# All Day Hunting Wed and Sat



## schlag (Jan 25, 2006)

Is it jut me or nobody see the the 2007 Waterfowl season Proposal from the Governor? It calls for all day hunting ALL geese on Wed and Sat. Not just Whitefronts and Canadas like before. It is not like they blow out of the state anymore as they never even get here until late October. One big push of weather and then there gone. Should make a couple of good evening hunts this fall.


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## fungalsnowgoose (Sep 11, 2004)

Or it could let everyone jump them right out of the state on Saturdays and Wednesdays. This is a bad idea IMO


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

I'm sorry, but I think it would be absolutely ridiculous to think that an extra 4 days is going to make that big of a difference. Now we can hunt more like the spring where you get near a roost, really blind up well, and sit in your spread all day when they are migrating. We're only talking about an extra 20 hours of shooting time total when the snows are here.

October 27th through November 9th:

October 27th shooting hours 7:48am-1pm= 5 hours 12 minutes
Plus 1pm-6:36pm= 5 hours 36 minutes
October 28th shooting hours 7:49am-1pm= 5 hours 11 minutes
October 29th shooting hours 7:51am-1pm= 5 hours 9 minutes
October 30th shooting hours 7:52am-1pm= 5 hours 8 minutes
October 31st shooting hours 7:54am-1pm= 5 hours 6 minutes
Plus 1pm-6:29pm= 5 hours 29 minutes
November 1st shooting hours 7:55am-1pm= 5 hours 5 minutes
November 2nd shooting hours 7:57am-1pm= 5 hours 3 minutes
November 3rd shooting hours 7:58am-1pm= 5 hours 2 minutes
Plus 1pm-6:25pm= 5 hours 25 minutes
November 4th shooting hours 6:59am-2pm= 7 hours 1 minute
November 5th shooting hours 7:01am-2pm= 6 hours 59 minutes
November 6th shooting hours 7:02am-2pm= 6 hours 58 minutes
November 7th shooting hours 7:04am-2pm= 6 hours 56 minutes
Plus 2pm-5:19pm= 3 hours 19 minutes
November 8th shooting hours 7:05am-2pm= 6 hours 55 minutes
November 9th shooting hours 7:07am-2pm= 6 hours 53 minutes

19 hours 49 minutes added to the 82 hours 38 minutes we currently could hunt snows

Compare that to the 336 hours they spend in the state we only added 5 percent more pressure. They currently spend 25 percent of their time worried about hunters now they spend 30 percent. It still seems pretty light considering how many people are going to actually chase them in the afternoons.


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## fungalsnowgoose (Sep 11, 2004)

What if it's like last year though? Where we started shooting birds October 13th and kept shooting them through the 17th of November? Thats a lot more pressure than 19 hours. It's just a bad idea IMO and everyone is entitled to that.


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

I'm talking about the majority of the birds. We shot snows opening week of regular waterfowl, but who really cares if a thousand birds get pressured out of the state. I think most would agree that the majority of the birds didn't even stop in the state last year, so the extended hours would have been more of a benefit last season to get some extra opportunity with what little opportunity we had.


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## schlag (Jan 25, 2006)

Lately it seems the weather only forces them out of Canada. They don't leave from the all day hunting up there. Granted the all day hunting start well after the season starts.


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## cgreeny (Apr 21, 2004)

I will agree that it seems the weather dictates what the birds are going to do more than the hunting pressure. Out in the NW part of the state last fall the birds had just started to arrive from Saskatchewan, when we got 6 inches of snow there goes snow goose season. So no I dont think pressure will be an issue for snow geese. Yes pressure pushes the ducks around, but alot of times its because the ducks will roost in sloughs and potholes nearby their feeding fileds, but hell snows will fly 20 miles to feed if they decide too. just my opinion, so Im glad they are going to allow us extra opportunities for a crack at some snow geese this fall


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## goosehunter21 (May 18, 2004)

The hunting in the afternoon probably wouldn't be that big of deal if everyone was decoying. but when a jumper sees a roost of snows driving around at 4 in the afternoon...now he can go jump that roost, which is going to happen a lot. Most people dont care about this because they dont decoy snows in the fall, but for those that do decoy in the fall this is going to really make the birds wary. 
As for goosebuster saying that this will only add 20 hours to the season...I don't know were you hunt but we were hunting flocks of over 10,000 from the middle of october till Thanksgiving weekend? Check the math that is way over 20 more hours.


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

Well, let's see I hunt mainly in the exact central part of the state and North of Devils Lake. Still if you think the majority of the birds were in North Dakota from the middle of October through Thanksgiving weekend, I want some of those brownies that you are eating :lol: . Seriously though, I know birds stuck around. I hunted them all through November. I'm talking about the MAIN migration. I seriously doubt that 10,000 were in every cornfield. I saw the grand migration last year when it snowed six inches at the end of October.


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## Leo Porcello (Jul 10, 2003)

goosebusters said:


> I saw the grand migration last year when it snowed six inches at the end of October.


Me too and they were about 10 yards out! :beer:


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## fungalsnowgoose (Sep 11, 2004)

I hunted in the roughly the same area and saw large flocks that were huntable from the 13th until our last hunt on November 17th. We tried this alld ay hunting before and I remember it being some of the hardest snow goose hunting years.


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## Dave Owens (Nov 11, 2002)

This will be my 31 st season hunting and I agree all day hunting for ducks or geese is a bad thing. Back in the 70's the northern half of the state hosted a huge chunk of the snow goose flight by Oct 1. It was good through the 80's but started to stink in the late 90's and still hasn't recovered. The worst ever was the all day hunt years.


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## goosehunter21 (May 18, 2004)

Goosebusters Wrote:
Seriously though, I know birds stuck around. I hunted them all through November. I'm talking about the MAIN migration. I seriously doubt that 10,000 were in every cornfield. I saw the grand migration last year when it snowed six inches at the end of October 
[/quote]

Who says there has to be 10000 in every corn field for all day hunting to have a negative impact. All day hunting is going to make it so you the birds cant sit long enough to even reach a number greater than 10,000...There is a reason they have all day hunting in the spring and that is to get the birds worn out...I just don't think this is going to have a postive impact at all. Those small pockets that have stuck around in the past I don't think will stick around with the pressure if they are getting jumped around all day.


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## fungalsnowgoose (Sep 11, 2004)

Another thing to remember is that birds Jumped in the spring can only move as far north as the snow line will let them. Birds jumped in the fall, well they can go as far south as they want.


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## deacon (Sep 12, 2003)

All day hunting is just another reason for the birds to stay in Canada. In the 80's and early 90's when there was no all day hunting for geese the number of snows in ND was awesome.


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## Dekes (Aug 21, 2004)

The guy that said they used to hunt snow geese from opening day until freeze up and can no longer do that because of two days a week of all day hunting obviously has not been to Canada. They all day hunting in North Dakota has nothing to do with it, the geese stay up in Saskatchewan until the weather drives them out. On top of that east of 106 longitude in Saskatchewan there is all day hunting for snow geese all season and that doesn't move them. Weather and feed are by far the over riding factors in determining whether snows stay in an area.


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## goosebusters (Jan 12, 2006)

deacon said:


> All day hunting is just another reason for the birds to stay in Canada. In the 80's and early 90's when there was no all day hunting for geese the number of snows in ND was awesome.


I'm guessing the biggest reason would be the extra 30,000 hunters that hunt here every year now.


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## Leo Porcello (Jul 10, 2003)

I may be wrong but I thought it was due to the dams they put up in Canada??


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## dblkluk (Oct 3, 2002)

> I may be wrong but I thought it was due to the dams they put up in Canada??


That has always been a rumor. But from what I'm told very few birds stage on the Rafferty and Alemeda dams in Sask.
If it were the main reason for the lack of snow geese staging throughout ND. Those two dams would be holding millions of geese most of the season, and thats just not the case.
I've always held onto the theory that snow geese are very adaptive creatures and I'm never going to figure them out...

I've heard the old timers tell stories of when the snow goose migrations never made it further west than Devils lake, so change is the one constant of snow geese.


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## Leo Porcello (Jul 10, 2003)

Well I'll be damed!! hahaha Get it???

I guess I will keep my day job.


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## fungalsnowgoose (Sep 11, 2004)

I agree with the hunting pressure go scout a flock of snow geese some morning it's darn near impossible to find a flock sitting on the ground without somone harrassing them. If you open this to all day a few days of the week it's just going to be worse.

Where as Canada you don't have anywhere near the pressure (except for a few small areas)


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## Dave Owens (Nov 11, 2002)

During the migration south each fall the geese stop to rest, eat and drink around 1/2 way between the tundra and the gulf. ND has plenty of food but is little short on the rest thing. The geese moved west during the late 70's early 80's from the Devils Lake area to the 3 big refuges ( Upham, Mohall, Kenmare ). They did this as they found a place to rest undisturbed and the hunting pressure was light. As the limits were increased, hunting pressure increased and the geese had a hard time getting a good breakfast. Eventually the geese moved north during the 90's finding a nice hotel and good eats.

The geese have simply adapted to the enviroment. Now the majority come here when the water gets hard and the ground white up north causing a real problem with the drinking and eating thing.


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