most of the 60-day season, and the birds will have flown south.

Department of Natural Resources spokesman Joe Bauer says the central zone's opening date was the result of a survey of more than 500 hunters.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

This equals more juvenile ducks getting whacked by rubbahead yankees and roboducks....

[JABIII]

Iowa's treasure of waterfowl
by Mary Loden
Press-News Reporter
Dave Sedivec, park ranger from Chickasaw County, on left, shows Jim Doidge, county conservationist for Mitchell County, center, how to operate the custom-crafted duck bill on the duck call while Don Plagge, a decoy and duck call collector from Mason City, looks on. In the upper left photo Plagge talks about a few of the decoys he brought with him. (Press-News photos by Mary Loden.)

Did you know that in the early 1900s waterfowl was so abundant in Iowa that market hunters would take trains from Des Moines up to Okoboji, making stops all along the way, and just shoot ducks all day long. These ducks were then shipped to eastern United States markets.
It was a great way for hunters to make a living. And homesteaders in Iowa would supplement their crop income with fur trapping and shooting waterfowl.
Two avid waterfowl hunters, Don Plagge from Mason City and Dave Sedivec, a park ranger from Chickasaw County, presented the history of waterfowl hunting in Iowa to a small group gathered at the Mitchell County Nature Center last Sunday.
Addressing the small group county conservationist Jim Doidge jokingly said, "Everyone is probably out duck hunting."
Plagge introduced the history of the sport and said, "This is one sport where when you get involved you get too involved," waving to his large collection of duck decoys and antique duck calls. Plagge has over 50 decoys and 500 duck calls in his collection.
He said that years of hunting with no restrictions and the draining of the marshes really took its toll on the population of waterfowl in Iowa. Of all the marshes that Iowa boasted, breeding grounds for waterfowl, there are only about two percent remaining.
Plagge went into a little of the history of duck decoys saying that hunters used to use live decoys that had a band around their necks or legs that was attached to a weight thrown out into the water. However, the problem with live ducks is they didn't want to sit out on the water all day, they wanted to sit in the boat. So the hunter spent more time pushing them back out into the water than shooting.
When live decoys were outlawed and eventually banned in 1933 Plagge said duck calls came into play to entice the birds although the earliest duck call he has in his collection dates back to 1854. Plagge said that Herb Rheinhart in Des Moines made some of the best and then several men in Mason City duplicated his design. The call didn't sound anything like a duck but it was still highly effective.
Sam Bowers was another big name in Iowa duck call history. Bowers made hundreds of calls and was very talented in making and tuning reeds. Long after his death his widow would routinely run ads in the Mason City paper every fall advertising Bowers duck calls.
Sedivec picked up where Plagge left off. He said he grew up near Iowa City and came to love duck hunting. "You either love it or hate it, there is no in- between," Sedivec said. If you didn't love it you couldn't spend the entire day cold, wet and smelling like a stinky dog he said.
He spoke of the Pitman Robertson Act passed in the 1930s due to the declining number of waterfowl in the state. The legislation placed a tax on guns and ammunition and the revenue generated was used to buy acres to develop a federal refuge system.
Sedivec said this was also around the same time that Ducks Unlimited came into being. He said the same people responsible for the loss of waterfowl were also the same people who brought the population back to what it is today.
Sedivec demonstrated several duck calls that he brought with him and showed some popular types of wood used to make the calls. One of the woods was Osage orange or sometimes called hedgewood (where hedge apples come from). These trees are found mainly in Oklahoma and parts of Texas. Sedivec said the wood is 40 times harder than walnut, is tough, resilient and has a straight grain which makes it so great for carving duck calls. Osage orange is also used to make some hunting bows. Cocabola wood, which is very dense and oily, is also a good wood to use.
Once the duck call is made the trick is blowing into it so it will produce a sound that attracts the ducks. There are as many different types of sounds as there are hunters as everyone seems to have their own preference. Sedivec said there is no secret to this, "you get so you have a sound that works and one that produces for you," he said.
Sedivec's young son regularly goes duck hunting with him and has already shown quite a talent for duck calling, he has even won a few calling contests. "It's great to see kids come up into duck hunting," Sedivec said. "If you don't have duck hunters you won't have ducks."

[Low Country Sandlapper]

I would just like to take this opportunity to say that I hate yankees and only wish my forebears had been able to kill off the entire vile race during the 4+yr period when it could legally be done.

Carry on.

[Johnny Reb]

[img]graemlins/iagree.gif[/img] I hate yankees almost as much as [img]graemlins/afro.gif[/img] 's