Weather's hot, but duck hunting is in the air
Saturday, Aug 12, 2006
By Joe Mosby
It's mid-August, it's hot, it's dry and Arkansas duck hunters are fussing about the upcoming season - which has not yet been set.
You might say it's a typical Arkansas summer.
Guidelines handed down by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service call for another "liberal" duck hunting season this fall and winter, meaning 60 days of hunting and six ducks a day bag limit.
This is for the Mississippi Flyway, and individual states can set rules within this framework and can even restrict the hunting soon, which is rarely done. But Arkansas has done it in recent years, cutting the daily limit on mallard hens or "susies" from the federally allowed two to one. It's a gesture to reduce the number of mallard hens that are killed.
Arkansas has also banned the use of spinning wing decoys, but other states in the flyway have not followed suit.
So what's aggravating duck hunters at this point? One, some don't like the plan to zone the state into two duck hunting zones. Two, some say the season dates proposed by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission staff run too far into January.
For eternity there have been two strong opinions among duck hunters on season dates. One segment, mostly hunters who use pump-flooded fields, wants early dates to take advantage of the first migrating duck flocks and to avoid "freeze-up," the occasional cold snaps that leave areas of the state in ice.
The second segment, which includes many hunters using public lands, wants the duck season to run as late as possible to take advantage of late migrating flocks of birds.
There is a growing third element, too, though it's not loud and vigorous in making its opinions known to the regulation-setting commissioners of the AGFC.
These are concerned hunters who believe too many ducks are being killed. They believe, by reducing hunting in some form, duck populations stand a better chance of increasing.
This group has a strong proponent in Dr. Mickey Heitmeyer, the University of Missouri waterfowl biologist who is one of the nation's most respected authorities on ducks. Heitmeyer has done extensive work in Arkansas, especially on the Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area, an AGFC facility that needs no introduction to duck hunters of the United States.
In an extensive report just issued, Heitmeyer advocates a ban on spinning-wing decoys, hen harvest restrictions, shorter season lengths and condensed season frameworks.
He is bucking the Fish and Wildlife Service's insistence on following the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, formulated in 1986, that has only three options for duck seasons - liberal of 60 days, six ducks; moderate of 45 days, four ducks; restricted of 30 days, three ducks. Federal authorities say these can't be altered, but individual states can reduce them.
Arkansas did not have to adopt a two-zone plan. But it was a strategy by the AGFC commissioners in case a reduced duck season came along in the near future. Another federal rule is that a state has to make a five-year commitment to something like zoning. A new five-year period begins this season, so Arkansas had to say "yes" or "no" on the zoning issue or be locked out of it until 2011.
AGFC commissioners have said the two zones could have identical hunting dates or they could have separate dates. The staff has proposed an opening date of a week earlier in the Northeast Arkansas duck zone and a week earlier closing date.
The commissioners will officially set the duck and goose seasons and other rules at their meeting Thursday in Little Rock.
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Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas' best known outdoor writer. His work is distributed by the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback.com.
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