Thursday, July 08, 2004
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Seasons set for doves, woodcocks, shorebirds and early waterfowl
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Have you ever been hunting during the final, frantic days of the deer season in Eastern Virginia and found yourself in the flight path of a dove migration? As bird after bird wings by, and there is no deer in sight, maybe you thought, “Gee, I should chuck my buckshot for some 7 ½ loads and begin shooting doves!”
But that would be blasphemous, considering the huge attraction that deer season is among hundreds of hunt clubs in the East, especially during the waning days of the season.
The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries recently helped to eliminate this dilemma by adding extra days to the upcoming dove season that will take it well past the first Saturday in January, which is the end of the deer season. This and other regulations were set by the DGIF during a meeting in Richmond. Here’s a look at the rules for the upcoming dove, woodcock, shorebird and early waterfowl seasons:
DOVES The 2004-05 Virginia dove hunting season will be open through Jan. 15, which is five days deeper into the month than last time. This will offer 12 days of dove hunting past the end of the deer season.
Even with the end of the dove season grabbing more attention than in the past, the first 10 days will see more doves, dove hunting and success than most of the rest of the season combined.
The season will be split into three parts. The first portion is Sept. 4-25. This puts opening day on a Saturday that is followed by Labor Day, which means many sportsmen will have the first two days off from work to hunt doves. Other segments are Oct. 9-Nov. 6 and Dec. 28-Jan. 15.
Hunting during the first portion of the season will be from noon until sunset. After that, it is extended to one-half hour before sunrise until sunset. The daily limit is 12. Game officials had the option of setting a limit of 15, but weren’t willing to give up the 10 hunting days required to achieve the higher limit.
It is too early to predict the hunting outlook, but I have been seeing more doves than normal for this time of the year. Wet weather during the spring and early summer growing season has provided an abundance of food for wildlife. The corn crop appears to be on scheduled to mature by early September, which means there should be an above average number of fields harvested to provide spots to launch a dove hunt.
WOODCOCK The DGIF has established its traditional split season in an effort to take care of the peak migrations that occur early in the mountains of the state and later along the Eastern Shore.
The dates are Oct. 30-Nov. 13 and Dec. 18-Jan. 1, with a three-per day limit.
It would have been nice had the season opened Oct. 25, which is the beginning of grouse hunting. Many of the woodcock flushed in the mountains are put to flight by grouse hunting.
The woodcock population has been in a decline. The 10-year trend from 1993 to 2003 revealed a 1.3-percent annual population reduction. This might spark the question, “Why even hunt these birds?”
Research shows that sport hunting really doesn’t do much to impact woodcocks. Their decline is the result of habitat degradation.
RAILS Hunting rails is an Eastern Shore affair. Most of us wouldn’t know a clapper from a king rail if we saw one, and when the DGIF biologists throw in snipe you’ve got to wonder if a joke is about to be played.
No joke. The rail season is Sept. 13-Nov. 20. The combined limit for clapper and king rails is 15 per day. For sora and Virginia rails, the combined limit is 25 per day. The snipe season is Oct. 7-11; Oct. 22- Jan. 31, with an eight per day limit.
SEPTEMBER GEESE Wildlife biologists of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries have decided to maintain the five-per-day bag limit on Canada geese during the September season, turning down the federal option of setting a limit of eight.
Some hunters, along with landowners experiencing damage from geese, would like to have seen a higher limit, but Bob Duncan, chief of the DGIF wildlife divisions said, “The staff is sticking to a limit of five because we think it is doing the job.”
A Sept. 1-25 season was set. Additional goose hunting days will be established when 2004-05 waterfowl regulations are set August 19.
Virginia’s resident goose population has declined since the first September season in 1993, according to Duncan. It was estimated to be 264,867 in 1998. In 2003, that estimate had dropped to 186,753.
Even with the population on a downward trend, hunters continue to enjoy success, with an annual kill that has seen a steady rise. In 2003, hunters reported taking 14,300 birds, which was a record.
The September season is designed to occur prior to the arrival of migrant geese from the north. Migrant populations have suffered setbacks while the resident population has been on the rise in the Atlantic Flyway.
BONUS TEAL Blue-winged teal are one of the earliest of the migratory waterfowl to pass through Virginia. The movement occurs from late August through September, which means most of them are gone before the traditional waterfowl seasons begin.
That’s the reason behind the Sept. 16-25 bonus season, to offer sport that generally is unavailable during the regular duck season. Bonus teal hunting is allowed east of Interstate 95 only. The daily limit is four.
This is a fairly new hunting season, started on an experimental basis in 1998. It reflects the fact that teal populations have improved.
