Geese

[johnr]

Goose is neat

 

[Account Deleted]

I need a whole lot more duckfat and those corn fed fatties would be perfect.

 

[snowkiller]

Still Thousands of geese near deepwater,garrison,wolf creek,hazen bay,beulah bay.I say this every year, they want to thin the population then lets us hunt them later

 

[Gus]

Agree 110%. Is nd game and fish in charge of migratory bird season or is this the Feds? Whom ever it is they need to re-evaluate the season......

 

[Account Deleted]

Agree 110%. Is nd game and fish in charge of migratory bird season or is this the Feds? Whom ever it is they need to re-evaluate the season......

The Feds allocate the number, the state sets the season. Not sure exactly how it works for the depredation (early/resident) Canada goose seasons. Logic would dictate that hunters should harvest the geese before they do any damage. By August, when the season starts, the damage is long done. However, I have no idea if the geese that are here now are the ones dispersing to all the potholes in April and May to nest. I think a study is in order.

 

[Kickemup]

Feds set the first day a season can open and for how long. I wish early goose opened 2 week's later and ran for a month and do the same with regular season run that 2 week's later.

 

[Trip McNeely]

a spring season would be effective but they wont go for it because of the extra harrasment on nesting ducks and other birds. plus sd already tried and failed at a spring canada season. moving the entire framework of seasons back a week or two would be most logical but then the teal and wood duck hunters would raise holy hell. not to mention all the nr pheasant hunters who would now have to choose between pheasant or ducks. mother nature giveth and she taketh. not that many years ago we only wintered 9000 birds. i remember hunting the last two wkends if the season and you were hard oressed to find birds much less gain access. anything left was using standing corn either left or drifted in on the headlands. this year was an abnirmally warm fall esp. early dec when most short grass prairie geese from canada arrive. alot of the geese you see now arent even our local birds but another subspecies that nests in canada. the prndullum will swing back the other way soon enough

 

[guywhofishes]

Doves should start August 1.

Just sayin'.

 

[zoops]

a spring season would be effective but they wont go for it because of the extra harrasment on nesting ducks and other birds. plus sd already tried and failed at a spring canada season. moving the entire framework of seasons back a week or two would be most logical but then the teal and wood duck hunters would raise holy hell. not to mention all the nr pheasant hunters who would now have to choose between pheasant or ducks. mother nature giveth and she taketh. not that many years ago we only wintered 9000 birds. i remember hunting the last two wkends if the season and you were hard oressed to find birds much less gain access. anything left was using standing corn either left or drifted in on the headlands. this year was an abnirmally warm fall esp. early dec when most short grass prairie geese from canada arrive. alot of the geese you see now arent even our local birds but another subspecies that nests in canada. the prndullum will swing back the other way soon enough

Bingo. I'd be fine with the season going into January more but the season is already pretty long as it is. I don't think the majority of hunters would give up days in October to add them in January. So I guess it would be up to the Feds to give us more days to use at the back end of the season, which could happen I suppose but unlikely since they'd probably have to do it for the whole flyway.

 

[NodakBuckeye]

Only problem with a change is as soon as it takes effect then things change and we wish we were back to the way it was. In Ohio our goose/duck season was split. Had 2-3 weeks starting in late October, close well before Thanksgiving then open in December and run until the end of January. Some years ducks went out the same day as geese and some ducks went out the weekend prior. In general it was always a cluster. 2 geese a day too. The season and bag limits here blow me away.

I 2nd doves in August!

 

[eyexer]

I could eat grilled honker breast two days a week all year.

 

[jdinny]

Trip and zoops are correct. When we (ND) saw out bag limits increased to 5 and 8 for river and non river it was recommended by the central flyway council and the majority of states bumped limits up. Not just ND. Harvesting limits in Janurary will have minimal effect as trip said were shooting overwhelming the short and tall grass prairie nesters from Canada. Sure some locals are shot but not nearly as many as in aug, sept and oct. I beleive trip is referring to winter of 10-11" and I beleive the midwinter survey was 7,600 Canada's is all. Mother Nature will certainly swing her back.

 

[Traxion]

We have the late option in some areas of SD. But you can't even start hunting those areas until early November. Seems like that would be a huge gamble for you guys up there.

The late hunting like others have said have no impact on the local population of geese.

Hopefully this cold weather coming pushes a bunch down. We need birds down here bad.........

 

[ifish4iz]

How many dark geese are actually shot in the regular season Missouri River Zone before Oct 15? Before Oct 31? Aside from the early local birds that are hunted in Aug and Sept, IMHO there are very minimal oppurtunities in this part of the state to hunt dark geese in early October. The local birds that are left are very difficult to hunt as they have been chased for the past month or better and there are very few new birds migrating by that time (aside from a trickle of lessers). Taking two weeks off of that front end and moving those days into January would allow significantly more hunter opportunities. I realize that we are talking a totally different species of Canada geese between those time periods, so if there is some scientific evidence that shows the prairie grass populations that we have later in the year are of concern, I would agree to leave it as it is. I don't think that an even more modified split season for the Missouri River zone would not be that difficult to understand for hunters or that difficult to enforce.

One other concern is that landowners may be tired of the phone calls and ringing doorbells that many have had since August. Many don't care, but I'm sure some are ready for the year to be done.

I respectfully disagree with what some of you guys mean about mother nature shifting back to the way it was. Farming practices in Canada and the US, changing climates, significantly more birds, less pressure in the northern portions of the flyway all factor into a later migration. Yes, we (or prairie Canada) may get a blizzard in mid to late October some years, but these birds will not leave areas until either a)their roost freezes or b) food sources are covered by snow beyond their abilities to feed (which needs to be extreme for these hardy buggers).

I, and many others that I know, have discussed this with the Game and Fish Dept, but they have been resistant to changes.

 

[Trip McNeely]

some good points fish. I tend to agree with most of what you are saying, however the 2 things that might not allow that to work are; 1) a good number of landowners I know do in fact get pretty tired of getting hounded from august to january. weekends are one thing but a lot of guys hunt late season during the week and I know it gets tiresome for a good number of landowners getting asked daily. Especially during the holidays. 2) there are still a fair amount of opportunity for geese in oct in the Missouri river zone. I agree the birds can get stale but early oct you may still be catching some late molters and by mid-late oct small geese are beginning to arrive.Not to mention if we would get one of those once in while years and the specks stage in ND, itd be nice to not have worry about popping a lesser mixed in. Not the greatest of opportunitys I agree but if you close the MRZ down for 2 weeks it would send hunters into other areas increasing the pressure in the rest of the state, and Oct. from what I've seen the last couple years has plenty of pressure state-wide. Some hunters, like myself, like to find those small forgotten about pockets of local birds hidden in the hills to get away from the shit show in Oct. also in some years a portion of the MRZ can boast pretty sizable groups of lessers by mid October. One other thing that jumps out at me is the later the season runs the smaller the area to late season hunt gets. In years like this fall, the lake being open keeps birds around and feeding north of the lake as well as using different flight paths to get to feeds to the south. This opens up a larger area of hunting opportunity. Once the lake freezes and river freezes up from the south the area to hunt shrinks, as well as number of fields holding geese. I guess you would have to weigh the options of potentially limited opportunity later in the year if we had a normal fall VS. a warm fall with a lot of opportunity late into the season. VS. marginal opportunity earlier in the season that would help spread out pressure and put pressure on local geese. I could care less either way but by Jan 1st I m ready to be done hunting for the year.

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We have the late option in some areas of SD. But you can't even start hunting those areas until early November. Seems like that would be a huge gamble for you guys up there.

The late hunting like others have said have no impact on the local population of geese.

Hopefully this cold weather coming pushes a bunch down. We need birds down here bad.........

I would think a few should be heading your way by the end of the weekend.

 

[ifish4iz]

It really boils down to the goal of the ND game and fish and the US Fish and Wildlife service. If the goal is hunter opportunity or to manage the prairie grass populations, then hunting into January would be a viable option. I think they have already answered those questions to some extent by closing the early season a week earlier in the Missouri River zone and giving us that extra week after xmas.
I would have to agree with you Trip, that I am also usually ready to be done as well. There would probably be a spike in divorce rates in the Missouri River zone if we had two more weeks! But for those young gunners out there, opportunities in January would be great in most years.
I think many of us old timers are so used to the birds being gone before the season closed (as was the case 20+ years ago), that we think we should be able to hunt them as long as they are here. We don't hunt pheasants, deer or other resident species year round just because they are here, but to see these migratory birds hunted well into January further south makes us wonder, why not us too?
For those of you that didn't catch Tom Jensens weekly game and fish report on tv last night, it was regarding this topic. Mike Szymanski eluded to the changing climate and later migration. It sounded like upwards of 200k birds are left in the state. That may well be an extreme with our mild fall, but 10k a few years ago was also an extreme. In the vast majority of the last 7 years or so there has definitely been huntable numbers left after season closed.

 

[Trip McNeely]

some good points fish. i agree with the divorce rate thing too! another week or two would probably put my wife over the top and i walk a fine line by mid-december the way it is! im in agreement with your line of thinking. i would like to see the season moved back a week all together across the board. that way they wouldnt have to mess with anything other than opening dates. plus we would get the same number of hunting days and not all have to get divorces!

 

[Account Deleted]

Good to see some other folks looking into this. My my conversations with the Game and Fish, the problem with ND waterfowl hunting has become glaringly obvious and there is no comfortable solution. Quite simply, there are too many hunters for the resource. Yes, if you look at the just number of birds, there are plenty to go around. But, if you see how those birds are dispersed it paints a better picture.

 

[arrowdem]

Doves should start August 1.

Just sayin'.

i agree! the birds are gone by the time it seems i can get after them only got out 3-4 times this fall.. not nearly enough!

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;:;hijacked

 

[guywhofishes]

Anybody know if the Feds control the Sept. 1 date? In other words is it even worth trying to get NDGF to consider an earlier season or are their hands tied?