By Joe Mosby
Frustrated with a disappointing duck season? Take it out on some snow geese. Wildlife authorities will appreciate it.
Yes, telling an Arkansas greenhead specialist to go after "sky carp" is like offering a Ferrari owner a ride in an old pickup truck.
But we got 'em. East Arkansas, meaning much of the state on the sunrise side of Little Rock, has large, sometimes very large, flocks of snow geese here and there. That's part of the problem in hunting them, too. You can't predict where they will be on any day.
Scout around, find a bunch in a winter wheat field, get permission to hunt from the farmer or landowner and then you may be looking at nothing but winter wheat the following morning.
There can be an upside to this, however.
You are in the outdoors, and many Arkansans have the belief that any day in the outdoors is a good one. Some are better than others, of course.
This snow goose thing is going on now, and it's called a conservation order, not a hunting season. Control excessive numbers of snow geese is the idea. Overpopulation of snow geese is destroying their breeding grounds in the far north of Canada, and their numbers need to be reduced. Hunting is the chosen method of United States and Canadian authorities.
The conservation order will extend through April 30 for Arkansas and all other states, although the geese will be gone from Arkansas long before that.
The order includes snow geese, their darker-colored family members sometimes called blue geese and Ross' geese, which look like small snow geese. These are all lumped into the category of "light geese" in contrast to Canada geese and white-fronted or specklebelly geese.
Andrew James, waterfowl program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said, "Technically, this isn't a special hunting season but a conservation order. The regulations are relaxed because it's important that hunters be allowed to harvest as many snow geese as they can. There's no daily bag or possession limit on light geese during the conservation order, guns do not have to be plugged, electronic calls can be used and shooting hours have been extended to a half hour before and after sunset."
The requirements for hunting are a valid hunting license, either from Arkansas or from the hunter's state of residence, and a special snow goose registration number. The hunting licenses can be either resident or nonresident. Hunters may get registration numbers, which are free, by calling the AGFC at (800) 364-4263 between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
"This is a unique situation for waterfowl hunters," James said. "For most species like mallards, Canada geese and pintails, the objective is to limit the harvest to protect the species. With snow geese, the objective is to maximize the harvest, and for exactly the same reason - to protect the species and other species associated with Arctic tundra habitat."
Many Arkansas snow goose hunters use large decoy spreads, hundreds of decoys that they set up where the geese have been seen feeding.
Others try stalking or jump shooting. It's virtually impossible to sneak up on the snow geese in an open field, but one hit-or-miss technique is to spot the geese, drop off hunters to hide on one side of a field then someone drive to the opposite side and flush the geese. The idea, and yes, it sometimes works, is the geese may fly within range over the hunters hiding in a ditch or in brush.
James said the special snow goose conservation season began several years ago and continues this year in an effort to reduce the snow goose population by half from the present levels. Snow goose numbers have expanded more than 300 percent in the last three decades to a current population of about 6 million.
(Some information for this article was contributed by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.)
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Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas' best known outdoor writer. His work is distributed by the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback.com.
Frustrated with a disappointing duck season? Take it out on some snow geese. Wildlife authorities will appreciate it.
Yes, telling an Arkansas greenhead specialist to go after "sky carp" is like offering a Ferrari owner a ride in an old pickup truck.
But we got 'em. East Arkansas, meaning much of the state on the sunrise side of Little Rock, has large, sometimes very large, flocks of snow geese here and there. That's part of the problem in hunting them, too. You can't predict where they will be on any day.
Scout around, find a bunch in a winter wheat field, get permission to hunt from the farmer or landowner and then you may be looking at nothing but winter wheat the following morning.
There can be an upside to this, however.
You are in the outdoors, and many Arkansans have the belief that any day in the outdoors is a good one. Some are better than others, of course.
This snow goose thing is going on now, and it's called a conservation order, not a hunting season. Control excessive numbers of snow geese is the idea. Overpopulation of snow geese is destroying their breeding grounds in the far north of Canada, and their numbers need to be reduced. Hunting is the chosen method of United States and Canadian authorities.
The conservation order will extend through April 30 for Arkansas and all other states, although the geese will be gone from Arkansas long before that.
The order includes snow geese, their darker-colored family members sometimes called blue geese and Ross' geese, which look like small snow geese. These are all lumped into the category of "light geese" in contrast to Canada geese and white-fronted or specklebelly geese.
Andrew James, waterfowl program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said, "Technically, this isn't a special hunting season but a conservation order. The regulations are relaxed because it's important that hunters be allowed to harvest as many snow geese as they can. There's no daily bag or possession limit on light geese during the conservation order, guns do not have to be plugged, electronic calls can be used and shooting hours have been extended to a half hour before and after sunset."
The requirements for hunting are a valid hunting license, either from Arkansas or from the hunter's state of residence, and a special snow goose registration number. The hunting licenses can be either resident or nonresident. Hunters may get registration numbers, which are free, by calling the AGFC at (800) 364-4263 between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
"This is a unique situation for waterfowl hunters," James said. "For most species like mallards, Canada geese and pintails, the objective is to limit the harvest to protect the species. With snow geese, the objective is to maximize the harvest, and for exactly the same reason - to protect the species and other species associated with Arctic tundra habitat."
Many Arkansas snow goose hunters use large decoy spreads, hundreds of decoys that they set up where the geese have been seen feeding.
Others try stalking or jump shooting. It's virtually impossible to sneak up on the snow geese in an open field, but one hit-or-miss technique is to spot the geese, drop off hunters to hide on one side of a field then someone drive to the opposite side and flush the geese. The idea, and yes, it sometimes works, is the geese may fly within range over the hunters hiding in a ditch or in brush.
James said the special snow goose conservation season began several years ago and continues this year in an effort to reduce the snow goose population by half from the present levels. Snow goose numbers have expanded more than 300 percent in the last three decades to a current population of about 6 million.
(Some information for this article was contributed by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.)
--------
Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas' best known outdoor writer. His work is distributed by the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback.com.