Proposed new zones for 2016-2017 duck season

[BGcoreg]

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.

Yes that's what I was trying to get across^^^

[
QUOTE=Smalls;775284]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.



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.

Smalls I believe we had an early opener several years back, because the youth hunt fell on nov 1st and 2nd. I'll have to find the dates in my log book. So we would've opened the second weekend in Nov that year, which is basically what we are doing this year. But, that could've been when it was still just east and west zone. I'll also try to find the email or quote Courville where he said they shoot all of their birds early. Last year we did not have a "decent day"after Jan 5th in our marsh. Unless you like chasing scaup.