2008 waterfowl seasons to be similar to last year’s

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s waterfowl hunting season frameworks allowed a liberal hunting package for the upcoming 2008-2009 seasons. These frameworks allow 74 days of duck hunting in the Low Plains Zone and 97 days in the High Plains. While surveys indicated that habitat conditions on the duck breeding grounds weren’t as good as they were last year, numbers of several species, including mallard, blue-winged and green-winged teal, gadwall and redhead, were still above their long-term averages.

At its public hearing in Hoisington on August 14, the Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission approved the following department recommendations:

Bag limits, possession limits, shooting hours

• A daily bag limit of five ducks, which may include no more than two of the following species: scaup, redhead, wood duck. In addition, only one duck from the following species may be included in the daily bag: hen mallard, mottled duck, pintail, canvasback.
• A daily bag limit for coots of 15, and a daily bag limit for mergansers of five, which may include no more than two hooded mergansers. The coot and merganser seasons will run concurrent with the regular duck seasons.
• Possession limit for all species (ducks, coots, and mergansers) will be double the daily bag.
• Shooting hours for all species will be one-half hour before sunrise to sunset.

Duck Season Dates

• High Plains Zone Youth -- Sept. 27-28.
• High Plains Zone (West of U.S. 283) -- first segment, Oct. 4-Dec. 30; second segment, Jan. 17, 2009-Jan. 25, 2009.
• Early Zone Youth -- Oct. 4-5.
• Early Zone -- first segment, Oct. 11-Dec. 7; second segment, Dec. 20-Jan. 4, 2009.
• Late Zone Youth -- Oct. 18-19.
• Late Zone -- first segment, Oct. 25-Dec. 28; second segment, Jan. 17, 2009-Jan. 25, 2009.

(Note: A map of duck zone boundaries is available here.)

During the youth seasons, youth must be 15 years old or younger and accompanied by an adult, who cannot hunt. Two changes this year are that the supervising adult must be at least 18 years old (rather than 21 years old as in previous years), and the adult does not have to have a hunting license or stamps required of waterfowl hunters.

Hunting season for Canada geese will be Oct. 25-26 and Nov. 5-Feb. 15, 2009, with a daily bag limit of three. For white-fronted geese, the season will be Oct. 25-26; Nov. 5-Jan. 4, 2009; and Feb. 7-15, 2009, with a daily bag limit of two. The light goose season will be Oct. 25-26 and Nov. 5-Feb. 15, 2009, with a daily bag limit of 20.

All waterfowl possession limits will be twice the daily bag limit, except for light geese, which will have no possession limit.

For falconers, duck and goose seasons are the same as the regular seasons, plus an extended falconry season of Feb. 25-March 10, 2009, in both the Early and Late zones. There is no extended falconry season in the High Plains Zone.

For more details, phone 620-672-5911.

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