# Opening Day



## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

Anyone out today?


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

I was out combining wheat. Very few geese around. the 15 birds a limit has worked too well in my area. The biggest feed I saw was 7.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

The grandson wants to hunt for his birthday. I was out and checked the upper part of Pipestem where they normally hang out and there was four birds. Wow are they down around here.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

I encountered the same thing.

So this early season for controlling resident goose numbers is working!!!

this should be a feather in all hunters caps on how hunting can help control population.

I hope people don't start to complain and whine. Because this early season is meant to be an "eradication". It is a "special" hunt.

Anyways.... I wish everyone a good hunt and hunting season.


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

Is it the hunting or is it the farmers killing them in the spring. Probably both. So if reducing the population is working, should there still be a limit of 15 a day and have the season open on Aug 15?


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I don't know if I should have taken this serious, or if the guy was joking, or if the guy just wanted to irritate the hunter he was talking to. I was in Scheels and this farmer was buying 17 WSM shells. He was talking with a fellow purchasing things for the early season. He said the 17 WSM was the perfect goose gun and that he had killed 60 geese on his farm with it that summer. He was sort of in the guys face. I thought maybe they were friends and just poking at each other. He left and I asked the guy if that was a buddy of his. He said never seen the guy before in my life. I didn't know landowners could just kill geese at any time of year.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

Ken W.

I don't think the limit should be 15. It should be taken back down to 8 or even 5. Also to open the season on August 15th... I would leave that up to the biologists. That is what they get the big bucks for. I also know in other area's of the state there is no difference or even the population increases. Well this is what I have read. But the area I hunted you can definitely see the difference. But also in that area last year some farmers and Residents (hired by the farmers) were taking out geese with depredation permits.

I can see the farmers doing it. It is taking money away from them. But some of the residents that I talked too asked farmers to get the permits for them. I personally don't see the enjoyment of shooting geese that cant fly. I love the aspect of decoying, calling, and trying to out smart them to get them with in range. But again... to each their own.

Plainsman....

Yes the farmers still are getting depredation permits to kill the geese.... and I even think that you can use rifles... well smaller caliber. But I am not 100% on that.

Here are a couple more takes on the Early Season. Let me first preface that I am a NR. I have been doing the early season in ND since they opened it up to NR. I had a friend of the family I knew out there that never did any waterfowl hunting and his two boys wanted to get into it. I told him I would gladly introduce them to the world of waterfowl hunting. Well I created 2 unbelievable good hunters. the old the student has become the teacher is about 100% correct here. Anyways...&#8230; Now this year I saw more NR in my area this year than I have in the past 5-6 years. Reasons why....

1. 15 goose limit. People think if the limit is that high there must be birds everywhere. Which in some area's could be true.
2. Starting date of August 15th. Most other states early goose season starts Sept 1.
3. NDGF has videos out there asking for more hunters!

Again not trying to debate R vs NR. But those two things I mentioned above are reasons why you will see more NR's possibly hunting. Just food for thought. I was hunting when it counted against the regular season license.

Anyways....

I am still a firm believer that the Early goose season is working as a great management tool. It should be a feather in the cap of all hunters who participate. Also people need to learn that this wasn't meant to be for ever. But again if they do away with it.... the population will grow back to huge numbers again. So a decrease in bag limit would be a possible good thing, changing the starting date as well.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

The problem is many decisions are made by the legislators under the table. They don't want people to know they are behind it and the biologists keep their mouth shut or else. The 15 a day limit and asking for more hunters came first from the farmer to the legislator, then from the legislator to the biologist, but not in a fashion so anyone would notice.


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

Good post Chuck. Will be interesting to see if anything changes. Especially since the GNF on one of their webcasts says the State hatch this year is only 25% of normal.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

KEN W said:


> Is it the hunting or is it the farmers killing them in the spring. Probably both. So if reducing the population is working, should there still be a limit of 15 a day and have the season open on Aug 15?


Both is what is working. Don't quote me on this, but the farmers that I work with haven't recieved a depravation permit because they haven't need one because of the less geese. There are still a lot of farmers getting them, but I believe less are doing so.

Yes, the early season is working as desgined, but there are areas where it has worked and there are almost zero geese around and some areas where it hasn't worked. The areas it hasn't worked are areas where a lot of land is either leased up or the landowners don't allow hunting.

I think that the early season should be limited to 8 birds a day. I keep wondering how many of the birds that are shot are actaully getting used. I have cam across dead bird piles with very little effort to retreive the meat. The early season has created some issues as well. People hunting in fields with standing crops, hunting on cover crops, and people rutting up and getting stuck in no tilled fields after a lot of rain.

Push the season back from September 1-15 and count those days on NR's.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

> The areas it hasn't worked are areas where a lot of land is either leased up or the landowners don't allow hunting.


This is very accurate in anything that is trying to be managed by hunting. don't know an answer to help curb this.

But I know in my area for deer hunting in MN. Some people are complaining about deer/crop damage. Then when the DNR asks, "do you allow hunting"... it is either a "No" or "we lease the land". Well when 1 guy or group leases a whole track of land only looking for 1 buck or doesn't manage the herd. This will happen. You cant have your cake and eat it too. If people want to lease land it is fine but they shouldn't complain about crop damage to the DNR. they should complain to the people who they lease it too. Those people should be killing off deer.

Anyways this is a good thread with lots of ideas.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

I have zero problem with someone deciding what they want to do with their land. But they also shouldn't be the first people jump up and down and want a damn handout.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

I've had farmers ask me if I wanted to be on his depredation permit. I declined because I don't want to shoot geese I cant keep. Several claimed to have shot up to 100 geese per summer. Not many birds in my area either but I never saw a lot of nesting pairs either. Wondering if the early dry weather didn't push them north. Our lagoon usually has a pile of birds and only had a few nest this summer and i'm pretty sure the farmers in that area aren't shooting them.


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