Hunters celebrate with a limit of three Canada geese each. This winter the limit may be increased to eight apiece.
Oklahoma’s goose hunters may have something to honk about after Monday with a bag limit that will nearly triple that allowed previously.
With continued liberal hunting seasons and bag limits for ducks and geese announced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday, Oklahoma goose hunters may see a regular season bag limit increase from three birds daily to eight.
The early-season bag limit for so-called “local geese” already has been increased to eight and the limit for early-season teal increased from four last year to six this year.
The Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission will take up the subject with a state proposal during its regular monthly meeting Monday morning in Oklahoma City.
Each year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works in partnership with states from the four flyways to establish a framework for waterfowl hunting season lengths, dates and bag limits.
In a late-July meeting the Service establishes that framework and states within the flyways may use the basic framework to set their own regulations.
Josh Richardson, migratory game bird biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, said this year’s state proposal keeps Oklahoma hunting season dates and zones in essentially the same structure as last year but with date changes to match the calendar. Oklahoma’s rules typically mirror the federal framework’s most liberal recommendations.
One change has the Service allowing for possession limits – the number of birds a hunter can have stored and tagged after the first day – to be increased from twice the daily bag limit to three times the daily limit. The limit on canvasback ducks would increase from one to two daily. The limit for scaup would decrease from six to three.
“The big news may be the geese but we’re kinda waiting until Monday to say much about that,” Richardson said. He allowed that he saw no reason the state’s commission would choose to be more restrictive than the federal guidelines, however.
Richardson said Oklahoma biologists have lobbied the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service for a higher daily bag limit on geese for several years. “We had lobbied to go up to five birds and we asked if they would bump it to eight birds and they took it,” he said.
“I think there will be a lot of happy waterfowl hunters in Oklahoma the next few days. I think there will be a lot of happy farmers too.”
Flocks of thousands upon thousands of Canada geese damage agriculture fields during the migration each winter.
The Service also is allowing a snow goose bag limit increase from 20 to 50 birds daily. In Oklahoma, depending on the flight path of the birds and prevailing weather, the opportunity to take that many snow geese in a day is relatively rare.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service framework for the Central Flyway released Friday is as follows:
Central Flyway (Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and portions of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming):
• Ducks: Duck season frameworks are between September 21, 2013 and January 26, 2014. The daily bag limit is 6 ducks, with species and sex restrictions as follows: 5 mallards, no more than 2 of which may be females; 3 wood ducks, 3 scaup, 2 pintails, 2 redheads, 2 canvasbacks, and 1 mottled duck. Mottled ducks may not be harvested during the first 5 days after the beginning of the regular season in Texas. In the High Plains Mallard Management Unit (roughly west of the 100th Meridian), a 97-day season is proposed, and the last 23 days can start no earlier than December 7, 2013. A 74-day season is proposed for the remainder of the Central Flyway.
• Geese: States may select seasons between September 21, 2013 and February 16, 2014 for dark geese and between September 21, 2013, and March 10, 2014, for light geese. East-tier states are able to select a 107-day season for Canada geese with a daily bag limit of 8. For white-fronted geese, east-tier states will be able to select either a 74-day season with a daily bag limit of 2 birds or an 88-day season with a daily bag limit of 1 bird. In the West-tier, states may select a 107-day dark goose season with a daily bag limit of 5 birds. In the Western Goose zone of Texas, the state could select a 95-day season with a daily bag limit of 5 dark geese (including no more than 1 white-fronted goose). For light geese, all states would be able to select a 107-day season with a daily bag limit of 50.
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