[Crash]

With all the talk about the loss of CRP land on the nesting grounds, should the feds go ahead and lower the daily bag limits before the loss of habitat takes its toll on the duck #'s?

I'm not sure how long the loss of nesting habitat will take to make an impact, but I'm pretty sure it won't take long.

 

[apexhunter]

OOOHHHHHHH they will once they see breeding pair numbers reducing. Believe me they are watching the breeding grounds like a hawk and we'll be the first to know when the numbers reduce by having lower limits.

 

[watrswatr]

What we really need is 3 ducks and 30 days. 1 split.

 

[Botiz630]

i think that they should lower the limit. i would rather take a lower limit now then have to stop hunting ducks in the future cause we didnt take care of the resource

 

[pintaleslayer]

i think they sould do something

 

[trigger22]

i dont think there is anything wrong with the limits set forth for us. i do however think that there should be better enforcement of the rules. the limits are already low enough as it is, and we as ethical hunters are not posing any harm to the waterfowl population. more birds are killed every year due to natural predation and habitat loss than hunters

 

[pintaleslayer]

i dont think there is anything wrong with the limits set forth for us. i do however think that there should be better enforcement of the rules. the limits are already low enough as it is, and we as ethical hunters are not posing any harm to the waterfowl population. more birds are killed every year due to natural predation and habitat loss than hunters

are you joking.....i bet you killed 2 limits this year instead of the measly one limit like years past.... so that leads you to think duck #'s are just fine...guess what there not

 

[trigger22]

jokes on you pintale, i killed far more than 2 limits this year. i didnt shoot a limit of birds everytime out, but killed my share.

 

[EastBound&Down]

i dont think there is anything wrong with the limits set forth for us. i do however think that there should be better enforcement of the rules. the limits are already low enough as it is, and we as ethical hunters are not posing any harm to the waterfowl population. more birds are killed every year due to natural predation and habitat loss than hunters

are you joking.....i bet you killed 2 limits this year instead of the measly one limit like years past.... so that leads you to think duck #'s are just fine...guess what there not

This past season was my best in 15 years with the year before coming in at a close second. I put in more than my fair share of time and money towards conservation and from my end the population seems to be stable or could it be that maybe I am just getting better :biggrin:

 

[Crash]

i dont think there is anything wrong with the limits set forth for us.

You are probably right, but will the feds make the adjustment fast enough to steady the population w/ the loss of CRP habitat or will us sportsmen have to cut back some to help support the effort?

This past season was my best in 15 years with the year before coming in at a close second.

I heard that from one or two others EB&D. I think ya'll just had a real nice spot. 90% of the folks I spoke w/ this year said this was one of the worst years on record. I know I killed less this year than in years past. My best season on record was the '97-'98 season. When you look at the USF&W breeding chart, that was a peak year. This year was down on the chart.

 

[trigger22]

I agree EB&D i killed a whole lot more birds this year than last and more birds than any since the 2003 season in NC. 2003 was the year that I started huntiing in NC and was a great season. after that it seemed to slack up a little bit. last year it picked up some, but this year it seemed like there were birds all over the place. may days i killed limits and many more i should have but didnt shoot the best in the world. I did put in a whole lot of time a whole lot of effort this season, probably 3 times as much as any of the others so that could have been my big improvement right there. but it just seemed to be more ducks than years past.

 

[EastBound&Down]

This past season was my best in 15 years with the year before coming in at a close second.

I heard that from one or two others EB&D. I think ya'll just had a real nice spot. 90% of the folks I spoke w/ this year said this was one of the worst years on record. I know I killed less this year than in years past. My best season on record was the '97-'98 season. When you look at the USF&W breeding chart, that was a peak year. This year was down on the chart.

98% of last seasons shooting was done on about 6 different public spots because private land never held water or birds. Lots of early mornings, long days in the field, and hard hunting = a successful season

 

[Pillowcasr]

I too had a banner year, Sounds like you didn't Crash.

I hunted all public land too.

As for limits, we need to go back to the point system.

 

[patrick Eubanks]

I think lowering it to 3 would be just about right. At least I could say I limited out. I probably averaged three per hunt.
East Coast is from my neck of the woods. I think I am going to start following him. He's obviously not hunting pamlico sound.
the season did pick up the last week on Core sound but from the middle of december until the last week, they were somewhere else.

 

[pintaleslayer]

i dont think there is anything wrong with the limits set forth for us. i do however think that there should be better enforcement of the rules. the limits are already low enough as it is, and we as ethical hunters are not posing any harm to the waterfowl population. more birds are killed every year due to natural predation and habitat loss than hunters

are you joking.....i bet you killed 2 limits this year instead of the measly one limit like years past.... so that leads you to think duck #'s are just fine...guess what there not

This past season was my best in 15 years with the year before coming in at a close second. I put in more than my fair share of time and money towards conservation and from my end the population seems to be stable or could it be that maybe I am just getting better :biggrin:

you cant count all the water witches an coots you killed this year can you? :rofl:

 

[Drop Zone]

The way it is right now in NC we can pretty much hunt when we want, where we want and if we are good and lucky at the same time we can take 6 ducks. I like being able to hunt when I want and where I want and to be able to take 6 ducks when the stars line up... but the fact of the matter is something needs to be done, and it's not necessary to reduce limits if we increase habitat. I've seen a lot of you talk about the "food" problem on the baiting threads...now I'm not talking about baiting here, I'm saying that maybe if the NCWRC made a better effort to provide food for wildlife on our public lands then maybe we would have more ducks, quail, healthier deer, more turky's etc... IMO this is the root of the problem. We can put as many band aids we want to on it but that is just a temporary solution. If we as hunters don't find a way to help the NCWRC improve the habitat we do have by creating better feeding/breeding grounds then we WILL have to reduce bag limits...and that is just a band aid. Maybe a better solution would be to figure out a way for the NCWRC to either make more money in order to do this or to better allocate their funds. Either way, if we don't solve the problem at the root then the problem will just keep coming back and get worse each time it does come back. I would be willing to pay an extra $50/year to duck hunt if I knew that the NCWRC was putting that money into habitat... Bottom line is we have to protect the habitat we have and we have to do more to improve it by planting food sources. How many guided hunts have you gone on, for deer, turkeys ducks, etc where the landowner has not done something on the land to make it more attractive to wildlife??? If you owned a 10,000 acre piece of land would you do something to make it more attractive to wildlife??? Of course you would, so what I am saying is that our public hunting land should be treated the same way and the NCWRC can not do it without the financial support of hunters. Decreasing bag limits is the lazy man's way of putting a band aid on the problem instead of actually solving it. I'm not calling anyone here lazy so don't take it that way, just saying that there is a much better way to solve the problem than reducing bag limits. Just my 35 cents.

 

[pintaleslayer]

i agree more habitat is needed that's for sure but habitat should mean more food......the Atlantic flyway especially north carolina has lost the food ducks need too eat.......in all reality ducks don't even know were NC is anymore cause there isn't any thing here too hold big # of birds......

 

[Drop Zone]

i agree more habitat is needed that's for sure but habitat should mean more food......the Atlantic flyway especially north carolina has lost the food ducks need too eat.......in all reality ducks don't even know were NC is anymore cause there isn't any thing here too hold big # of birds......

There is plenty of public hunting land that has very little food on it. If we improved the habitat we already have we would be doing way more for the ducks than we would by lowering the bag limits.

Example for the public lakes and swamps: Plant a lot of the shoreline and shallow flats in a food source when the water level drops in the summer.... Just one of numerous things we could do to improve the habitat we currently have.

 

[Crash]

I too had a banner year, Sounds like you didn't Crash.

Pillow, I hunt 90% of the time on private land. I have access to several diffrent impoundments and all have been off since we started.

I think we're getting a little off track of the subject of this thread:

Costs in grasslands plowed, wetlands drained will be steep
By Tony Dean
For the Argus Leader
Published: January 30, 2008

Ducks Unlimited released a report last week that showed contracts for CRP in Minnesota for nearly 600,000 acres of land enrolled in CRP will be released in 2010. In North Dakota, about one-third of the contracts will also expire then, but that was before North Dakota officials got over the shock of already losing some 400,000 acres.

All told, say DU officials, about 4.5 million acres of CRP will expire in Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas within five years, and that's roughly one-third of the CRP grasslands in the prairie pothole region, which encompasses the most important duck breeding grounds on the continent.

The rest of the article is in the conservation forum.

To sum it up, I don't care how good a season you had last year, things are gonna get worse before they get better. If the USF&W knows about the loss of breeding land, shouldn't they go ahead and lower the limits now? I say yes!!!

If we improved the habitat we already have we would be doing way more for the ducks than we would by lowering the bag limits.

DZ, My only concern is we can do all kinds of projects here in our wintering grounds, but if the breeding grounds are deminished, why bother. There are some 400 corn impoundments in Hyde Co that arn't even being utilized.

 

[Drop Zone]

Crash...this is not just a local problem. My theory applys world wide. Liek I said we can solve the problem or we can band aid it for a while until the problem goes away by itself....I mean when your bag limit goes to zero. This would not happen in our lifetimes but if we don't SOLVE the problem then it will eventually happen.

Lets look at ducks like dollar bills...

If money is tight and you are strugling you have 2 choices...make more money or spend less. If you choose to spend less and hope that you can make more in the future you are only finding a temporary solution. If you spend less and bust your hump to go out and make more money then you are solving the problem at the "root". Then you can go back to your original spending habits b/c you have found a way to earn more money. Both decisions will probably get you by in the end, but one is just more fruitful and perminent than the other.

So maybe the solution is to temporarily reduce bag limits...but if you don't improve the habitat we currently have then don't ever expect the bag limits to be increased perminantly.

Now let's look at ducks like dirt... If you plant a field in corn for 5 years in a row without adding any lime or fertilizer, what are you going to do about the loss of crops? Eat less corn or fertilize your field???? Eating less corn would work but fertilizing the field would be better.

Just my 15 cents...I think I'm almost up to a dollar now so....off to make more money. See ya later. :thumbsup: