I am PO'd :-(

TimJ

TimJ

Well-known member
Have I ever told you I hate this 'Hunter's Choice" limit we are under in the central flyway? For the first time in my life two canvasbacks will be allowed in every flyway except for the central flyway. We still get the choice of shooting one hen mallard or one pintail or one canvasback. GRRRRRRRRRRRR.........
This was a crock from the start and the USFWS and the state is trying to put sugar on a turd and call it candy. And if you think it is funny and you aren't in the central just remember that most of the new USFWS ideas are tried here first and then nearly always go on to the whole country.
I'm still not that upset about the pintail or canvasback part but adding that mallard hen just rubs me wrong. If I shoot a hen mallard 15 minutes after shooting time and have a couple drake cans come by an hour later I'm going to need medication.
Maybe the worst part is that this was based on a questionnaire that was a total farce. I knew when I read it what answers they were looking for, looked like a partisan political poll.

Here are the 2007 guidelines. click here
Tim
 
(3) Scaup and (2) Cans I feel for you buddy, I really do.......(smiley face, smiley face)....

But seriously, and not that it even addresses your comments but you were the first to mention the TWO CAN's thing, how in the heck do you go from proposing a drop to "ONE SCAUP" when they population for that bird is the fourth highest of all of the duck species-at over 4 million-while at the same time raising the limit to "TWO" on a bird whose numbers don't even exceed a million? That just doesn't make any sense to me...

"FOUR MILLION you say"? "Good God Man thats horrendous..drop it to ONE because while we know that harvest isn't a factor we have to get these people thinking about a FULL closure"......Now telll me about the Cans?....."they increased? Still not a million of them though right?.....Hmmmmmm well then lets raise the limit on those guys to TWO....makes sense doesn't it".....

"Good! Do I have a motion to close the meeting"?

"Oh you have some NEW business"? "what's that you want to screw the guys in the Central Flyway? I like it....all those in favor of messing with the guys in S.D. that won't let Non-Residents hunt in their State without going through a lottery say AYE...the "ayes" have it....motion passed"....

Meeting adjourned....

Or the short version....just don't shoot the Hen Mallard.....

Steve
 
and actual Smiley Face.....

I did it cause I wanted to make sure that Tim knew I was kidding....something I'm not sure that I've been conveying that well lately, (witness the recent cessation of posting by a member recently as he signed off with "fuggitaboudit" when I was attempting to be "clever")......

Steve
 
My understanding from talking to our rep to the Flyway council is this:
The population/harvest models for canvasbacks indicates a total allowable of about 400,000 birds for this year (based on population). It was a little lower last year, but not much. However, the estimated harvest level of cans has never even come close to that number, not even 50%. So, based on the historic level of harvest and the fact that the population is at a historic high (for the 1955-2007 survey period), it was felt that they could raise the limit and still stay well below the modelled allowable harvest.
Based on the explanation I received, it looks like the 2-can limit is based on the best science availible.

Looks like the diver slam this year will be 2 cans, 2 redheads & 2 scaup (or 3 in the Pac. Flyway).
 
Heck I agree with you today. Seems odd the way scaup and canvasbacks are managed. I've never been a proponent of dropping the limit on one of the most populous ducks on earth just because it seems like the right thing. My whole problem with this Hunter's CHoice is that is mostly based on a stupid survey. Who cares what the average hunter thinks when it comes to setting limits and seasons. I want science and sound reason...and if I ever hear someone say "well that is all you need" I'm going to smack em. To be honest I don't need one duck. I want to have the opportunity to shoot what is sustainable. This limit has never been about that.

btw I'm glad you took minutes at the secret meeting. I knew you'd be there. (smiley face...oh wait [:)] )

Tim
 
problem is it just doens't make any sense to me.....course thats me trying to "reconcile" the two different strategies for two different species, which is obviously a mistake, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to say "GREAT" on the Can's and not say "WHAT"? on the Scaup?

I mean if the Bio's recommending further cuts in Scaup harvest can "ignore the best data available" when they recommend cutting Scaup then using that same "Best data" to raise a limit on a bird that has a population of less than a million is tough to buy into.....at least for me.....

That said given the opportunity I'm going to have to shoot a couple of Cans a day now that its legal...Like Pete says, its been a long time since more than one was legal, (and for the West Coast guys, whose Cans come from Alaska where there numbers have never fluctuated due to drought like the PPR breeders have I can live with it.....

Steve
 
Well, as far as scaup, I have to agree with you. None of the data or science indicates that hunter harvest is causing the decline in scaup numbers, the harvest estimates definately don't support it. And like you said, there are still 3.5 million breeding pairs. However, that is way down from the long term average, so something is definately wrong. But what is wrong? Lots of theories out there but no answers.

So the question is what can we do about the drop in scaup numbers from the LTA? I'm not sure there is much we can do but I think there is a feeling of "we have to do something".
I have always felt that if "we have to do something" then put a hen limit on scaup just like mallards. Make the limit 3 or 4 scaup w/only 1 hen allowed. All indications are that in all waterfowl populations, there is a huge excess of drakes anyway. And, Hen scaup are about the easiest birds to ID in the air, no other brown duck I know of has a white face patch. Sure, drake GEs have a white face patch but if you confuse a drake goldeneye with a hen scaup, you need to go to the house & sell the decoys anyway.
 
Yo, Steve, I didn't leave (again), I'm just busier than hell right now and don't have time to post much. I just started school back up and time is very very short. I'm mostly in lurk mode now. Still here but a little quieter.

Tim, the hunters choice bit sure stinks. At some point you have to wonder if it is worth carrying a shotgun to the blind anymore. Might have more fun with a good camera...

Charlie
 
on your avatar.....now thats FUNNY, even if it is inaccurate....I never weighed in on whether people should post where they lived, (and you'll notice mine says "the GREAT NorthWET" and not a specific location, what I said was that posting it changes little, IMO, as far as giving the "I.D. thiefs" an easier shot at you......still funny though and glad I didn't piss you off.....

Carl.....I've long been a proponant of "no hens" on birds like Pintails and Cans, etc....the "conventional wisdom", and "pat answer" has always been to say that "the individual hen is of little consequence" and they add that if they didn't allow a "mistake" hen that that would result in "waste" when the "accidental hen" was stomped....abot the billioneth time I heard that in a Council meeting I asked, "are GOOD BIOLOGY and ENFORCEMENT OF REASONABLE REGULATIONS two seperate issues", to which I got a resounding "YES--absolutely"......to which I asked then is the "accident" hen Biology or Enforcement.....to which they replied "primarily enforcement".....I followed with, "then what you are telling me is that you don't believe that it is "reasonable" to expect hunters to take the responsibility or knowing what they are shootng and not to shoot if they don't know"?......the response to that was "correct" thinking of course that they had shut me up......So I said then using that logic why don't you "allow" me to shoot an "accidental Hen Turkey in the Spring"?, or an "accidental hen Pheasant"?, and why don't you allow me to shoot an "accidental" Spike Bull Elk in branch antler areas, after all if I can't tell a hen Pintail from a drake Pintail then do you think I can tell those other things apart? Refusing to let go I added "and why do you allow me two "mistake" Hen Mallards? Do you really think that if I couldn't tell that Mallard was a hen the first two times that I will be able to tell its a hen the THIRD TIME and that I won't stomp that "over the limit mistake" after I've made it"?

The response? "you've had your five minutes please yield the floor to the next question".....makes you love "Public Imput Meetings" for what they most often, not always but most often", turn out to be? I can just imagine them at breaks, "SHIT, we didn't expect anyone to actually have a valid point"..."what do we do now"?....

So, YEAH, I'm all for restriciting hens, and according to at least one study I saw hen Scaup should have that protection given their "nest site fidelity" and how that can affect specific populations of specific areas....I just don't think you'll ever see it because, after all, "the AVERAGE Duck Hunter IS an uncaring dolt who doesn't care about the resource and only wants to shoot everything that he can"---(not my quote but one that I have heard, in various permutations, in the past).....

Steve
 
Your 5 minutes were up 1/2 way through that post, could you please yield the internet to the next person?
 
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uhhhhh, Rick, Pete, I'll see you on Pools 7,8 and 9. And, I'll see you Canucks on Mitchells and you Harsen's rats on Big Muscamoot in a hard SW blow!

Of course you'd have seen me there if the limit was ZERO on cans! I just like watching them!
 
Wednesday's trip was fair to middlin' but boy did I see some dandy adfluvial rainbow. This one ate a white beadhead Lite-Brite Zonker, the 18 inch brown ate my White Death Bugger at high noon.

babskam.jpg


brown18innet.jpg

 
Education.....I know you went to a better school that I did and it took me way less than 5 minutes to read that.....

Either way, minutes wise......NOOOOOOOooo I will not yield the floor.....


Steve
 
It's getting near...........email me your license number and I'll do the rest!

Ahhh, nothing like a driven grouse hunt, Oregon style!

BTW what the hecks going on this year, I have barn swallows that are on their second set (after raising young already) and this morning I found a DAY OLD Valley Quail chick (dead) near my front porch, what gives?????

Dave
 
It's the Global Warming....Tuna's is off the Oregon Coast like its San Diego. The Elephant Seal colony is in collapse at Ano Nuevo. The SeaBird Colonies here didn't successfully fledge a chick. Debby's Christmas Cactus died of a heat stroke this week. The Termites swarmed a month earlier this year and the Pink Slamon run is a shambles.....its the Global Warming I tell ya....just listen to the news and you'll see......

Seriously not surprised at either of your sightings.....first, just because you see Barn Swallows nesting in the same spot doesn't mean its the same pair that is renesting...doesn't mean it isn't but birds that like to build mud nests on shelves that don't nest early will nest even later than now....so it could be a re-nest, (actually was easier for an altricial bird that only lays (4) eggs to renest than it is for a gallinacious bird that won't renest unless it has the resources to produce at least twn eggs to do it....(4) days to lay the eggs, (15 to 18 days to hatching), and then 30 to fledging......shoot thats barely half way through September so there's plenty of time to get that done....

The quail will have a harder time of course but we regularly see a good number of the little half sized "squealers" thhe first couple of weeks of the season in October. They have a tougher time with their re-nesting unless its an incomlete clutch that is destroyed....All of the Gallinacious birds will continue to try to nest until after that first clutch hatches. Regardless of the "urban legends" that abound about two and three successful hatching that just isn't something that happens.....partly because the hens physiology changes after a clutch hatches, (she switches from egg laying to chick rearing), and very few can switch successfully back to egg laying after they hatch a clutch.....and the other part is the time involved...mostly they won't even nest if they can't lay, "at least" a major potion of their normal clutch size with the threshold being (8) for Quail, (Stoddard), and (10) for Turkies, (Kinnemar). How they know if they have the reserves I don't know but thats what the studies show......

So you figure its August, it takes (10) days to lay (8) eggs, then (25) days to hatching and then (21) days to a fully fledged bird.....thats first of October.....so assuming that the reports are correct it would be "reasonable" to assume that birds could "successfully" pull of a brood by the end of the first week of October as long as they have the eggs on the ground by the first week of August.....lots of hens out there at this time of year that lost their first, and maybe second, clutches and are still trying.....

Or.....if you chose to call BULLSHIT to the above and believe in "Double and Triple Clutching" as so many of the guys that I know that hunt Quail are admanately sure of then.....ITS THE GLOBAL WARMING.......

OOOOOppppppssss I see my fiv minutes is up and I'm being called upon to "yield the floor" to the extinquished Gentleman from Alabama.....

I'll send you my license number but you leave that guy from over on the big Lake off of the PARTY LEADER" line....that man's BAD JUJU in lotteries and I don't want to miss another year of "driven Grouse"......You'll have to be sure to bring a video camera so that Todd can see Sage Grouse hunting "Oregonian Continental" style.....

Oh that little bush up by the quarry? Thats a wild azalea....I want it.....don't let them rock thieving, mtn. raping, habitat destroying, quarry guys run over that big one by the road....I'll dig it up the next time I'm there....

Steve

Steve
 
If Ano Nuevo's colony is collapsing...doesn't that mean that the white sharks will have to switch over to an alternate prey species? Like people!

Perhaps the berry's will be in rough shape too and the bears will close in from the mountains! The beaches will be the scene of a massacre like never before....it'll cause the media's head to explode!

And it's all because of cow flatulence.
 
People, even the fattest of the fat, cannot be considered "surrogate Elephant Seals" and thus alternative food supplies for the gravid White Sharks that congregate off the colony annually to lay on fat by eating the huge seals, (even the smallest of which dwarfs the fattest of those pink skins that you would refer to).....so what will happen is that the Great Whites will be broaching on the ever more natural looking fiberglass clad foam seals until they starve themselves to death, or choke on the "GODDAMN this must be 3,000 lb cable"......

But you are right though the "media's heads will explode" and we'll get to watch yet another "Scientific study on sharks that proves that Great Whites do indeed feed at night, (when the suface of the water is lit to daylight lumens by high incandescent lights which attracts the baitfish which attracts the seals which attracts the sunglass wearing Sharks AND PROVES that they do feed at night-----shades of that idiot Steve Irwin).....

I'll head into the mtns. in a couple of weeks to see if the huckleberries are going to be plenitiful enogh to concentrate the Bandtails....I'll get back to you on whether the Bears are eating an inordinate numberr of hikers and mtn. bikers.....

Steve
 
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