Waterfowl Commission Meeting

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Attended the Nebraska Waterfowl Commission Public Hearing this past Friday, not a ton of changes, the proposal can be found on the Game and Parks website. The Central Flyway was also meeting Friday, so there were a few wrinkles that weren't in the proposal that they were waiting on pending the flyway meeting. They seemed to feel that each one of these was likely to happen, with quite a few other possibilities that Nebraska likely won't pursue this year. The ones they felt most confident were going to happen were:

Increased Bag Limit for Early Teal from 4 to 6 - They didn't mention an increase in possession limit (from 2 days bag limit to 3), although I have heard rumor of this from other flyways, so maybe we'll get that as well.

Increased Bag Limit on Canada Geese - Sounds like they expect the flyway to push for AT LEAST a 5 bird bag limit, possibly more. The goose harvest survey they sent this year however trended towards a 5 bird limit, so they mentioned that they would likely only go for a 5 bird limit, even if the flyway allows higher (possibly up to 8).

Increased Canvasback Limit - Sounds likely we are going to have a 2 Canvasback bag limit

Reduced Scaup Limit - Didn't have specifics, but it looks like last years 6 bird bag limit put a dent in them, so they thought the feds were likely to drop these back down.

Changes to Light Goose Conversation Order Season - Sounds like Nebraska/Missouri spent a lot of time doing research on the effects of the LGCO on dabbling ducks and other non-target species. Basically, they found that if a pond gets hunted at any time during the week (like the current 4 day open system in the Rainwater Basin), dabbling duck activity goes down almost 4-fold over if a body of water is closed to hunting altogether. Looks like they are going to push for a 7 day/week season, but more closures on WPAs. Also pushing for closing the LGCO April 1st as this is the time the whooping cranes' presence peaks in NE and goose numbers are usually pretty sparse by this time. Also in relation to cranes, midway through March, the buffer zone west of 281 will increase to 3 miles from the Platte as this is the peak migration of sandhills cranes.

That is about it. Bring on September!