Duck limits for working people

[Middle Age Crazy]

I used to duck hunt when I had my Labs, but became frustrated with bag limits and the few days I could hunt public land in the Piedmont. I would go to an extreme effort to get back to where I had scouted birds but my shooting and limit was often over in just a few minutes. I maybe got to go four times a season. It didn't seem fair to me that retired guys could hunt all they wanted and kill during a season ten times more than I could. My question is why are duck limits not a quota system like deer. Where I hunted it was basically mallards and woodies. I'm not saying I want to kill 20 birds a day, but it would have been nice to kill a few more on the days I was on them knowing those days would be few and far between for me still of working age. Am I the only one that would like a season limit and not a daily limit?

 

[wncdeerhunter]

I used to duck hunt when I had my Labs, but became frustrated with bag limits and the few days I could hunt public land in the Piedmont. I would go to an extreme effort to get back to where I had scouted birds but my shooting and limit was often over in just a few minutes. I maybe got to go four times a season. It didn't seem fair to me that retired guys could hunt all they wanted and kill during a season ten times more than I could. My question is why are duck limits not a quota system like deer. Where I hunted it was basically mallards and woodies. I'm not saying I want to kill 20 birds a day, but it would have been nice to kill a few more on the days I was on them knowing those days would be few and far between for me still of working age. Am I the only one that would like a season limit and not a daily limit?

Same rules apply to everyone. Your ability to hunt as much may be different. Life isn’t fair.

 

[Middle Age Crazy]

I'm the first person to agree life is not fair and I instill that in my son. I also teach him to question authority. The "rules" seem counterproductive if the idea is encourage the sport and get folks to buy a duck stamp while maintaining the bird populations.

 

[shurshot]

With all due respect what you’re encouraging is selfishness and greed. Selfish because you can’t get out to hunt as often as others. Greed because if there was a quota, you would want to shoot as many as it took daily to satisfy your inner self. You sound like you never morphed into the hunter stage of life where limits aren’t necessary to have a wonderful time. To me, it’s all about watching your lab work or find a bird 2 hours later that you never thought would happen, it’s about hunting with friends, ribbing your buddy for blowing a gimme (or vise versa), it’s about re-living that spectacular shot you made that awed your hunting partners, it’s about ......the whole dang hunt! Doesn’t matter if you could have killed a hundred that day, it was just plain fun to get out and share it with others over and over again during the course of a season.

If numbers mean that much, go book you a Canada hunt where it’s not impossible to legally shoot 36 birds a day (Snows, dark geese, ducks).

 

[Middle Age Crazy]

I did enjoy my dogs and they were the reason I was mostly out there. My point is they got to work five minutes. I'll ignore your other baseless insults. So far nobody has addressed why a daily limit and not a season limit.

 

[wncdeerhunter]

I did enjoy my dogs and they were the reason I was mostly out there. My point is they got to work five minutes. I'll ignore your other baseless insults. So far nobody has addressed why a daily limit and not a season limit.

birds migrate - deer don’t. There are, I’m sure, biological reasons for the daily limits. Also, you have the ability to choose shots. It’s about hunting, not killing. If your hunt only lasts five minutes, that’s kind of on you. You can kill 5 ducks - seems reasonable.

 

[Steelshot]

Not trying to be rude but birds migrate. Here one day gone the next. Again not stepping on toes but I’m in the same boat as you. I hunt a lot of public land and after getting pissed about small groups of birds and killing only a few birds...... me and my duck gun put a lot of time in at the range. Think about it like this..... say you go five times and kill 2 ducks each time. That’s 10, but missed 2 each time you went. That’s 10 potential ducks that could have caught the ride home. Again not trying to be rude. Make every shot count and on the days it just don’t work out enjoy Gods glory and be thankful for the experience.

 

[Wildlifer]

Ignoring that fact that we are talking about adjusting the federal frame work. Some sort of tagging program would have to be in place and enforcement of that would be next to impossible. It’s pretty easy to stop a guy after hunting and figure out if he’s legal.
if season limits were imposed I think the number allowed would be far lower that you would expect. The additive mortality on hunting would increase. Think about everyone finding a good feed or roost and wearing that spot out.
migration also is a factor. Blue wings migrate first and if everyone hammers them as they come down how many are actually going to make it down?
you can make the argument that a person can shoot more under the current frame work if you put in the time than with a quota system.

 

[nchunter]

Can we also get seasonal limits for red drum while we’re at it?
1/day isn’t fair for us folks who only get down a couple weeks per year when you locals can catch one every day.
I am being sarcastic. Not trying to jack the thread, I think it’s a fair comparison.


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[Middle Age Crazy]

I shot my first perfect 100 round of trap when I was fifteen. Mallards landing in a puddle in the middle of a frozen swamp are not tough. The problem is not missing. There's no way I'm going to be able to put together a 10 bird limit. The problem is it's central NC public and it's mallards and if I shoot straight I can kill three on the first go and it's over. The problem is seeing more to shoot at. I'd like to be able to kill two on the first group and hold out hoping there will be another bunch along and I could kill two more. Or two birds, then one bird, then one or two more birds on the third go to at least give the dog a reach around. Same, same for woodies. If I was going with 2 or 3 other guys it wouldn't matter, but I don't know many people that will wade through such a mess so far to kill a couple of ducks. I once took a guy that hunts east of I-95 and he sat down on a log and about cried thinking he would never get out alive! I tend to hunt alone therefore. If I was given a choice of a daily limit or 20 a year I'd take the 20 in a heartbeat. Because with warm weather and work four trips a year would be above the norm.

 

[FITZH2O]

Sounds like a better option for you would be to head somewhere more productive on your 4 available days a year...or perhaps a preserve. Aside from that, the best way to help the “working man”, is to allow duck hunting on Sunday. Hell, even the animals with season limits still have daily limits, except for deer and that’s a fairly recent change.

 

[Middle Age Crazy]

Sounds like a better option for you would be to head somewhere more productive on your 4 available days a year...or perhaps a preserve. Aside from that, the best way to help the “working man”, is to allow duck hunting on Sunday. Hell, even the animals with season limits still have daily limits, except for deer and that’s a fairly recent change.

I was going to mention deer.............I may have this wrong but I think you used to be able to kill one a day and they changed it so you could kill five does on a drive on say the last day. That makes a whole lot more sense to me. Sunday would be a big help too. Zero interest in a perserve unless training.

 

[Mike Noles aka conman]

How would you incorporate a season limit on each species? It's tough enough on the enforcement guys to maintain a reasonable check on a daily limit. Like others have suggested, if killing big numbers is your game and your time is limited, head to areas north or south that have more generous numbers available on a daily basis.

 

[Mike Noles aka conman]

Can we also get seasonal limits for red drum while we’re at it?
1/day isn’t fair for us folks who only get down a couple weeks per year when you locals can catch one every day.
I am being sarcastic. Not trying to jack the thread, I think it’s a fair comparison.


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I know it's posted in jest, but it's about as close of a real comparison as I can think of.

 

[CRC]

How would you incorporate a season limit on each species? It's tough enough on the enforcement guys to maintain a reasonable check on a daily limit. Like others have suggested, if killing big numbers is your game and your time is limited, head to areas north or south that have more generous numbers available on a daily basis.

The same way a season limit is enforced on grouse and pheasant.

If you can do it on small birds like grouse and pheasant, why not ducks?

 

[np307]

If there were a season limit, people would still complain. "Its not fair that they have so many more opportunities to fill their limit than I do."

 

[FireDuck401]

If there were a season limit, people would still complain. "Its not fair that they have so many more opportunities to fill their limit than I do."

There it is.
Some people just enjoy complaining.

 

[wncdeerhunter]

I shot my first perfect 100 round of trap when I was fifteen. Mallards landing in a puddle in the middle of a frozen swamp are not tough. The problem is not missing. There's no way I'm going to be able to put together a 10 bird limit. The problem is it's central NC public and it's mallards and if I shoot straight I can kill three on the first go and it's over. The problem is seeing more to shoot at. I'd like to be able to kill two on the first group and hold out hoping there will be another bunch along and I could kill two more. Or two birds, then one bird, then one or two more birds on the third go to at least give the dog a reach around. Same, same for woodies. If I was going with 2 or 3 other guys it wouldn't matter, but I don't know many people that will wade through such a mess so far to kill a couple of ducks. I once took a guy that hunts east of I-95 and he sat down on a log and about cried thinking he would never get out alive! I tend to hunt alone therefore. If I was given a choice of a daily limit or 20 a year I'd take the 20 in a heartbeat. Because with warm weather and work four trips a year would be above the norm.

If you're shooting three mallards in one group, you have bigger issues. Mallard limit is 2 per day in NC. Also, tell us more about your 10 bird limit.....

 

[wncdeerhunter]

The same way a season limit is enforced on grouse and pheasant.

If you can do it on small birds like grouse and pheasant, why not ducks?

Of course.........

 

[bowhuntingrook]

Seasonal limits would not work in your favor. If everyone attempted to get a seasonal limit on the good days of hunting, they would have to have a very low seasonal limit to counter that or we would not see a duck. I don't know where your desire to kill so many ducks comes from, whether you've never done it or it's something your used to from somewhere else, but your hunting public land in the Piedmont of NC, this is not a desired area for them. Your hunting Woodies mostly that fly early, not ducks that are working a flyway up and down in huge waves of birds on bigger water.

I've been there done that duck killing and just had to learn to appreciate a smaller bag when I moved here as well as the sunrise. I only hunted ducks here so my lab could get some work. Go out of state for ducks, or make your dog into a shed dog or deer tracker like I've done with my more recent dogs.

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[lasttombstone]

I'm just curious as to how this is all of a sudden a problem for "working people". I have always hunted for the enjoyment of it be it rabbits, squirrels, dove, deer or turkey. For 40 years I was "working people". It never impacted my ability to hunt. It just put it into a different time frame than what I have now. All the years I worked a regular job I had a couple of days off and they weren't always the weekends and occasionally they weren't even in a row. I got vacation time which was saved for hunting season and, as soon as he was old enough, those days included my son. There was no Sunday hunting, there were no youth days and so many of the other changes that we have now. There were always sons and daughters on our club hunts and everybody was satisfied and happy to have what we had. Today, it seems more and more people want it their way and will bitch and moan till they get it in one form or the other. Too bad Bernie dropped out. He would have probably made all the whiners happy.

 

[coachcornbread]

If you're shooting three mallards in one group, you have bigger issues. Mallard limit is 2 per day in NC. Also, tell us more about your 10 bird limit.....

If you hunted during the point system days a 10 bird limit was pretty easy to get if you knew what you were shooting at.

 

[coachcornbread]

I did enjoy my dogs and they were the reason I was mostly out there. My point is they got to work five minutes. I'll ignore your other baseless insults. So far nobody has addressed why a daily limit and not a season limit.

Daily limits are set using some algorithm that you would kill “X” amount of ducks in a season. It’s not a very high number either, I want to say it was less than 10. So you would rather kill 10 birds over your 4 days to hunt that 24?

 

[Middle Age Crazy]

Daily limits are set using some algorithm that you would kill “X” amount of ducks in a season. It’s not a very high number either, I want to say it was less than 10. So you would rather kill 10 birds over your 4 days to hunt that 24?

I don't understand your last sentence based on what I've said. Please rephrase.

 

[Middle Age Crazy]

Seasonal limits would not work in your favor. If everyone attempted to get a seasonal limit on the good days of hunting, they would have to have a very low seasonal limit to counter that or we would not see a duck. I don't know where your desire to kill so many ducks comes from, whether you've never done it or it's something your used to from somewhere else, but your hunting public land in the Piedmont of NC, this is not a desired area for them. Your hunting Woodies mostly that fly early, not ducks that are working a flyway up and down in huge waves of birds on bigger water.

I've been there done that duck killing and just had to learn to appreciate a smaller bag when I moved here as well as the sunrise. I only hunted ducks here so my lab could get some work. Go out of state for ducks, or make your dog into a shed dog or deer tracker like I've done with my more recent dogs.

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I would still kill way less ducks as most guys kill in eastern NC WAY LESS I don't have a desire to "kill so many ducks" I just want a couple extra on the few times I go. What are you people not getting about this? You educating me about woodies is comical. I bet I had the biggest roost of woodies year after year on ,my land thanks to beavers than most people could even dream about. I never shot it except a couple of times in the rain when they came in right before legal dark and always upstream so as not to ruin it for the birds---they were safe there except for once some poachers shot it while I was deer hunting far up the creek. that crossed from an adjoining farm. I was once waste deep in that hole with buckshot waiting on a beaver to show his head at dark and they were literally landing on top of me. If I was a game hog I would have had my own trough, believe me. I've killed one buck in the last 7 years and it's not for lack of seeing many, many shooters. I had four in my backyard last winter every late afternoon that most people would have flipped for. It's not about killing , it's about having a good hunt. I would never consider a deer hunt a good hunt if it was a five minute hunt. The dogs don't give a damn how pretty the sunrise is.

 

[Middle Age Crazy]

If you hunted during the point system days a 10 bird limit was pretty easy to get if you knew what you were shooting at.

Or I could shoot plenty of fish eaters down on SH with the urban cowboys, but killing something I wouldn't feed a dog is shameful.

 

[Hydemarsh]

Middle age Crazy, in my humble opinion you are full of crap.

 

[Middle Age Crazy]

Middle age Crazy, in my humble opinion you are full of crap.

How so?

 

[Middle Age Crazy]

I know it's posted in jest, but it's about as close of a real comparison as I can think of.

It's no comparison. You can fish all day and release as many as you want to keep casting for. YOU CAN HAVE A GREAT DAY AND IT WON'T BE OVER IN FIVE MINUTES No catch and release with ducks I know of....except what passes for that down in Brogden.

 

[shurshot]

What you’ve said is you are a superior shot so limits are all too easy. So the greed in you wants “more” since nobody will hunt with you and you don’t care about having another dog to enjoy. You’re the epitopmy of a shooter/killer, not a caring waterfowler. You state this clearly.

You know, I’m not a bad shot myself as others will attest so I shoot a 28 ga. O/U to make my hunts last. Also shoot a .410 and the 28 exclusively at doves. Few years back shot a combined 15 limits with both, more with the .410.

My point ......it’s all about the challenge and enjoyment you get from how you do it, not the numbers. But you obviously think otherwise and are in the staunch minority. Your pipe dream ain’t gonna happen ...