Sports

GAME & FISH VOTES TO EASE DUCK HUNTING RESTRICTIONS

By Joe Mosby/ARKANSAS NEWS BUREAU
Sunday, August 24, 2008 10:24 PM CDT

LITTLE ROCK — The state Game and Fish Commission on Thursday tossed its ban on the use of spinning wing decoys and abandoned a one per day kill limit on female mallards.

The Arkansas commission had been a pacesetter in imposing both restrictions in a more conservative approach to duck hunting. But other states did not follow suit and the commission voted Thursday to drop both measures, which had been in place the past two seasons.

The electronic or battery powered mechanical decoys will be legal in Arkansas in the duck season that opens Saturday, Nov. 22. Hunters can kill two female mallards — “susies” to waterfowlers — a day, a return to the federal limit.

Arkansas duck hunters are sharply divided on the spinning wing decoys. The commission removed the prohibition on a 5-1 vote, with commissioner Brett Morgan of Scott as the only dissenter.

“I can’t support giving back a gadget to harvest juvenile ducks,” Morgan said. “The majority of our own staff wanted this ban and wanted the one-hen (mallard) limit.”

But commissioner Craig Campbell of Little Rock, who voted for the changes, said there was “not any science that we can come up with that is negative about spinning wing decoys or the mallard hen limit.”

Duck hunters often call spinning wing decoys “Robo-Ducks,” which is a brand name of one manufacturer of the devices.

Many duck hunters and some wildlife biologists say the spinning wing decoys are effective primarily on young ducks making their migration flights for the first time. Once the young birds have seen the decoys and heard the shots that accompany them, the bird are much more wary, some believe.

Duck, coot and merganser season will be Nov. 22-Dec. 1, Dec. 6-14 and Dec. 26-Jan. 25, for a total of 60 days, the maximum under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s format. A special youth hunt will be Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.

The daily limit on wood ducks was raised from two to three, the limit on scaup dropped to one and hunting of canvasback ducks will be closed.

Increased early hunting of Canada geese will be allowed in an effort to reduce the increasing numbers of the birds in Arkansas, particularly the resident giant subspecies of Canada geese.

Canada goose hunting will be Sept. 1-15 and Dec. 26-Jan. 30 statewide. In the Northwest Canada Goose zone, there will also be a Sept. 27-Oct. 6 season. Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge is closed to Canada goose hunting.

White-fronted goose season is Nov. 15-Dec. 1, Dec. 6-24 and Dec. 26-Jan. 30 statewide.

Show, blue and Ross’ goose season is Nov. 8-Dec. 24 and Dec. 26-Jan. 30.

Falconry seasons for ducks, coots and mergansers will be Dec. 2-5 ad Jan. 26-Feb. 15.

Another waterfowl hunting change applies to wildlife management areas. Hunting stops at noon each day, but now hunters will have until 1 p.m. to leave the areas.

The commissioners heard fisheries chief Mike Armstrong outline plans for a massive attack on the northern snakehead fish in an eastern Arkansas creek.

The campaign will involve dozens of workers from Game and Fish and other agencies, and massive amounts of the chemical rotenone, which kills fish by paralyzing their respiratory systems.

Snakeheads are natives of China and Korea and are voracious predators that eat most other species of fish and can survive out of water and in low oxygen situations.

The campaign will seek to kill all fish in Piney Creek and its tributaries in Monroe and Lee counties. Later, these waters will be restocked with native fish.

A public meeting on the snakehead eradication will be held Sept. 18 at the Brinkley Convention Center.

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