OK millet program washes out
The biggest change coming up for waterfowl season 2015-16 will not be in the regulations book, and we’ve already had a look at it. It’s a key ingredient for waterfowl season that has been sorely lacking the past several years.
Hunters know it as a substance called “water.”
On Monday Oklahoma’s Wildlife Conservation Commission approved dates for the upcoming waterfowl seasons – set annually within a framework set by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Seasons again remain “liberal” a term used by those of us who remember days when seasons were much shorter and limits tight.
Here in eastern Oklahoma, labeled Zone 2, things kick off with the youth waterfowl weekend Oct. 31 – Nov. 1, and regular season running Nov. 7-29 and Dec. 12 – Jan. 31, 2016. In Zone 1, in Central and Northwest Oklahoma (not including the Panhandle) the season opens a week earlier and closes a week earlier.
The Panhandle, also called the High Plains Mallard Management Unit, has youth weekend Oct. 10-11 and regular season Oct. 17-Jan. 13.
Already announced with the release of the annual Hunting Guide in July, the September local Canada goose season and teal seasons are Sept. 12-27 for teal with a daily bag limit of six and Sept. 12-21 for geese with a daily limit of eight.
Regulations-wise, very little changes this season. The limit for white-fronted geese now allows two instead of just one and hunters can kill two canvasbacks instead of one. The overall daily bag limit for ducks remains the same, at six, with no more than five mallards (only two of which can be hens), three wood ducks, three scaup, two redheads, two pintails or two canvasbacks.
The youth season also falls a little later on the calendar this year. Last season I wrote a couple columns lobbying for a change to move the youth weekend to the “split weekend” in December. The idea didn’t take off, apparently. The wildlife department received only about a half dozen emails expressing interest in changing the date.
“Halloween weekend is one of those early weekends when we often get a front, so it could be a very good weekend for young hunters this year,” said Craig Endicott, northeast region supervisor with the Wildlife Department. “We’ve had those Halloweens that are hot and then some we’ve had snow.”
Goose hunters have a good long season ahead with dates running Oct. 31-Nov. 29 and Dec. 12 to Feb. 14, 2016 for Canada geese and snow, blue and ross’ geese. The season for white-fronted geese closes a week earlier, on Feb. 7. Bag limits are the same for Canada and light geese with eight Canadas allowed daily and 50 light geese.
Early indications are it will be a season gear for those who scout and find productive agriculture and replenished wetlands with plenty of vegetation.
The state’s millet seeding program on lakes Kaw, Eufuala, Oologah and Texoma is just about a bust, according to Josh Richardson, waterfowl biologist for the Wildlife Department. “We kept hoping we would be able to get it going, then we’d get another rain, and another rain … It’s not looking promising at all,” he said.
The seeding program relies on lakes levels dropping to expose mudflats for aerial seeding. As of Wednesday Kaw Lake was still 7 feet above normal, Oologah 4 feet, Eufaula 2.5 feet, and Texoma 12 feet.
Without the concentrated food sources on the reservoirs waterfowl will find groceries elsewhere. “Guys will have to be moving around to find them,” Richardson said. “They might feed on an ag field and use a water area one night and move to a different field and different water the next.”
The good thing is groundwater is replenished and so many ponds, watersheds and small impoundments are rejuvenated that waterfowl should have a greater choice of places to go. Now we just have to wait for that one weather situation we never know about until we see it during the season – lots of snow and cold weather up North.
Kelly Bostian, 918-581-8357
kelly.bostian@tulsaworld.com
http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagela...6f96bfb80.html
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Originally Posted by YoungBuckTX
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