i shoot within an A/W staff member. the mallard numbers are better but lets see what trend counts show now we have given the birds a wind up. the A/W is on a three year regulation cycle which is up for review this year so if you have ideas on how OUR seasons regs should look PLEASE send a remit to awfg all are read and noted so it is not a waste of time. season length is the best control on harvest not bag limit, many an hour spent in the posie talking over that one. the reason is, in our sport we in general govern ourselves, i.e got limit stop shooting not all play by the rules, so from a governing bodies perspective the best method of control is season length. yes hunter effort is A factor albeit small when compared to the illegal over harvesting commited in the opening period of the season. it happens we all know it does
marlin XL7 270 not flash but effective
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Re: A/W season Reply #17 - Jun 26th, 2018 at 9:42am
I would enjoy a 6 week season, with a six bird daily limit (possibly 10 bird limit on opening day). I value the opportunity to go hunting more than the number of ducks I shoot. I have a self imposed season limit.
F&G reduced the season length to increase the number of ducks. There is no doubt in my mind (and a diary that I keep) that there are now more ducks in A/W (then prior to dropping to 4 weeks) and therefore it is time to go back to 6 weeks. I will not shoot more ducks over a 6 week season, but I can be more selective with the ducks i shoot (target drakes) and more selective with the days that I go hunting. Also maybe more opportunity to introduce others to hunting, to get the dog working better, and to try new areas.
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Re: A/W season Reply #18 - Jun 27th, 2018 at 12:26am
Hear hear Waikato Hunter but... we are always going to be limited by the lowest common denominator in terms of the behaviour of our sport's members. If everyone behaved like you it would be magic!
Canivore, you of course are aware that this is the second 3 year cycle in which AWFG's expert staff set the regulations with a moratorium on reg changes during the period (unless catastrophic population change required an even shorter season or smaller limit). Remits are nice, but the regs will be set based on hard science. To that extent remits on the whole are largely a wasted effort.
Just out of interest, our diaries which go back to the '70's show that our party is harvesting as many or more birds than when we had a longer season. We are simply compressing our effort into a shorter period....
If duck numbers have increased slightly due to the more restrictive regs then surly the sensible thing to do is to keep the restrictions, allow populations to build even more and then remove the restrictions.
If we remove the restrictions at the first sign of a population increase then we will be back to the situation that everyone was complaining about.
This is my rifle, there are many like it but this one is mine. Without my rifle I am useless, without me it is useless.
Ive just retired after nine years as a AW F&G Councillor.
I am and always will be totally supportive of the science based policy around harvests that we installed. We employ qualified people for a reason and the onus should be on those people to set regulations without pressure from councillors or the hunting public who are more often than not, operating solely on opinion and their experience in a single limited area.
My personnel opinion- for what its worth- Is that there is immense value in sticking with one set of regulations for an extended period of time. 20 years for example. In that way we get to verify if the measures taken are working over a number of seasonal changes. Good breeding years and bad. I would like to look back in 20 years and see a consistent improvement in our hunting opportunity. We are all hunter/citizen scientists if we approach our sport with the attitude of, not just with what we get out of it, but what we can learn and how we can improve our resource.