Water and Wings

The Ohio Wildlife Coun­cil has approved the state’s early migra­tory game bird hunt­ing sea­sons for this fall, with the tra­di­tional Sep­tem­ber 1st kick off of the state’s hunt­ing sea­son with the open­ing of dove, Canada goose, rail, moorhen and snipe. Ohio’s dove sea­son runs Sep­tem­ber 1 through Octo­ber 23 and Decem­ber 17 through Jan­u­ary 2, 2012, with a daily limit of 15 birds and a pos­ses­sion limit of 30 birds.

Canada geese may be hunted statewide Sep­tem­ber 1–15, dur­ing the spe­cial early sea­son, with a daily limit of four birds and pos­ses­sion limit of eight birds after the first day.

The Mer­cer Goose Zone will not be open dur­ing the early Canada goose sea­son. The early teal hunt­ing sea­son will open Sep­tem­ber 3 and end Sep­tem­ber 18, with a daily bag limit of four birds and pos­ses­sion limit of eight after the first day.

Water­fowl hunters must have a valid hunt­ing license in addi­tion to a state wet­lands habi­tat stamp endorse­ment, a fed­eral duck stamp and a Har­vest Infor­ma­tion Pro­gram (HIP) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Any­one who intends to hunt migra­tory game birds must obtain a new HIP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion each year.

Sora rails, Vir­ginia rails and moorhens can be hunted Sep­tem­ber 1 through Novem­ber 9, with a daily limit of 25 rails and 15 moorhens. Hunt­ing sea­son for snipe will be Sep­tem­ber 1 through Novem­ber 27 and Decem­ber 17 through Jan­u­ary 4, 2012 with a daily bag limit of eight.

The wood­cock hunt­ing sea­son is open Octo­ber 8 through Novem­ber 21, with a daily bag limit of three birds and a pos­ses­sion limit of six birds.

Hunt­ing hours dur­ing the sea­sons for rails, moorhens, snipe, wood­cock, teal, doves and Canada geese are sun­rise to sunset.

The only excep­tions will be on wildlife areas that have spe­cially posted hunt­ing times for doves.

The 2011-12 Ohio Hunt­ing and Trap­ping Reg­u­la­tions and the 2011 Migra­tory Game Bird Hunt­ing Sea­sons brochure can be found on line at wildohio.com.

The 2011 Migra­tory Game Bird Hunt­ing Sea­sons brochure will be avail­able by late August at license out­lets, Divi­sion of Wildlife dis­trict offices, or by call­ing 1–800-WILDLIFE.

• The Ohio Divi­sion of Wildlife is ask­ing Ohio water­fowl hunters to pro­vide input on the tim­ing of the fall water­fowl hunt­ing sea­son in the por­tion of Ohio where they pre­fer to hunt.

The Ohio Wildlife Coun­cil will estab­lish sea­son dates and other reg­u­la­tions in late August after fed­eral guide­lines are estab­lished for the upcom­ing water­fowl sea­son. Biol­o­gists are seek­ing input from Ohio water­fowl hunters through this online sur­vey so oppor­tu­ni­ties can be closely matched to the pref­er­ences of as many hunters as pos­si­ble within the con­straints of fed­eral guide­lines. The sur­vey is avail­able at wildohio.comuntil August 15.Hunters will need to have their cus­tomer iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber read­ily avail­able (found on all Ohio hunt­ing and fish­ing licenses) when they take the survey.

Ohio water­fowl hunters pro­vided input in March 2011 on zone bound­aries for water­fowl hunt­ing. Input being requested in the cur­rent sur­vey is focused on the tim­ing of hunt­ing sea­son dates, pref­er­ences about water­fowl hunt­ing dur­ing the deer gun sea­son, and hol­i­day periods.

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice last week announced pro­posed hunt­ing sea­son lengths for the upcom­ing 2011–2012 water­fowl sea­sons. The pro­posed fed­eral frame­works include duck hunt­ing sea­son lengths of 60 days in both the Atlantic and Mis­sis­sippi Fly­ways, 74 days in the Cen­tral Fly­way (with an addi­tional 23 days in the High Plains areas), and 107 days in the Pacific Flyway.

The pro­posed frame­works also include a full sea­son on pin­tails with a 2 bird daily bag limit in nation­wide, and a full sea­son on can­vas­backs with a 1 bird daily bag limit nation-wide.

States select their sea­son from within the fed­eral frame­works that estab­lish the ear­li­est sea­son begin­ning and lat­est end­ing dates and the max­i­mum sea­son length and bag lim­its. Flyway-specific high­lights of the pro­posed sea­son frame­works for the Mis­sis­sippi Fly­way is a 60 day sea­son which is great news for duck hunters.

The pro­posed daily bag limit is 6 and may include no more than 4 mal­lards (2 hens), 3 wood ducks, 1 mot­tled duck, 2 red­heads, 2 scaup, 2 pintails,1 black duck, and 1 can­vas­back. The pro­posed daily bag limit of mer­gansers is 5, only 2 of which may be hooded mergansers.

Gen­er­ally, sea­sons for Canada goose would be held between Sep­tem­ber 24, 2011, and Jan­u­ary 31, 2012, and vary in length among States and areas. States would be able to select sea­sons for light geese not to exceed 107 days with 20 geese daily between Sep­tem­ber 24, 2011, and March 10, 2012; for white-fronted goose the pro­posed sea­son would not exceed 74 days with a 2-bird daily bag limit or 88 days with a 1-bird daily bag limit between Sep­tem­ber 24, 2011, and Feb­ru­ary 15, 2012; and for brant it would not exceed 70 days with a 2-bird daily bag limit or 107 days with a 1 bird daily bag limit between Sep­tem­ber 24, 2011, and Jan­u­ary 31, 2012. There is no pos­ses­sion limit for light geese.

Over­all it is great news for water­fowl hunters this fall. It’s hard to believe that hunt­ing sea­son is almost here but those cool nights are only a few weeks away.

Until next time, Good Hunt­ing and Good Fishing!

Posted by Ken Parrott on Oct 18 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.