Spring waterfowl hunting in Alaska

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wendell avery

Active member
On one of the Alaskan reality series I saw a guy hunting ducks in Alaska in the spring. I was curious so I looked up the regulations. There is a spring season for residents. They can use rifles, don't have to plug their shotguns, and can hunt 24 hours a day!
 
On one of the Alaskan reality series I saw a guy hunting ducks in Alaska in the spring. I was curious so I looked up the regulations. There is a spring season for residents. They can use rifles, don't have to plug their shotguns, and can hunt 24 hours a day!
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Yes only in the bush (off the road system in remote villages) AND they don't have to buy a duck stamp (bastards). I'm sure Ray can correct and expand if needed.
 
I wondered about the retrieving thing. Its not like he doesn't have a canoe.
Food must have been very scarse. He was way to happy having fresh shovelers to eat.

Tim
 
I've been off line for a little while. The skinny is that rural residents as determined by the Feds can participate in spring waterfowl hunting. The feds have a complicated process for determining if the community fits the rural definition. Many small towns on the Kenai do not, which gets them upset when a larger town off the road system is considered rural enough. Some are too close to major municipal areas to qualify. Some do not have a historic waterfowl use and thus are not allowed a spring season.

They have been trying hard to enforce the steel shot rules and the feds arrest a few natives each year. It does not help that the local store does not bring in steel shot, but they have been better at getting it in the last few years. Its stupid expensive as well. hard to swallow that cost when you make less than $5,000 a year which goes to heating oil to keep from dying in the winter.

the duck stamp rule change happened just a few years ago. Some places do not have a fall hunt due to there being few birds around come September, so folks don't buy stamps. Come May the next year the local contract post office has no stamps as they never ordered any. Natives struggle with internet access to order them. Our congressman for life Don Young put up a change to the laws and it was approved through the public process. I think it was the arrest/fining of a village mayor and corporation president that caused congressman Young to direct USFWS to change the law about duck stamps.

Since I am a city dweller I cannot participate in these hunts. My job takes me to some places when the spring season opens up and I have been invited to go shoot a boat load of ducks, but I just don't like prison that much. I have also found that the locals don't understand the laws. They think its open to all Alaskan residents, when it's not. A few years ago I was working in King Salmon and guys were down on the Naknek river below our work site killing ducks every morning. It was more than distracting.

As for shooting hours, well they are typically dawn till dusk so I am not sure how that would work with 24 hour daylight. Even in the sub arctic it's light enough to see ducks at 1am in early June.

On the Below Zero show on NatGeo keep an eye out for Chip Hailstone and his wife. They usually do a spring goose hunt when the rivers are still frozen but the tundra ridges are free of snow.
 
On the Below Zero show on NatGeo keep an eye out for Chip Hailstone and his wife. They usually do a spring goose hunt when the rivers are still frozen but the tundra ridges are free of snow.
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The only reason I will watch that show is to see the Hailstone family. They seem like the real deal out in the boonies living off of the land Alaskans. Almost as good as that Brown family on Alaskan Bush people. ;)

Tim
 
but I just don't like prison that much.
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Ray,
So you are saying you like prison some, just not "that much"? :>) :>) ( I am afraid to ask just what part you like. )
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The reach arounds in the shower aren't that bad once you get use to them. ;)
 
The only reason I will watch that show is to see the Hailstone family. They seem like the real deal out in the boonies living off of the land Alaskans. Almost as good as that Brown family on Alaskan Bush people. ;)

Tim
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Chip frequently posts to an Alaska based outdoors forum, including photos and stories of his life. That is how the NatGeo crew found him and asked if they could film their life. The crew has asked him to do some stuff at times that are very like other reality shows and he tells them no often because that is not how they do it and there is no valid reason to make stuff up. He is a no drama, no nonsense kind of guy.

And the Browns....they are Texans. And I just don't get it. Soon to be convicted criminals for financial fraud for the permanent fund, and fishing/hunting license fraud tied to the fund fraud.

And Alaska hunting TV in general this year is getting on my nerves. A federal conviction for one gang out of the SE US on federal Lacy act violations in a national preserve area, and now the Theresa Vail grizzly situation. Alaska is not the last frontier any longer and you cannot just make stuff up and not get caught.
 
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The only reason I will watch that show is to see the Hailstone family. They seem like the real deal out in the boonies living off of the land Alaskans. Almost as good as that Brown family on Alaskan Bush people. ;)

Tim
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And the Browns....they are Texans. And I just don't get it. Soon to be convicted criminals for financial fraud for the permanent fund, and fishing/hunting license fraud tied to the fund fraud.

And Alaska hunting TV in general this year is getting on my nerves. A federal conviction for one gang out of the SE US on federal Lacy act violations in a national preserve area, and now the Theresa Vail grizzly situation. Alaska is not the last frontier any longer and you cannot just make stuff up and not get caught.
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Sadly, I think this is all too common in the TV hunting genre. How about Ted Nugent, or the guy (can't remember the name) who was shooting banded ducks with a bb gun at city parks. I have twice participated in making fishing shows for TV, and can attest that if you do it within the law and don't fake the footage, it is extremely difficult to make exciting TV out of even quite good fishing. If you happen to schedule your filming for bad conditions--like the time a crew showed up the day after a 9 inch rain storm for dry fly fishing--its near impossible.

Heaven help anyone who scheduled a shoot on a Maine duck hunt this season.
 
Heaven help anyone who scheduled a shoot on a Maine duck hunt this season.
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My ex-wife's family lives up near Houlton. They are still dealing with lawn mowing rather than snow machine trail grooming.

Here in Anchorage I have two to three inches of snow in the yard. Strange times....
 
My friend was a fishing guide in CT. He was guiding stripers on an episode for a past bassmaster winner who had his own show. My friend would catch a striper, they would then put it on the "bassmaster's" rod and they would film him "catching" it.
 
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