Game hunting seasons have begun

Ohio hunters should begin prepar­ing for the hunt­ing sea­sons of some of the state’s most pop­u­lar game species with ring-necked pheas­ant, cot­ton­tail rab­bit and bob­white quail. The hunt­ing sea­sons for upland game began on Fri­day, Nov. 2, accord­ing to the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife.

The state’s cot­ton­tail rab­bit pop­u­la­tion has been very good recently. How­ever, Nathan Stricker, project leader with ODNR’s Olen­tangy Wildlife Research Sta­tion, said rab­bit pop­u­la­tions tend to go through an up-and-down cycle every seven to 10 years.

“Rab­bit num­bers are lower this year, but this type of decline is expected with this cycle,” said Stricker. “Regard­less of these cycli­cal changes, cot­ton­tail rab­bit pop­u­la­tions are excel­lent through­out Ohio and pro­vide plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties for a fam­ily hunt­ing outing.”

Quail and pheas­ant pop­u­la­tions may be lower than pre­vi­ous years, and Stricker said quail and pheas­ant are heav­ily depen­dent upon qual­ity habi­tats on pri­vate lands pro­vided by the Con­ser­va­tion Reserve Pro­gram. Williams and Defi­ance coun­ties in north­west Ohio have strong pheas­ant pop­u­la­tions because of the habi­tat con­tri­bu­tions by local landowners.

Upland game pop­u­la­tions are respond­ing pos­i­tively to habi­tat pro­grams in other areas around the state, espe­cially in coun­ties with sig­nif­i­cant enroll­ment in the Scioto Con­ser­va­tion Reserve Enhance­ment Pro­gram and Quail Buffer prac­tices in CRP known as CP33.

Cot­ton­tail rab­bit hunt­ing con­tin­ues through Feb. 28, 2013. Ring-necked pheas­ant hunt­ing is open through Jan. 6, 2013. Both sea­sons are closed dur­ing the statewide 2012 deer-gun hunt­ing sea­son, Nov. 26-Dec. 2.

Rab­bits, pheas­ants and quail may be hunted from sun­rise to sun­set. The daily bag limit for all three species remains unchanged from last year at four rab­bits, two pheas­ants (roosters/males only) and four quail.

Hunters are reminded that snow­shoe hares are not legal game in Ohio and should not be hunted. Snow­shoe hares were recently rein­tro­duced to north­east­ern Ohio after nearly a cen­tury of absence. They are brown early in the sea­son, which makes them resem­ble cot­ton­tail rabbits.

To avoid con­fu­sion between cot­ton­tail rab­bits and snow­shoe hares, por­tions of Geauga and Ashtab­ula coun­ties will be closed to all rab­bit hunt­ing from Nov. 2-Dec. 2. At that time, hunters will be able to dis­tin­guish between the two rab­bits since most snow­shoe hares will have turned white by early December.

Pheas­ants are released on select­ing hunt­ing areas through­out the state by the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife prior to open­ing day of the pheas­ant sea­son, the sec­ond Sat­ur­day of the sea­son, Nov. 10 and Thanks­giv­ing Day.

Bob­white quail hunt­ing is open in 16 coun­ties in south­ern Ohio: Adams, Athens, Brown, But­ler, Cler­mont, Clin­ton, High­land, Jack­son, Meigs, Mont­gomery, Pike, Pre­ble, Ross, Scioto, Vin­ton and War­ren. The sea­son con­tin­ues through Nov. 25.

Addi­tional hunt­ing infor­ma­tion is con­tained in the 2012–2013 Ohio Hunt­ing and Trap­ping Reg­u­la­tions, which are avail­able where hunt­ing licenses are sold, online at wildohio.com or by call­ing 800-WILDLIFE.

• Although Sandy wreaked havoc on the East Coast, it sure did the water­fowlers around here a big favor. The com­bi­na­tion of the storm with a cold front com­ing in from the upper Mid­west, cre­ated sev­eral days of stiff north winds for the final week­end of the north zone water­fowl season.

Not only did we enjoy a nice lit­tle migra­tion of pud­dlers and divers com­ing from the north on that Sat­ur­day, we were treated by a visit into the decoys by a pair of white wing scot­ers that my boys were able to har­vest on Sun­day. Scot­ers are typ­i­cally a sea duck, and although I have seen one shot in this area before, they are still pretty rare in these parts.

Not only are there reports of scot­ers seek­ing refuge from the storm all across the state, there have also been sight­ings of sev­eral flocks of brant, another nor­mally sea far­ing water­fowl, through­out the north­ern half of the state as well. We typ­i­cally think of water­fowl migra­tions as being north and south, but birds will move east and west as needed as well.

Typ­i­cally, when major storms like Sandy nail the coasts, the birds will head inland to seek safety, thus the rea­son for our east coast vis­i­tors. Drought, snow cover, and lack of avail­able food can cause birds to move lat­er­ally across the con­ti­nent as well.

It cer­tainly was cool for the boys to har­vest birds that aren’t typ­i­cally seen in the area and they can now brag that they have done some­thing that their old man hasn’t done yet.

Until next time, Good Hunt­ing and Good Fishing!

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Nov 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.