# Seems the stats are proving that NR's



## Fetch (Mar 1, 2002)

Are all coming at the same time (like we didn't know that) :roll: the 1st couple weeks of their season here are goofy

But I wonder if having them spread out over the entire season is a good idea ??? Maybe a lottery & set some limits ???

Or are we better off getting them out of the way & hope for a nice fall ??? (no early freeze out or snow storm )

The way the ducks are staying north longer would there be any advantage to taking later dates ???

- I get tired of shooting eclipse ducks


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

Fetch, what stats?


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## Fetch (Mar 1, 2002)

I thought I read somewhere that the vast majority came the 1st couple weeks & that zone 3 had something like 23,000 of them ??? - I'll try & find it ??? (Nothing really new or unexpected in that tho) ???


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## Fetch (Mar 1, 2002)

http://www.nodakoutdoors.com/members/ph ... php?t=4076


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## Dan Bueide (Jul 1, 2002)

Fetch, you're refering to the post by drakekiller, but reference to weeks one and two are not to those weeks of the season but instead to the first and second 7 day periods allowed. There's some inferences that can be drawn from drakekliller's post, and I've been meaning to follow up, but better/more detailed info from G&F will be forthcoming I'm sure. Because of centralized licensing (thus knowing exact start dates), G&F will be able to generate a chart showing usage throughout the season. I'll bet we'll find, as has been typical in the past, NR use peaks about the third/fourth weekend in October. Often folks want to try and hit the migrating birds but take the ealier of possible options to hedge against a freeze. This period also often coincides with MEA.


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## Matt Jones (Mar 6, 2002)

From what I saw, the overwhelmingy majority came the first week in the NE part of the state. There was decent pressure the week after that but not near what happened the first week, and then there was less the third.

I know that isn't anything scientific or based off numbers, just a personal observation. I don't think the numbers are going to say a lot for zone 3 anyway since it's so big. I'm worried people are going to look at the size of the zone and assume that hunters are evenly distrubuted, which simply isn't the case. We all know the majority of the hunters in that zone were in the NE, but I don't think we're going to get any data to support that. I would have liked to have seen that zone split into 3 or 4 sections (3a, 3b, etc.) just for polling purposes to get some data to show the legislature what hunters already know.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

I live beside the JClark Salyer NWR in north-north central ND, we had very few waterfowlers this year. We have alot of G/O's in this area and have seen less and less hunters every year for about five years in a row now. This past year we had an average year as far as rain and such so it ended up being much drier than the last ten years or so. Cause of this the NWR let some of their holding cells go empty for maintainence. It ended up we had none to very little standing water in this area.

With less rain than we have had in 10 years and the work on the refuge, between those two factors it was a bad year to produce data for a waterfowler survey in this area/unit. We were so dry here most of the birds and hunters went elsewhere and that made it much more difficult to get any type of data to help in trying to predict what will happen this year.

The hunters that did show were dumfounded by the lack of water and birds as it has been 10 very wet years in the state and exceptionaly wet here. Alot of those hunters had been nowhere else in the state untill this past year. So I wouldn't put alot of weight on any survey about hunter saturation untill the weather gives us a couple years of average conditions. This is just my take on this, I'm sure it will work out it always does.


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