Quote:
Originally Posted by BGcoreg
Me personally, do not have a huge problem with opening early in the coastal. It could be a crap shoot, but maybe not. Who knows. I do think it was fair to , I guess you could say "meet in the middle" as the traditional dates were proposed and not favor what the swla marsh guys wanted. Although I'm ok with it, I agree that it was wrong favoring one side.
And the more I think about all the public comment on here , other places and the comments at the meetings that are held around the state (yes I attended one this year) it shows it is up to commission in the end and they don't care about the public. Larry is doing a great job for us, he can only do as much. And he has done a lot already.
I believe when they vote on this next zone change the public is allowed (I think) at that meeting. Curious to see how many will go and let the commission know what ya think.
Also, I still think there are a ton of people who have 0 clue that the zone boundaries and dates are even debatable . A lot are not informed
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All LWFC Meetings are open to the public. If you look at the August Meeting Minutes, it was people representing major landowners in SWLA that made all of the comments about moving the opener up, or having more days in November and December.
I don't fault the land representatives for wanting what is best for their people, but I do fault the committee for taking the voices of the few and changing the season. There were even several charts included from past surveys that indicated later dates were preferred in the coastal zone.
If people are not happy with the dates and want earlier dates, they
should be responding to the surveys. When the
hunter surveys indicate that a later season is desired, and LDWF proposes the seasons as such, the commission should honor that.
I still don't understand where these guys came up with the idea that opening the first weekend of November was good. They keep claiming harvest data supports it. What harvest data? When has the season ever opened that early? Are they using the data that shows from Week 1 to Week 10 what the harvest is? How do they know that that will automatically correlate to better harvest numbers if you move up the season by 1 week? All you are doing is moving the pressure up. Survey numbers indicate more birds later in the season. I assume they do not believe the surveys are correct, and some of Courville's questions seem to be hinting at that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duck Butter
I hunt NE La and the zones and dates are fine with me. First split there is no water to hunt where I hunt. Only thing I will not like is getting SE La placed in the east zone and those guys griping in a year or two to change the dates. The dates are fine for us up there and the zones cant change but the dates can. I foresee a bunch of whining in a year or two from the SE La folks.
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Interestingly enough, the harvest numbers in SELA by week are pretty similar to SWLA, according to Larry's numbers. So I'm not sure why these guys want to be in the East Zone. I suppose they liked the later dates, and feel as though the coastal zone is going to continue to be set earlier than the other 2 zones.