# Minnesota Numbers 2004 season



## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

Duck hunting harvest was poor 
Doug Smith, Star Tribune

Many Minnesota duck hunters claimed last season was a dud.

They were right.

Minnesota waterfowlers killed 683,600 ducks last fall, a decline of nearly 201,000 or about 23 percent from the 884,500 shot in 2003, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service harvest survey.

The biggest decline was in the harvest of mallards, still the No. 1 duck in the bag. Hunters killed about 179,000, down a whopping 41 percent from the 304,000 mallards shot in 2003.

In fact, for only the second time in history, Minnesota hunters shot more Canada geese (234,000) than mallards.

Hunters averaged 7.6 ducks for the season, down from 10.1 ducks per season the previous year.

"That's a big drop," said Steve Cordts, state Department of Natural Resources waterfowl specialist. "For a lot of hunters, it was a very poor season."

The lower harvest occurred despite greater effort by hunters.

Hunter numbers increased by about 2,000 -- from 87,900 in 2003 to 89,600 last year. And those hunters spent nearly 596,000 days afield, compared to 548,000 days the year before.

There were some bright spots: Hunters shot about 128,000 wood ducks, the No. 2 duck in the bag, which was similar to the 2003 harvest. And they killed 106,000 blue-winged teal, a 13 percent increase.

But the green-winged teal harvest fell by 55 percent -- from 101,000 to 45,000. And the scaup (bluebill) harvest fell nearly 56 percent to just 15,000 -- an all-time low -- underscoring a continuing continentwide population decline.

Federal spring breeding counts for scaup estimated their numbers at 3.4 million -- a record low and 35 percent below their long-term average. Wildlife biologists still are trying to determine the cause of the decline.

The federal harvest numbers come from a national survey of waterfowl hunters under the Harvest Information Program (HIP.) About 70,000 hunters were surveyed, including about 2,000 in Minnesota. The Minnesota DNR also surveys hunters, but those figures haven't been released yet. Cordts said he expects they will mirror the national figures.

Steve Wilds, regional migratory bird chief for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the federal numbers appear to support the bleak reports from many duck hunters last season.

In Louisiana, where hunters also claimed a poor season, harvest fell from 1.3 million ducks in 2003 to 822,000 last year - a drop of 478,000. (Louisiana hunters have disputed the 1.3 million duck harvest estimate, saying it was too high.)

"It seems to say we didn't have the ducks," Wilds said. "Maybe it's not as bad as some people said, but there were pretty significant drops in both states."

Added Wilds: "We didn't expect to have a great season, but it was maybe a little worse than we expected."

Duck harvest in the entire Mississippi Flyway fell from 6.5 million in 2003 to 5.5 million last year.

Cordts said a lack of good duck hunting weather, including cold fronts to push migrating birds into the state from Canada, likely hurt Minnesota hunters.

Though Wilds acknowledged duck hunting probably wasn't great in Minnesota and some other states, part of the problem for hunters is one of expectations. Under the Adaptive Harvest Management utilized by the agency to manage ducks, liberal six-bird and 60-day seasons have been offered since 1997.

"The perception is that because we have liberal regulations, we have lots of ducks," Wilds said. "The reality is just because you have liberal regulations, it doesn't mean you're going to have a great season, but it also doesn't mean you're going to devastate the duck population either."

Some hunters believe that by reducing the bag limits or length of the season, it will boost duck numbers, and both Wilds and Cordts said that's not the case. Fluctuating habitat conditions affect duck populations far more than hunting regulations, Cordts said.

As for this fall's regulations, the Mississippi Flyway Council meets this week in Mississippi, and the Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to announce its waterfowl regulation framework later this month.

Fall outlook

With Minnesota breeding duck numbers down 37 percent from last year -- and state mallard numbers down 36 percent -- Cordts said hunters may see a duck season similar to last year's. But the state's mallard population remains near long-term averages, so Cordts said he's not worried about the health of the population.

Poor weather during this year's spring aerial duck survey meant that many flights occurred after some birds migrated through the state, resulting in fewer ducks showing up in the survey, Cordts said.

Rains have filled up many wetlands in Canada and parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota since the federal and state spring breeding surveys were conducted, so duck production also could be better than had been anticipated.

"I don't expect it to be a super year, but if we have pretty good production, it should be somewhere near an average duck season," Cordts said. He expects a duck harvest similar to last year's.

Meanwhile, Minnesota's Canada goose harvest declined by about 17 percent, from 282,000 in 2003 to 234,000 last year -- still No. 1 in the nation. Slightly more restrictive goose hunting regulations may be at least partially responsible for the decline, Cordts said.


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## Goldy's Pal (Jan 6, 2004)

> "The perception is that because we have liberal regulations, we have lots of ducks," Wilds said. "


By who'm? aliens?



> Some hunters believe that by reducing the bag limits or length of the season, it will boost duck numbers, and both Wilds and Cordts said that's not the case. Fluctuating habitat conditions affect duck populations far more than hunting regulations, Cordts said.


Gee can't we do both? create more/better habitat and reduce limits until there is a definate improvement?

Hi Bob!  :beer:


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## Shu (Oct 21, 2003)

Until the water quality issue gets fixed, MN duck hunters will have to settle for migration hunting. Last year the birds didn't come down the west-central and SW part of the state until after the waterfowl seasons had ended.


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## Goldy's Pal (Jan 6, 2004)

> Until the water quality issue gets fixed, MN duck hunters will have to settle for migration hunting. Last year the birds didn't come down the west-central and SW part of the state until after the waterfowl seasons had ended.


We've always settled for migration hunting after the first week in the mississippi river bottoms, but atleast years ago the birds stuck around because there was something to eat while they roosted in all of this water. Years of spring floods and doing nothing to replace the lost habitat/food supply have taken its toll. What did they do instead? Increase the bag limit (when they should have left it at 3 birds) and double the length of the season from 30 to 60 days. Now it's here today gone tomorrow if they even stop at all. Thanks MN., you've finally come to the conclusion that drawing down the pools and planting some wild rice is helping. Too bad it's about 14 years late.


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## trigger2 (Dec 6, 2004)

i dont know what part of the miss you are hunting, but pools 6,7,8,9,10 all have tons of birds on them all season. but in the last five years the wild rice, and lack of weather have given the birds no reason to leve the refuges.


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## Field Hunter (Mar 4, 2002)

Cordts said a lack of good duck hunting weather, including cold fronts to push migrating birds into the state from Canada, likely hurt Minnesota hunters.

Where have we heard that before....I think they need to start reading what some of the "other" experts are saying about the duck production in Canada. ie. Delta.


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## Shu (Oct 21, 2003)

Hunting on the Miss was good in the late 90's, just like everywhere else. Once the habitat became so much better to the west they stopped going down the Miss like they once did. The flooding wiped out a lot of the habitat on the Miss. I know guys that hunt the Miss almost every day of the season and they really struggle to keep at it like they used to.


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## recker (Oct 12, 2003)

they will always have a excuse. I went out during the week towards the end of the season. It was like 30 degrees and blowing 30 miles per hour from the northwest and i was in western minnesota. I saw five ducks in three hours. That is a bunch of crap. This whole waiting for the canada push thing is crap these days. Most ducks are not hatched in canada anymore. Over half are in the us and most in the dakota. So when they leave there will not be much of a push like people always wait for. Canada hardly has any wetlands left except in a few areas. They never had crp or any program like that. The only way we get a push is if you get of of those everything is freezing today cold fronts and they have to keep flying through. Just my opinion but part of the reason i joined delta waterfowl and gave up on du. I was sick of the lies. Even last year in south dakota was no where near what it should be at the peak time. In fact our buddy said it never was even late into november.I guess they stayed in canada all winter then!The ducks just were not their like they want to tell you. Certain people got lucky and nailed them. We had a few great hunts in dakota after lots of scouting. That usually is not needed. I personally think ducks are in trouble big time.


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## DeerScarer (Jul 23, 2005)

Ummm, I lived in eastern South Dakota last fall and the Autumn was extremely mild, lakes didn't freeze up until around New Year's. Ducks and geese seemed to peak in my area during December. The hunting seasons started ending and the birds showed up. VERY STRANGE.

There were no Snow Geese at all until after Thanksgiving and then they hung around for a month, including a solid two weeks when we couldn't hunt 'em because the season had ended :x. They were back again by mid February, and again hung around for a whole month (during which I shot all I wanted of that fare). I'd like to hear what the winter hunting was like down in Texas. They must've had the birds for about 3 weeks.


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## Goldy's Pal (Jan 6, 2004)

I don't claim to have all of the answers but it sure doesn't take a wildlife biologist to see this one.

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/uppermississ ... lax04.html

As long as the closed areas in the pools continue to be the only areas planted during the draw down periods the numbers of ducks in each pool will continue to look like these numbers in the graph, bad weather or not. I've seen the birds sit in the refuge with white caps slapping their shore line. The only place their going to get up for is the next (closed) refuge full of birds or food down river. A little hard to compete against that. Meanwhile food sources in open to hunting areas will just continue to diminish with every annual bout of high water and making closed areas just that much more attractive to the birds.


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