Steve Carney: Changes needed in Minnesota after 2024 waterfowl season leaves much to be desired – Outdoor News
Mercifully, for this hunter, anyway, the duck season has ended in Minnesota.
I have thought a lot about this year’s season and the lack of ducks, so here are some observations that have been on my mind.
Stop with all the early seasons
I’m not a fan of the early waterfowl seasons. I believe the pressure put on local birds weeks before the regular opener is detrimental to the cause and is unfair to the people who hunt the traditional opener.
Putting pressure on ducks in early September pushes those birds out of the sloughs and they go elsewhere. Many of these birds are young-of-the-year with little color, and in early September it’s hard to distinguish bird species.
I’m certainly in favor of getting our youth involved in the sport, but they can hunt the traditional opener with the rest of us – just like in decades past.
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I also saw a dearth of wood ducks from the opener forward. This was the fewest woodies I have seen in my 55 years of waterfowling.
I chalk that up to them being disturbed in early September, making them leave the state prior to the regular opener. I believe the teal also migrated early because of the two early seasons (early teal and the youth hunt).
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The Dakota effect
Parts of North Dakota and South Dakota had a lot of rain and lots of water for ducks, while Minnesota suffered through a drought after the wet spring and early summer.
Common sense says the birds stayed west of Minnesota because of the wetter conditions there. Maybe.
Many of my cronies struggled in North Dakota, too.
Is there a fix?
While talking to one of my friends, he mentioned he was wearing shorts under his waders in September and was swatting mosquitoes most of the weekend.
How about starting the traditional opener later by a couple of weeks, which would provide better late-season shooting? The warm autumns we have been experiencing have kept the migrants north, and it’s common to see a diver-duck push after Thanksgiving and early December when the duck season is over.
Let’s eliminate the two early seasons and have everyone on the same playing field.
And how about bringing back the 4 p.m. daily end to shooting hours? This would allow birds to successfully roost and keep them around longer. If you disturb them in a roosting area, you might as well wave goodbye.
I’m on river systems, private sloughs, and public lakes during all of the duck-hunting season, but now it’s time to make the transition to ice fishing. Gladly.
