Waterfowl season includes the dreaded split opener

My turkey season started today, but we are going to talk duck hunting since the state released the 2020 Wisconsin Waterfowl Season structure after very quick approval from the Natural Resources Board.

Northern Zone waterfowl hunters may have already heard that the season will go back to a split opener this fall. Once again, they’ll be “flooding the marshes with Southern Zone hunters,” as one acquaintance of mine call it. I’m not surprised. I saw this coming, having lived and hunted the Southern Zone for several seasons once I know that their freeze up is well after ours up here. Yet I also understand the frustrations of Northern Zone hunters who find their local hunting spots inundated with Southern Zone hunters.

I don’t travel like a madman all over the state anymore all fall either. As I started approaching 50, I realized I needed to sleep, and being tired all fall took a lot of the enjoyment away. Maybe Wisconsin needs to go to a zoned license, with the option of a statewide license costing, say, a 100 bucks more, with all proceeds given to Wisconsin Waterfowl Association for Northern Zone Habitat projects.

The Northern Zone will open on Sept. 26 and run until Nov. 24. The Southern and Mississippi River Subzone opens on Oct. 3 goes through Oct. 11, closes from the 12th to the 16th for a split, and reopens on Oct. 17 though Dec. 6.

The Youth Waterfowl Hunt will run statewide on Sept. 19 and 20. The early goose season will run Sept. 1-15 with a limit of five Canadian Goose per day. The regular goose season will start on Sept. 16 and run until Dec. 6 in the Northern Zone. In the Southern Zone, it’s Jan. 5, 2021, with two splits so consult the regs on the splits and species bag limits if you head south.

The teal season will start Sept. 1 and run through Sept. 9, straddling Labor Day Weekend with a six teal per day limit.

It’s a 60 day season with not quite the same bag limit structure. Wisconsin hunters will now, like all the other states in the Mississippi Flyway, be allowed two hen mallards in their daily bag limit of six ducks. Scaup (blue bills) have a one bird limit until Oct. 11, when it increases to two. In the Southern Zone, it increases to two scaup on Oct. 23. We can harvest three wood ducks, two black ducks, canvasbacks, and redheads. Pintails are one per day and hunters can harvest a total of four mallards per day. Again if you move between Northern and Southern Zones you need to keep a copy of the regs close by, especially with split dates and geese dates.

The NRB also voted to propose some changes for the 2021–2025 season structure that the USFWS will need to approve. We will cover that at another time.

I dislike the split opening dates as much as you do. Yet crowds move. So, while hunting a small marsh on a non-split opener year, I found it crowded out on the opening day. It was just like the year prior when all those Southern Zone hunters came north. I guess the issue is a lot of people hunt ducks on opening day.

Some feel it’s unfair. As one guy pointed out to me, he said that some Southern Zone hunters get a 68 day season. I had to correct him because that logic would give those hunters a 72 day season. That logic also assumes that someone can hunt all 72 days and there are few who can. It assumes the hunter would travel to the Northern Zone and hunt from the 26th through the following Friday, head south and hunt from Oct. 3 to 11, drive north and hunt the 12th – 16, then drive south and hunt the 17th through Dec. 5 and not hunt deer.

A hunter that dedicated to waterfowl hunting has a schedule far more flexible than mine and far more discretionary income. They most likely hunt in Canada, the Dakotas, Kansas, and Louisiana each year, buying multiple licenses. Hunting 72 days in Wisconsin would not be a smart plan; sorry, the better waterfowl hunting is west and south.

The split opener excessively pressures waterfowl and the waterfowl hunter from the overcrowded marshes. In the end we need some creative solutions to open more places for hunting to more waterfowl hunters on opening weekend and for ducks to live.

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CHUCK K OLAR LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN