Redhead bag limit expansion?

R

RLLigman

Well-known member
Anyone care to speculate on the likelihood of expansion of the daily limit on redheads going to three birds? Best eating diver, and they decoy well. Beautiful to watch them work against a snow filled sky!
 
It was discussed over 6 years ago but my understanding is that given that there is no redhead populationnmodel and framework, it didn’t move forward.
I can tell you that redhead harvest down here would most likely see s significant increase,
Every day last year that I killed two, a third one would have been a given.
 
We hunt a marsh complex in the eastern UP that sees thousands of redheads roll down the river. Most head south to Saginaw Bay, with the rest diverting wesward along the coast into Green Bay. We normally see decent scaup numbers, but nothing over a thousand birds. This trip is was redheads, some scaup, and a big pulse of ringnecks that last two days our our stay, with very low mallard and black numbers. We watched flocks of forty to sixty redheads move from open water roosts into the bays to feed, building to rafts of several hundred birds. We shoot small groups working-in or singles that work to minimize the number of birds we "educate", but it can get pretty frustrating to get worked by that many birds when over 90% are redheads...and they are well inside forty yards
 
We winter a couple thousand redheads on MS Sound. Many days I could easily kill a full 6 bird limit if we could. And might see nothing other than RHs other than buffies. Yep frustrating but also a beautiful sight.
 
Redhead #s and no population models to increase bag limit??? May I suggest FWS employees get out more here in the Mississippi Flyway. Especially the eastern side of Michigan. I've witnessed for the past 3-4 years a huge migratory population increase. I'm sure there is no funding to study this bird, but the little secret, almost as big as a mallard and taste on equal to my taste buds.
When I crossed the Mighty Mackinac Bridge Friday there were THOUSANDS, maybe ten K rafted up, but I couldn't stop to count. keeping my boat trailer between the traffic lines!


And let us not forget, to my knowledge, they parasitize canvasback nests big time[font=Roboto, arial, sans-serif]. [/font]
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Would be fun to have three bird limit but I wonder if the redheads could survive a beating like that especially in Texas coastal areas, tens of thousands of them and there is hunters, everyone would have whatever the limit is. There is so may birds there is always that many that get close to get killed.
 
My point exactly, if the limit is raised here on the Gulf coast (where 90% winter), the harvest will rise accordingly, probably close at 1:1 ratio to whatever the limit is.

Population is up, at record levels, that is easily recognized. But as I said. there is no population or harvest model like there is with mallards, pintails and scalp.
 
Carl, let's focus on one life history aspect of redheads that is pretty unique to the species; they display very high "fealty" to specific overwintering sites, hyper-concentrating the population segments at specific geographic points. Those specific over-wintering sites would likely not be considered for an increased daily bag in any altered management plan due to your stated concerns.

I do recall BradF commenting on an altered bag limit proposal earlier this year.
 
Carl is right. It’s not on the radar screen. Flyways just finished process for 2018-19 season so it’s not happening before 2020.
 
Sorry, wrong Brad! Thanks! It was a beautiful sight to see them moving around in the sun between snow squalls wheeling across us!

While you are here, where did you locate the cam cleats on your Crusader; top of cockpit combing, or on the inside? Did you install ones with eyed leads? Did you put a backing plate on them? I prefer to pick-up longlines over the bow and not over the stern. Being able to quickly adjust scope in a blow, both to position the boat as well as to aid during decoy retrieval.
 
I know you have some better "group" photos...even a pair shot where you cleaned the background blood off the deck to send to your spouse!

I finished repainting the speculums on those redhead hens last night based on in-hand reference material, darkened the nape area on the heads as well.
 
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Carl, in an over-wintering population like the one you hunt, what do you normally see as the drake to hen ratio?
 
I live and hunt in puddle duck country where the Mallard is king. But the redhead has always been one of my favorite ducks and we occasionally have them stop by our mudhole. My first and only mount was a nice redhead drake I called my last juvenile hunt many years ago.
 
This photo is from a couple of years ago, taken from the north approach causeway at the Mackinac Bridge-Mackinac Island is in the background. This was four days after a three day nearly constant deluge hunt in the U.P. We had fresh birds on us from the start, so, many times we would let large flocks simply work-in land and leave in an effort to not burn-out large groups of birds. Two things to note from this photo: 1.) Nearly all of these birds are redheads! 2.) Steve could not fit the entire raft in his shot. They are rafted-up on a dolomite limestone shoal feeding.

Steve said that the winds were buffeting the Crusader and tow vehicle around too much to get a photo on Friday PM when he crossed while headed home.

View attachment Straits of Mackinac.jpg
 
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Hard to say, but I am guessing 60:40 drake to hen??
Much better than other species, such as scaup, where it seems more like 80:20.
I've seen flocks of 10-20 lesser scaup that were 100% drakes.

I wonder if RH hens have better survival given their propensity to nest dump????
 
That's impressive!
What we they feeding on?
Down here we normally find them feeding in either Vallisneria beds or Ruppia/Halodule beds.
 
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