Remember those Canvasback numbers?

Rick Kyte

Rick Kyte

Well-known member
The season is closed in most flyways this season because the breeding numbers last spring were down to 489,000 from 865,000 the previous spring.

Last night the guy who does flyovers for USFWS said the most recent count on the Upper Miss (Pools 7,8,9) was 360,000. Do you think that 74% of the breeding population is all gathered in one place?

There's good reason to think that the canvasback population is doing well and that we'll have an open season again next year.

Rick
 
Rick,

I was sitting on Target Lake Saturday morning watching wave after wave of them heading from Onalaska to Wisconsin Islands and beyond. It reaffirmed my belief that the powers that be should have known their numbers were skewed, and that there was absolutely NO WAY that the continental population dropped nearly 50% in one year! Since the teal left, one of the most common ducks in my decoys has been Cans. Funny how that works...
 
Yep! I seen and heard where the Upper Mississippi Refuge (Pools 7-9) can get 75% of the contentinal canvasback population coming through. If you look at previous years you will see in 1999 they counted over 400,000 on those pools. You would have to find a 1999 or 2000 status report to find out the Can population that year, but it wasn't anywhere near last years 800,000. Probably more like 600,000. Still that is a good number and hope they are legal everywhere next year. I was fortunate to hunt in ND this year, I didn't see the huge numbers staging like I have in past years in the area but they were obvisouly somewhere out there.


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View attachment cansm3.jpg
 
Scott,
I didn't even buy a MN license this year, so I haven't been hunting Target Lake. But, like you, I have seen lots of cans in Pool 7. Some nice bull drakes swimming in the dekes Sunday afternoon.
Rick
 
I've seen more flying this year than any of the last few years, but you can't make any judgement about numbers from that. There's a good wild celery crop in the closed areas this year, so they aren't spread out as much as before. You can stand in one spot and see huge numbers, but that's just concentration, not overall population. Still, it's good to see that they are still plentiful.
Rick
 
The river has been doing great for wild celery for a number of years now. Actually out here on the Susquehenna Flats celery is doing great, biggest beds they have seen in like 20 years. Cans just have to find it again after being gone for so long.
 
As much as I readily agree that this year's count was not accurate, I wonder if anyone wants to suggest that last year's "record" count was accurate, and would justify the 2 bird limit. One was an oversight, the other an undersight in my opinion.

That's the problem, these experts use only the numbers and no common sense. Heaven help us if a team of experienced biologists put their two cents in and set the regs accordingly.

Oh well, better days ahead . . . and hopefully some cans in the bag!

NR
 
In all my years hunting the Mississippi I'd never seen the number of Cans that I'd seen last year hunting on pool 13 with Dave Larsen. His comment was "you should have been here last week". It was truely unbelievable!

Ed L.
 
Thank you for ND, the only plus about the Hunter's Choice Bag :)

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Brad
 
I hesitate to reply, but I feel like I can supply some background information. Since 1996 canvasback regulations have been set by a model that uses the current May breeding population and other population data to predict the breeding population next year and the model has performed extremely well. The harvest strategy is set to maintain a population with a next year minimum breeding population of at least 500,000 birds and it is conservative in order to maintain at least some harvest opportunity. In simple terms if next years breeding population is projected to be greater than 500,000 then 1 bird/day will be offered in all flyways for the full season. If it is predicted to be less than 500,000 but has some allowable harvest then a partial season will be offered so predicted allowable harvest = expected harvest. The strategy was modified last year in response to the record count to for a 2 bird bag limit. I expected that there would be a lower count this year because we had 4 years of increasing counts and we haven't seen more that 3 years of continued growth in the past. We ended up with a lower count, which was not unexpected because conditions were poor canvasback areas on the prairies. The survey biologists and statisticians poured over the data and could not find and mistakes or obvious over counts last year or under counts this year. So the bottomline is yes there lots of canvasbacks but the rules (strategy) are the rules and you can't argue that last year's number was good and this year's number was bad without throwing out the whole survey. None of us are happy about it but thats the way the cookie crumbled.
 
I'd reather see, redardless of species, that they error on the side of caution. Wouldn't it be better that they close the season for one year, even if the information they had was believed to be inaccurate, then to disregard that information, and them wind up closing the season for the next ten years. I would hope that they were doing the best job they could, with the information they had available.

JMHO

Chuck
 
We ended up with a lower count, which was not unexpected because conditions were poor canvasback areas on the prairies.
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Bob,
The spring count is of breeding pairs, not breeding success, is that right? So what happens during poor conditions? Do some of the ducks bypass the prairies and just skip breeding for the year? (I'm assuming here from your reply that the total number of cans may have been high (as in the 800,000 range); it was just the breeding count that was down.)
Rick
 
As much as I readily agree that this year's count was not accurate, I wonder if anyone wants to suggest that last year's "record" count was accurate, and would justify the 2 bird limit. One was an oversight, the other an undersight in my opinion.

That's the problem, these experts use only the numbers and no common sense. Heaven help us if a team of experienced biologists put their two cents in and set the regs accordingly.

Oh well, better days ahead . . . and hopefully some cans in the bag!

NR
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Don't get me wrong, I wasn't implying that last years count was accurate either.
It just bugs me that their "model" will give us 2 per day last year and close the season this year. Just the typical knee-jerk reaction to what is an estimated number to begin with.
Oh well, according to the braindead majority, Nobama's gonna save us all from ourselves, and maybe he can save the Cans and 'Bills too.....
 
Rick

Undoubtedly canvasbacks redistribute to areas where they aren't counted. Surveys in the boreal forest and tundra areas didn't pick them up either. There are certainly areas that aren't surveyed, but all survey areas showed declines. It is likely that they aren't nearly as productive in those locations.

One thing is for sure we didn't shoot them all. The harvest estimate for all flyways was in the range of 125,000, which was a little below what was expected with the 2 bird limit. The breeding population decline was 300-400,000.
 
Scott

It wasn't knee jerk and it wasn't the "model", it was the thresholds in the harvest strategy. Those were the rules of the game that had been worked out by the 4 flyways and USFWS prior to the counts. Nobody was happy that the count resulted in a closed season.

That brings me to the question that was pondered the year before: Would hunters prefer the stability of 1 bird/day with decreased chance of a closed season or the opportunity to have a 2/day limit but increase the frequency of closed seasons by about 5-10%?
 
Personally, I don't like the idea of any duck being closed or season in a season, because there are too many people out there who shoot first and figure it out later. When they shoot the wrong duck, they leave it. I had the displeasure of setting up on an island last fall and finding 3 hen pintails that had been left behind in a nice little pile. The warden said he'd "look into it," but this is the guy who waits at the landing rather than going out and checking people.
Two weeks ago on a northern Minnesota rice lake we had a pair of cans make 3 swings before landing in our decoys. They took off when we shot at some ringbills, and we watched them cross the lake only to see one of them dropped by another hunter. The guy motored out, retrieved it, then picked up decoys and left. I do not know if he took it with or dumped it, but the shoot first mentality really pisses me off.
Allowing 1 mistake duck per day saves a lot of bird dumping by the idiots. In other words, many are getting shot anyways, closed or not, so might as well let them be taken home and not left for the eagles and coons.
 
Allowing 1 mistake duck per day saves a lot of bird dumping by the idiots. In other words, many are getting shot anyways, closed or not, so might as well let them be taken home and not left for the eagles and coons.
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Scott,

I'm not sure I follow your logic. If a hunter shoots a duck that is "closed" then thats a mistake duck? If so is he then immediately done for the day? If not, how is he supposed to not shoot another "mistake duck"? After all, he made the mistake once, now he can better identify on the wing 10 minutes later? No, I don't see that happening.
 
the State should allow (1) "mistake" hen Pheasant a day?

Or (1) "mistake" doe deer in buck season?

Or (1) "mistake" buck in doe season?

Or (1) "mistake" hen Turkey in the Spring Turkey season?

Closure are made by Biologist using the best data available and with the best intentions of the species in mind...."allowing" mistakes is contrary to that effort and shouldn't be allowed. To the extent that they are, "because he waits at the ramp", is an enforcement problem, and a hunter compliance problem, and is totally unrelated to the reason for the restriction.

Steve
 
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