re: Public waterfowl hearing Jefferson Parish (Updated with notes in OP)

quote:

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I must be the only person in NWLA that is extremely happy about them bringing a true split back this season.

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No you aren't, really.

NW LA is a mess right now. There is a vocal group of hunters with blinds on the major reservoirs in that part of the state (Bistineau, Cross, Wallace, Black, etc.) that insist that the season needs to be earlier. Their recommendation at the Bossier City meeting was a 58-day season opening the first Saturday in November and close the first Sunday in January with either no split or a 5-day split.

They absolutely reject the hunter-opinion survey data I've collected in 2012, 2013, and now 2015 that shows a majority of hunters in the West Zone prefer later seasons. They are vocal and argumentative enough that other participants at the meeting e-mailed me afterwards to give me their comments because they were not interested in openly fighting with the "gotta hunt earlier" crowd.

I have mixed feelings because 1) it was this group of hunters that put me on a path to create the new West Zone and a Coastal Zone from the old West Zone, and 2) the harvest data do shows NW LA kills over 50% of it's season kill in the first 3 weeks of the season. In the last 3 years I've been adding a week to the first split to give them more early-season hunting with a 5-day split, but I can't go all one-sided given the hunter-opinion data.

This year, I did the same thing, and kept a 5-day split although the calendar shifting later allowed a 12-day split, which the "gotta hunt earlier" crowd dislikes. But Commission changed my recommended dates taking the last week of the first split and adding it to the second split, which are the traditional dates for that area from the old West Zone days. Even though I wasn't responsible for the change, a couple of them left "we need to do what we can to get rid of you" voice-mails.

I know it is a small minority, but unreasonable hunters thinking only of themselves is the worst part of trying to find a compromise position incorporating both harvest and hunter-opinion data.