Sad day in Arkansas...

Rick Pierce

Rick Pierce

Well-known member
Our esteemed Game & Fish Commission gave in to the pressure from the Flyway Council and a portion of our hunting community today and lifted the ban on spinning wing decoys.

60-day season for the 12th year in a row. Have we ever had a Moderate or Restricted season since AHM began?

I'll post up the dates and limits here later, but I know we get no cans this year and only one bluebill, three wood ducks, and the mallard limit can include two hens this year instead of just one.
 
Rick

Do you think Mojo and Moto and all those other loser companies will donate a portion of the profits they will make off AR hunters back to AR conservation? I doubt it. So much for thinking your G&F had balls. Did they drop the single hen mallard limit as well?
 
LITTLE ROCK – After a three-year experiment, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission today lifted the ban on spinning-wing decoys during waterfowl hunting season. The Commission also increased the daily bag limit for hen mallards from one to two.

Commissioner Brett Morgan cast the lone vote to continue the spinning-wing decoy ban. “I can’t support something that we know helps kill juvenile ducks,” Morgan said. “This is an issue that we (commissioners) raised – not the public. The majority of e-mails and phone calls that I’ve received support keeping the ban in place.”

Commissioner George Dunklin, chairman of the Commission’s waterfowl committee, said the decision to rescind the ban was difficult.

“I know there’s some dissention about removing the ban, but a UALR survey showed the majority of people wanted spinning wing decoys brought back,” Dunklin said. “We asked all of the surrounding states to come aboard with us on this, but to no avail.”

In support of his position to remove the ban, Dunklin read from a letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that stated there was “no demonstrable impacts on either overall harvest rates or population levels.”

In other waterfowl news, Arkansas hunters will get 60 days of duck season for the twelfth consecutive year. Commissioners removed the WMA shell restriction during the youth hunt, and changed the time for shooting to cease on WMAs to noon; hunters must be off the water by 1 p.m.

Duck season dates are Nov. 22-Dec. 1, Dec. 6-Dec. 24 and Dec. 26-Jan. 25. The youth waterfowl hunt will be Jan. 31-Feb. 1. The northwest Canada goose zone season will be Sept. 1-15 (with a bag limit of five) and Sept. 27-Oct. 6 (bag limit two). The statewide Canada goose season will be Sept. 1-15 (bag limit five) and Jan. 10-Feb. 1 (bag limit two).

White-fronted goose season will be Nov. 15-Dec. 1, Dec. 6-Dec. 24 and Dec. 26-Jan. 30 with a bag limit of two. Snow, blue and Ross’ goose season will be Nov. 8-Dec. 24 and Dec. 26-Jan. 30 with a bag limit of 20. The snow goose Conservation Order is Feb. 2-April 25 with no bag limit.

Bag limits remain much the same as last year, with the exception of the additional hen mallard. Duck hunters will be allowed no more than four mallards, two of which may be hens. The daily bag limit may contain one pintail, three mottled ducks, one scaup, three wood ducks, two redheads and one black duck, but no more than a total of six ducks. Canvasback season is closed by the FWS because of low numbers.
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Way up north here nothing has changed: 8 per day 24 in possession, 1 can per day 3 in possession. Scaup are not listed as anything special, which is funny since the Yukon Flats area is an important habitat for scaup and has quite a few. Funny thing is that folks new to Alaska keep asking if we have wood ducks. There is one behind every oak tree. However, those oak trees are hard to find.
 
[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]"In support of his position to remove the ban, Dunklin read from a letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that stated there was “no demonstrable impacts on either overall harvest rates or population levels.”


I see this phrase on everything to do with limits and gear...why have a closed season on Cans and almost closed season on Bills? Why limit Mallards to 4, with only 1 hen allowed(Mi.)? Why not more pinnies and why did they take it all out on the wood duck that waterfowlers have brought back with nesting boxes? Why, why, WHY?
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I'm guessing Mojo Outdoors, Moto, Mo-whatever will probably maintain their DU and Delta sponsorships, donate products to DU banquets, do some youth hunts, etc. as their "giving back to the sport". I doubt very seriously they have a percentage of their profit being donated to DU, Delta, or any other group. But, realistically, they are a business...it's capitalism, and I won't complain one bit about them making a profit.

I don't know if they lost their balls, or they just got tired of the pressure from all sides with no support from surrounding States or the Fed. Doing the right thing is still doing the right thing, even when everyone else laughs, but I know it's a hard fight after a while.

I think I'm most disappointed on two counts. First, that the press release referred to it as an "experiment". When the ban was instituted, it was not given a time limit or referred to as experimental that I remember, though I could very easily be wrong. Second, that George Dunklin touted the survey conducted by UALR showing support for lifting of the ban. That may be true, though nobody I've talked to in person or other message boards was contacted as part of the survey, nor do they favor the return of spinners (at least publicly).

What George failed to say, though he referenced it by saying "some dissention", is that there was a firestorm of comments after the survey results were released, and Game and Fish asked for public comment right up to yesterday's meeting. George quoted a survey as the basis for his vote, but didn't even acknowledge the data collected between then and the Commission meeting.

Yes, we also got the two hens as allowed by the Fed, and three wood ducks. Basically, they took everything the Fed gave us.
 
[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] limit Mallards to 4, with only 1 hen allowed(Mi.)?

My answer to the 1 hen is to advise you to simply take a look at the great lakes mallard population. Seasons in MI are AHM like elsewhere but we don't get the prairie mallards so hunters by way of CWAC have chosen to limit the hen mallard take. Like the signature I saw elsewhere "Drakes and dead hens don't lay eggs." We could go into the stomped in the mud mistakes but that is beyond the point. I also thought for the past several years that woodies were able to take the punishment. After the first day they hide out where most don't go. I think that wood duck box placers should be damned proud we have them to this point. As for pinnies..... Cans one hell of a mistake counting is the educated guess and bluebills FWS is the protector of the resource and that is how they feel. I think they are full of crap. You headed down to Crane Creek sunday?
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Nope, every weekend possible I camp at the cabin with my grandson. What I was getting at in my iggerant rant was ...the scientists always approve crap like the motomojo's because it "has no negative impact on the resource" they also preach that hunting "has no negative impact on duck numbers" .If hunting "has no negative impact" then why can't the season be 107 days long with the same bag limits on all species as the Western states.Maybe a 107 day season like that would have a "positive" impact on the ducks since maybe we are letting too many shallow gene pool ducks populate the species. It's probably global warming anyway.
 
Our esteemed Game & Fish Commission gave in to the pressure from the Flyway Council and a portion of our hunting community today and lifted the ban on spinning wing decoys.

60-day season for the 12th year in a row. Have we ever had a Moderate or Restricted season since AHM began?

I'll post up the dates and limits here later, but I know we get no cans this year and only one bluebill, three wood ducks, and the mallard limit can include two hens this year instead of just one.
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Rick all I can say is that SUCKS! Read the article and its sad was in hope that soon all areas would follow suite and BAN the
spinning and whirling and crap. With the loss of all of the Nodakota CRP and grasslands I was speaking with one of the FEDS
in my shop the other day and in a few short years it could getr real bad like 80's bad again.....

SAD SAD SAD SAD.

Dave
 
From the conversation I had with the Fed I bet we will see the 45 days come back again sooner than we think or less???

Heck id hunt 45 days I normaly dont even like to start till oct 25 and normaly forzen out by thanksgiving anyways.

WHAT id really love to see come back is the old POINT SYSTEM.......
 
The point system was the worst thing ever, from a sciene perspective. What difference does the order taken make to the population? Normal law abiding people where basically encouraged to break the law by playing the order of ducks... add in a few friends and there was no reason not to shoot a hen, it was someones last duck.

2 hens will add TONS of hen mortailty. Because now if you don't know, a lot of folks don't shoot because they want their accidental hen left in case of a bonafide accident. With 2 hens, everyone will kill a hen, and then have one left for an accident.

Adding a woodduck is kinda werid too. Because woodducks are normally an all or nothing deal. Either you dont see one, or you could shoot then until you run out of shells. But if someone shoots em, they are soon gone usually, so I don't see it hurting near as bad as the 2 hen thing.

A lot of folks, shoot what comes by. Amazing how many people don't know how to id a duck on the wing. Same folks don't kill limits very often or at all. By adding hens and woodducks, your adding validty to that kind of shooter. Why would they make an effort to get better, when the laws are changing to encourage that?

Adding ANYTHING to arkieland without adding a pintail is insane. By far the most predominate duck for a large part of the season for most folks in the fields. travis
 
Travis my rig took 160 birds last season......... ONE MALLARD and yes it was a HEN and no I didnt kill it. I was going for a MALLARD FREE year
and antoher guy dumped her.

POINT SYSTEM for a DIVER hunter would be AWESOME if like the days of old that is.

10 point buffies
10 point ring necks
10 point Ge's
01 point COOTS!


Trash ducks you know

:) I dont mess with the puddlers much anymore just not excitement.

I remember when I was 16 and my buddie and I walked into Riverton after ditchin skew ealry. Walked in a in the timber and set up
both of us dumped what WE thoguht were mallard hens... walked all the way back to the parking lot with 100 points each to find out
they were young DRAKES lol................ we were new to duckin both of us but we followed the rules.

they took our area to 2 mallard hens 4 total I think last year or the year before stupid I think but what do i know.
3 woodies around here will be easy pickins early on. We raise lots of locals.
 
This may come as a shock but I'd rather shoot wood ducks then mallards. Wood duck have a growing population and an expanding range that is why they added one to the limit. Who'd of thought 20 years ago we'd have tons of them here in SD. I also doubt it is from nest boxes since I don't see many of them, and most I do see are death traps for hens, but from older maturing groves around farms.
I wish we got three woodies but with this stupid hunters choice limit we still get a can but only two woodies from a growing population. Makes sense.

I won't even get going on the one or two hen mallards thing. Just look at pond counts and breeding populations, one never goes up without the other going up no matter the year before.

Tim
 
How are ya?

What? Nothing on the spinners? Are ya getting mellowed out or what? I figured I would get a rise from you on it, one way or another...

Point system sucked. Interesting idea, but practically unenforceable and even more confusing than the current limit system.

As far as the two hens, I'm with you. I think with one hen only it forced people to be more careful, take their time, and really look. Maybe Game & Fish figures those extra hens are getting stomped into the mud anyway, might as well reduce the overall kill by making that "accident" a legal bird. Maybe they just got tired of fighting the Feds and the Flyway Council and decided to just go with the flow this year.

The three wood ducks? Don't really know, but I'm instinctively against it. There are days where you could shoot woodies until you ran out of shells, there are days where you get the heavy flight for the first ten or twenty minutes, and there are days where you just don't see many at all. The die-hard mallard hunters will still shoot the woodies as their "extra" ducks and hold out for the mallards later in the morning, but if we don't get a good mallard flight this year, the woodies are going to take a beating.

I'd be all for 2 pintails, as long as they said 0 hens, or maybe only 1 hen.

Forgot to ask...did you see many widgeon last year? I haven't seen many in a long time, but haven't hunted fields that much in the past several years at all. If you get a good drake and/or hen this year, throw them in the freezer for me...need study skins for decoy carving.
 
dave, i know clubs that kill 160 ducks in a day (well, they used too, a lot fewer these days). And those will be mallards. Double the allowed hens, you just killed a lot more, cause when you got birds like that you normally will pass on a hen to keep your accidental duck. But with 2 hens, everything dies in those early flight, sort em out on the bench. With the point system, gadwalls, widgeons, sprig, teal, where all 10 ducks a day.... or 9 a day plus that hen you popped early that morning. Thats where the problem lies, it did then and still does. If 6 a day wont make you happy, 10 wont either. Been there, done that.

tim id rather shoot teal than anything. But thats me. Ive always thought you ought to be given a poundage of ducks, so the smaller ones you could kill more! Maybe make a bag and all the ducks you could stuff in there would be your limit! hehe.

rick, Im better I reckon. Heck I know I am. Had a bad summer, including missing a week of work for having a stroke. Finally feel myself again lately, after not being myself for a long long time. 2 pintails,but no hens I dont think I would go for. Wouldnt belive at times how many hen pins we kill. We never kill one knowingly, but for some reason it seems to be THE accidental duck. They rarely fly with bulls, instead they fly with widgeon a lot of times and die because of it. When paired they fly with the bull pinnie and die with him a lot of time (wanna kill 2 ducks with one shot, a decoying pinnie out of a coffin blind with a hen behind him is almost a guarenteed accidental 2for...). I used to think the bulls outnumbered the hen from something genetic, but instead I think its because hen pintails just die a lot for no good reason. I killed and saw more hen pintails killed last year on accident than mallard hens, and thats no exageration. Many different people, many different scenarios, many places, so I know it happens on a regular basis. I can't remember anyone ever trying to kill one on purpose when they knew what it was, but they seem to die regularly. The mid foggy morning hen pintail sneak in and act like a widgeon is always a good one... lots of those die with EVERYONE in attendence sure it wasn't a pintail, but it is when the dog gets back.

Spinners.... they ought to be legal every 5 years. Then they'd work again, and for 4 years would could bitch about 'if we only had a moto'. The good stuff killed ducks with out them, the marginal stuff (the bleacher seats) kill ducks with motos... so lots of people thought they had the stuff (their place or theirselves) with motos, but really didn't. So people and places that didnt normally kill ducks, did with the motos. But they didnt work once everyone had them, so it was just more crap to fool with. With my 1 outta 5 plan, they'd work great, everyone could kill some ducks, and then have a perfectly good bitch for the next 4 years why they can't. truth is 1 outta 5 is better than a lot of folks have it, it might save this hoar of an industry from itself. motos dont work, because ducks see them too long, too far... same reason ducks are scared of motos is why they are scared of pits, deeks, calls, water, and daytime... too much pressure. We'd kill more ducks and have better hunts with 45 day seasons... but thats 1/4 of the season, a 1/4 of the day trips and guided hunts, 1/4 of lease prices 1/4 of the folks in macks parking lot etc... We'll never see anything BUT more seasons, more days, more ducks, till this hoar is dead. 3rd year in a row Ive heard things arent cool where the ducks grow, but I still got 60 days of duck hunting, to open my season to ducks that are spooky and scared of everything. Man they've seen it all when my season opens... from sept 1st till feb 1st, they seen deeks, motos, camera crews, new camo patterns, you name it. Arkielands new bring back the moto and lets kill some egg layers are just they're way to try to salvage what they can... until it crashes and the money gets out of it, it'll be add whatever you can. Its like working out a 2 week notice at burger king man, do what you want whats the worst that can happen.
biggest news for this duck season is $4 a gallon disel fuel. Lots of stuff wont be fixed up and pumped at that price. $1500 difference for pumping a field like mine with electric vrs diesel.... if I had to drop the extra cheese for diesel Id probably just let mine go, or wait for rain like I do with our other fields. If it stays dry, with farm diesel this high, expect folks with water to kill them hard early, and then everything go nocturnal real quick. We talked about adding another field on our farm, and taking a couple extra people in, but with the other stuff being diesel, I dont see it happening. Glad I got push button water. travis
 
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