Quote:
Originally Posted by seachaser250
You can wiggle the dates and zones around all you want. If you don't get the big freeze north of LA the ducks just don't come down like they would if it did.
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Excellent point, and the foundation of my support for traditional dates in the Coastal Zone. In 2014, we set the seasons a week later, and we got a very early freeze pushing the birds into the state such that our November survey was the highest since 1995. In 2015, we set the season a week earlier, and the warm weather and excessive flooding up and down the flyway reduced our number of birds.
Leave the dates alone and just deal with the annual variation in weather and habitat conditions. The harvest data clearly show that on average, we kill lots of ducks in the Coastal Zone in November, and noticeably fewer by late-January (both total and birds/hunter). There is no magic formula to maximize kill every year, and no way to satisfy everyone every year.
Hell, our hunter-opinion surveys show those hunters who have hunted the longest, hunt the most, and kill the most ducks are the LEAST satisfied. But they won't quit.
Tough crowd .........