# HUNTER'S CHOICE



## marlin&amp;mallards (Jun 8, 2009)

what's word on hunter's choice this year ? wasn't it up for review this year ?


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## cgreeny (Apr 21, 2004)

I havent heard anything on it, but I think its a joke if they play it off that it was one of the main reasons ducks are on the big rebound, that had to do with the a$$load of precip over the winter and spring. I think alot of hens and or pintails were stashed into the rock piles for fear of a ticket for over the limit. I think it should be left at one hen and one pinny or Can, like it used to be. Otherwise those things are going to happen. There is my 2 cents.


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## Matt Jones (Mar 6, 2002)

The 3-year experiment is over. Unless the whole flyway does it, there's no reason ND should.


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

I would agree with Matt on it not likely this year, but I would not be surprised to see it be implemented across all the flyways in the future. Two of the biggest reasons is that it gets rid of the season within a season, and would allow for seasons to remain open on some species which otherwise may not like Cans and even possibly pintails down the road.

I know it is a struggle on early season birds, but having hunted with it over the past years, I cannot say it had a negative affect on our hunting.


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## barebackjack (Sep 5, 2006)

It sure makes ditch piggin harder!


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## YashigreatfowlhunterMN (Jul 15, 2009)

nothing wrong with jumping them while in the slough. Especially if they are on the shore and you don't have a dog. Just pound em and pick em up.


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## Matt Jones (Mar 6, 2002)

barebackjack said:


> It sure makes ditch piggin harder!


I'd say it makes the half-hour-before-sunrise field set-up a lot harder than it makes jump shooting when it comes to ID'ing them on the wing.

Let's be honest, due to hunter's choice there were more tickets written for illegal ducks shot then under the old regs. Sad but true. I'm not going to advocate ignorance as an excuse but for your casual hunters (90% of the people who buy a license) HC was very difficult to comply with.

I think they'd work great down south. It does seem odd that north of the border you can blaze away and shoot 8 hens, if that's how they fall...and just south of the border, shooting at ducks in the same plumage, that would get you jail time.

Which is why everyone should avoid ND and just go to Canada.


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

Matt, yes more tickets where written, but it really underscores the fact that many people simply shoot and look after the fact. My daughter is not an expert by any means but if she can learn to ID ducks by body type and then wait to determine sex, anyone can.

So in short, those in charge of this should not even look at the ticket issue and should look at if it did what they thought it would and nothing more.

On a side note, it was fun last fall listening to a friends son rib his Dad for shooting a hen pintail, because the son had passed on the bird knowing it was a pintail. By the way the kid was 15 and only been hunting waterfowl on a limited basis for two seasons.


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## YashigreatfowlhunterMN (Jul 15, 2009)

Get rid of it. You can shoot what 8 pintails in Canada. We should be able to shoot at least 2 or 3. I think they should make all hen species illegal. Dead hens don't lay eggs.

IF IT FLIES IT DIES BABY (except hens)


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## marlin&amp;mallards (Jun 8, 2009)

I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE IT MAY BE HARDER TO PICK OUT HENS AT FIRST LIGHT.BUT...WHEN YOU SHOOT INTO A FLIGHT AT SUN UP THEIR'S ALWAYS A CHANCE YOU MAY DOWN A BIRD 10 STEPS BACK FROM THE ONE YOU INTENDED TO SHOOT.IWOULD VENTURE TO SAY IT HAS HAPPENED TO ALL OF US.I CAN AGREE WITH THE FACT HAVEN H/C MAKES US THINK BEFORE WE SHOOT AND NOT HAVEN TOO WORRY ABOUT A SEASON WITHIN SEASON,IM SURE THERE'S MORE BIRDS PITCHED IN A DITCH THAN GRILLED BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO TAKE A CHANCE ON A TICKET,AND THAT'S B/S IMO... IN MEXICO AND CANADA FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND YOU CAN WACK PINTAILS,BUT WE HAVE TO CHOOSE OUR LIMIT..??


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## Matt Jones (Mar 6, 2002)

Ron Gilmore said:


> Matt, yes more tickets where written, but it really underscores the fact that many people simply shoot and look after the fact.


I think we agree in principle...


Matt Jones said:


> I'm not going to advocate ignorance as an excuse but for your casual hunters (90% of the people who buy a license) HC was very difficult to comply with.


But we need to acknowledge that most duck hunters are casual hunters. I'd love it if everyone would ID everything before they shoot (which is sadly just common sense to anyone with half a brain) but we need to be realistic too. A lot of ducks were stomped in the mud due to HC. Enough to where I'd question whether or not the regs did anything favorably over the old system.

Sometimes well-intentioned regs end up hurting more than helping. It'd be great to see more special regs to optimize drake harvest...It'd be awesome to have a 3-4 bluebill limit with only one hen allowed...but that will never happen because most guys aren't able to ID. I think HC probably hurt more than it helped judging by the amount of tickets that were written...and those were the few guys that got caught.


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## T.Mayer (Feb 17, 2009)

YashigreatfowlhunterMN said:


> Get rid of it. You can shoot what 8 pintails in Canada. We should be able to shoot at least 2 or 3. I think they should make all hen species illegal. Dead hens don't lay eggs.
> 
> IF IT FLIES IT DIES BABY (except hens)


this is a statement made with ZERO knowledge of how breeding goes....yes hens are the ones that lay the eggs but they have to be bred to be able to do so, so if you take more drakes it actually hurts the population...there has been study after study done on this subject and it has shown that harvesting hens does not hurt the popualtion one bit...youll find that predators have a bigger effect on the breeding process than hunters do...that habitat has a bigger effect than hunters do...weather, etc...you really should do some research on this subject and I bet youll be very surprised what you come to find....and YES i DO shoot hens!


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

Todd don't feed the troll! He is simply jumping from thread to thread trying to rile people up.


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## templey_41 (Jul 19, 2008)

not trying to stir the pot but, why is it that every state down the flyway has a limit on how many hen mallards you can have in your bag limit? IE ND and MN 1 hen Illinois and Arkansas 2 hens. If shooting hens doesn't effect the population then shouldn't the game and fish departments know about this and adjust the bag limit accordingly? I try not to shoot hens, but the occassional one does get shot. Putting pressure on other birds is a ridiculous comment. How many of you honestly go after other ducks ie bluebills and gadwalls just becasue you can only shoot one hen mallard. i would say that 98% of mallard hunters haven't changed there preference in species and still go after mallards. I know I do. :2cents:


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## Matt Jones (Mar 6, 2002)

templey_41 said:


> How many of you honestly go after other ducks ie bluebills and gadwalls just becasue you can only shoot one hen mallard. i would say that 98% of mallard hunters haven't changed there preference in species and still go after mallards.


I go after other species of ducks not because of the restrictive hen limits. I do it because shooting _just_ mallards gets boring IMO. Variety is the spice of life. I'm a duck hunter...not a mallard hunter. 

It's not hard to shoot a limit of mallards every outing, but that would mean I'd sit in nothing but fields all season long. Getting out on big water for divers or putting the waders on for a pothole shoot is a fun change of pace.


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## templey_41 (Jul 19, 2008)

I don't hunt strictly mallards when I come up to nodak. heck last year was the first year that we field hunted up there in the past 5 years that I have been coming. Otherwise all we did was diver hunt. I love variety too just as much as the next guy.

What I was getting at is why do the game and fish departments only restrict one to two hen mallards if hunting has little effect on the breeding population? do we have more insight or scientific data than them? if so we should share it with them in order to get this HC issue straight. these are serious questions not a smart arrss remark.


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## NDTerminator (Aug 20, 2003)

Hunter's Choice is a good concept predicated on hunters having the ability to ID live, flying birds in the field, and holding their water if they can't make a positive ID. Thus it is/was doomed to failure as the skill of field ID'ing waterfowl became a lost art beginning in the early-mid 80's...

In our formative waterfowl years (back in the 60's-early 70's) my buddies and I studied our waterfowl ID booklets harder than we did our school books. The Hunter Saftey course back in those days had an entire block devoted to waterfowl ID. Every student got a copy of "Ducks At A Distance" and was pop quizzed on the subject throughout the course...

The norm now seems to be shoot first & ID later. I can't even guess how many younger guys (some surprisingly experienced) who have brought me a dead bird or photo after the fact and asked me to ID it.

IMO, being able to ID birds in the field is not just a legal necessity, but enhances the experience much the same way hunting with a great gundog does...


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## Scott LeDuc (Aug 4, 2008)

T.Mayer said:


> YashigreatfowlhunterMN said:
> 
> 
> > Get rid of it. You can shoot what 8 pintails in Canada. We should be able to shoot at least 2 or 3. I think they should make all hen species illegal. Dead hens don't lay eggs.
> ...


Todd,

Yashi's statement aside (RIP Yashi) your statement is absurd. Are you actually saying that taking more hens is better for the population or at a minimum does not affect the population? That is, after all, what your response is stating. That is FALSE, FALSE, FALSE! :eyeroll: I would love to see these so called studies you are saying that proves this. I agree that you need a certain male/female balance but that is not what statement is implying.

I will be anxiously awaiting this study....


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## niener (Jan 7, 2008)

No matter what any of these studies may say, I can only believe that the taking of drakes and not hens can only help the population. I'm sure that there are some promiscous drakes out there that breed with more than one hen a season if need be. I don't think the problem lies with there not being enough hens to breed it's not enough quality habitat, predation(not enough nesting structures, and lack of water in some places.


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## jpallen14 (Nov 28, 2005)

I hope they keep it. You can never go wrong shooting less hens.


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