fOR THE GOOSE HUNTERS

[crazy_cajun02]

  Topic: Goose Production - Not Good

    Posted: Today at 11:09am

I'm at the Flyway meeting in Spearfish, SD and the reports on just about all species of geese is poor to below average production across their entire range.  Appearently summer never came to the Artic this year (global warming must have taken a year off).  The only potentially good report was for WF in the Western Artic where things look decent.  We won't know for sure about WFs until late Sept after I get back from the suvey in Canada.

Cheers!

KK

this is from another board, just figured i pass on the info.

[crazy_cajun02]

Still a 3 bird canada limit for the east zone but we are going to a 4 bird bag for the west zone.  Short Grass Prairie canada geese have done good enough the past 3 years that we were able to add a bird to the bag this year.  If you recall the SGP population of canada geese was the only goose population in North America that was decreasing....looks like they have made the turn for now.

update on the goose regs for this upcoming year.

[crazy_cajun02]

Originally posted by Chuckwagon

Kevin, any chance of further discussion amongst the movers and shakers about changing the specklebelly season to run concurrent with duck or canada season?

Just so you know with the exception of some trying to take our 1 mottled duck away this is one of my biggest petpeeves with waterfowl regs in Texas.  We are openly and publicly opposed to season with in seasons on ducks and currently we have a darn season with in season on dark geese in the east zone.  I hate having it the way we do currently and personally wish you guys would let us go to 1 WF to level out the seasons......with that being said I do realize and fully understand why that is not prefereed by our goose hunters.  But, the solution to the issue I don't think is trading days from the beginning to the end so that the seasons close on the same day.  Some could and have made the argument that they would prefer that they all open the same day when it's not quite as cold and geese are less pressured etc.  By falling back on the data...we basically went with the later because peak WF populations in Texas occur early and not late.  Data has shown is some years we loose greater that 50% WFs in Texas from October to January.  We continue to try and maximize hunter opportunity and harvest as much as the frameworks allow.  We always are open to suggestions and actually do listen to them....ie. - hunting till the end of allowable frameworks....two WF instead of one etc.  If we get significant comments on doing as you suggest it could happen.  Prior to the August commission meeting we take comments via the web as well as phone in to Dave or Vernon.  Thoughts??

[crazy_cajun02]

The one thing I can assure you on is we will always fight for our coastal goose hunters to shoot your 2 specks a day.  I'll visit with Dave and Vernon this evening over some adult drinks in the hospitality room about this as see what we can do.  The one really good point made is there really aren't many canadas in the country the first week of November so that leaves two potential options.....SWS on dark geese either late or early.....or wack 7 days off the canada goose season completely and open the dark goose season a week later?????  That would only allow you to shoot snows and ducks the first week of November?? 

[crazy_cajun02]

We would have to adjust some part of the season by 14 days not 7 as I previously stated.  That is a lot of good speck hunting taken off the front of the season when they are most abundant.  The real answer is for WFs to rebound to a 3 year running average exceeding 800,000!  We'll get our 14 days back.  This is a good example of how difficult this process is and how there really is not fix all.  But we are listening!