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Originally Posted by redaddiction
Federal law doesn't allow for hunting after Jan 31st.
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Actually, it doesn't allow hunting after the last Sunday in January.
Unless duck populations decline and we go into the "Restrictive" package, which is 30-days and 3-ducks. Under those conditions, we can't hunt any later than the Sunday nearest January 20.
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Originally Posted by speck-addict
Call me crazy but I strongly believe that the coastal zone should be the last area in the Mississippi flyway to open...it's literally the most southern part.
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But it gets migrants first. The coastal marshes are a much more predictable habitat for migrating birds, and always has water compared to the un-predictable nature of the forested wetlands and fields of NE LA.
That is why since 1975, the first year that states were allowed to have zones, the old West Zone (which included almost all of what is now the Coastal Zone) has opened earlier than the East Zone. And because far more mallards use the forested wetlands and fields of NE Louisiana, and they tend to migrate later, the East Zone has always run later than the old West Zone.
It's hardly all or nothing; there is lots of overlap; but it is not reasonable for the Coastal Zone to open or close later than the East Zone simply because of the migratory trends of the species that winter there.