# 2017-18 Waterfowl Guidebook



## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

https://wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks/2017_pdfs/2017-18_waterfowl.pdf


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

There is a Northern and Southern zone this year with the Southern zone starting one week later and running one week longer. There will be two youth hunts and two openers if you hunt the Northern and Southern zones. 

I don't think the goose zone maps have been updated yet. I checked them and they appear to be last years.

The Swan application period is July 5th-20th

The Pintail limit is 1 of either sex.


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## utahbigbull (May 9, 2012)

Thanks Rob!


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

Whoo hoo grandson #1 still get's youth hunt!


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

LostLouisianian said:


> Whoo hoo grandson #1 still get's youth hunt!


I never quite figured out why "youth" was a different age for big game, upland and waterfowl.


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## goosefreak (Aug 20, 2009)

the biggest problem I see with the "2 openers" is that someone or several someones's are going to be hunting the southern zones on the day the northern zone opens up!!


**EDIT**
Too many duck zone, goose zone, north zone south zone, east zone west zone. Oct 14-Jan 20 Oct 7-Jan27, geese north Oct7 -Jan 20, geese east Oct-cheeseburger.. scaup south zone Nov-Jan CRAP! these dates are way too confusing..

they can simplify it so much better, it looks like they just through darts at a wall of dates and species...........I dont like it!


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## paddler (Jul 17, 2009)

goosefreak said:


> the biggest problem I see with the "2 openers" is that someone or several someones's are going to be hunting the southern zones on the day the northern zone opens up!!
> 
> **EDIT**
> Too many duck zone, goose zone, north zone south zone, east zone west zone. Oct 14-Jan 20 Oct 7-Jan27, geese north Oct7 -Jan 20, geese east Oct-cheeseburger.. scaup south zone Nov-Jan CRAP! these dates are way too confusing..
> ...


All you really need to know is the stuff on pintails. All else is trivia.;-)


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## moabxjeeper (Dec 18, 2012)

goosefreak said:


> **EDIT**
> Too many duck zone, goose zone, north zone south zone, east zone west zone. Oct 14-Jan 20 Oct 7-Jan27, geese north Oct7 -Jan 20, geese east Oct-cheeseburger.. scaup south zone Nov-Jan CRAP! these dates are way too confusing..!


Exactly. I think you'd need a fairly competent lawyer to go through and make sense of all the season dates/zones/areas/species etc.


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

goosefreak said:


> the biggest problem I see with the "2 openers" is that someone or several someones's are going to be hunting the southern zones on the day the northern zone opens up!!
> 
> **EDIT**
> Too many duck zone, goose zone, north zone south zone, east zone west zone. Oct 14-Jan 20 Oct 7-Jan27, geese north Oct7 -Jan 20, geese east Oct-cheeseburger.. scaup south zone Nov-Jan CRAP! these dates are way too confusing..
> ...


Ohhh pulleaase. Are you telling me Utahns are that dumb? Heck since I was a teenager in Louisiana the hunting season and bag limits have been 10 times more complicated than this and us dumb Cajuns figured it out. Heck I remember having two zones, split seasons and the opening of the 2nd split you couldn't shoot till noon and each species and sex of duck had a "point system" and you were only allowed a certain number of points per outing....this is kids play compared to when I grew up.


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

LostLouisianian said:


> Ohhh pulleaase. Are you telling me Utahns are that dumb? Heck since I was a teenager in Louisiana the hunting season and bag limits have been 10 times more complicated than this and us dumb Cajuns figured it out. Heck I remember having two zones, split seasons and the opening of the 2nd split you couldn't shoot till noon and each species and sex of duck had a "point system" and you were only allowed a certain number of points per outing....this is kids play compared to when I grew up.


You just have to read the book and figure it out which isn't that hard.

It reminds me of a year that I was coming off of the Manti from deer hunting and we were stopped because of a wreck. The person behind me said that they hadn't seen any deer and that they were going to Strawberry to finish out the hunt and that there were lots of deer up there. I asked him what kind of tag he had that he could hunt two different regions and he just looked at me like "what the F"

He had no idea that he had been hunting for years in the wrong region. But then again he had never been checked either.


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

Here you go....3 zones, split seasons so essentially 6 different duck hunting seasons in Louisiana.

http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/hunting/migratory-and-waterfowl


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

I don't like the one pintail bag limit. This has been the wettest spring in years throughout the Pacific Flyway. I'm assuming it was a banner breeding season. I don't like the scaup season for the Northern zone either. It closes when scaup numbers are the greatest around the GSL.


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## moabxjeeper (Dec 18, 2012)

Fowlmouth said:


> I don't like the one pintail bag limit. This has been the wettest spring in years throughout the Pacific Flyway. I'm assuming it was a banner breeding season. I don't like the scaup season for the Northern zone either. It closes when scaup numbers are the greatest around the GSL.


I'm somewhat color blind and it's incredibly hard for me to tell what ducks are in the air unless the lighting is just right. For the most part there's big, medium, and small sized black blobs coming into the decoys until they're about 20 yards away, but they're usually dead or high tailing it out by then.


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## Shadow Man (Feb 22, 2017)

I agree with FM on the decrease of pins and our super wet spring, crews on the breeding population and habitat survey recorded seeing good numbers of breeding pins, which hopfully should translate into a good fall flight, as far as the scaup season goes that seems to be typical utah management, shut the season down when it's getting good, it's no wonder why we have urban geese coming out of our ears! Wish Utah was more like our surrounding states and managed wildlife for wildlife and not money! (imo)!


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

This is the earliest swan application period I can remember. (July 5th-20th) I wonder how soon after results will be posted?


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## dkhntrdstn (Sep 7, 2007)

Fowlmouth said:


> This is the earliest swan application period I can remember. (July 5th-20th) I wonder how soon after results will be posted?


by the end of july I bet


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

Fowlmouth said:


> This is the earliest swan application period I can remember. (July 5th-20th) I wonder how soon after results will be posted?


My results email came last year on July 28.


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## Clarq (Jul 21, 2011)

Fowlmouth said:


> I don't like the scaup season for the Northern zone either. It closes when scaup numbers are the greatest around the GSL.


+1

I had a hard time during the late season last year because of the scaup closure. My distance vision has been slowly going downhill for the past few years, and by closing day last season I was passing on all kinds of birds because I couldn't say with certainty they weren't scaup (it doesn't help that one spot I like to hunt has tons of them).

Now with the pintail limit down to 1, I think I'd better get some glasses before the season starts.

Getting old sucks. -O,-


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

Clarq said:


> My results email came last year on July 28.


I thought the draw has always been in August. Hmmm.... what do I know? I stopped applying years ago.


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

Is there any prohibition about hunting ducks from a float tube as long as you're stationary?


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

LostLouisianian said:


> Is there any prohibition about hunting ducks from a float tube as long as you're stationary?


Nope!


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

LostLouisianian said:


> Is there any prohibition about hunting ducks from a float tube as long as you're stationary?


What you need for that is a goose or duck decoy head and body to go along with the float tube and you could paddle right into the flock. -8/-

That could be some very cold hunting having your legs submerged in that water long enough to have some birds come in to you.


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

Critter said:


> That could be some very cold hunting having your legs submerged in that water long enough to have some birds come in to you.


Not at all, at the rate I am putting on fat I should have more blubber down there than a Blue Whale to insulate my legs. :shock::shock:


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## goosefreak (Aug 20, 2009)

LostLouisianian said:


> Ohhh pulleaase. Are you telling me Utahns are that dumb? up.


This aint the buoy Mr. lost.. hunters cant even obey simple shooting hours, goose zone closures or even the closing of a particular species all together. All I see is enabling the ignorant to be even more ignorant... I however, know how to navigate the laws and I fallow ALL of them to the letter..


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## toasty (May 15, 2008)

LostLouisianian said:


> Is there any prohibition about hunting ducks from a float tube as long as you're stationary?


You don't even have to be stationary, you can kick to them and shoot them as long as you are propelling your tube by your own leg power. If, however, you use a motor, you have to be completely stopped from the motor propulsion before you shoot; a violation that I have seen several times from guys motoring into flocks of birds and shooting.


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

toasty said:


> You don't even have to be stationary, you can kick to them and shoot them as long as you are propelling your tube by your own leg power. If, however, you use a motor, you have to be completely stopped from the motor propulsion before you shoot; a violation that I have seen several times from guys motoring into flocks of birds and shooting.


I have chased down cripples in my boat and it's tough to get completely stopped before dispatching the wounded bird. I used to see a lot of guys run and gun, but haven't the last few years.


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

Fowlmouth said:


> I have chased down cripples in my boat and it's tough to get completely stopped before dispatching the wounded bird. I used to see a lot of guys run and gun, but haven't the last few years.


I know a guy once as a teenager caught a coot on the fly! Yeah he had this outboard motor boat and it was right before duck season. He was coming home from working on his blind and saw a flock of Poule d'eau's and ran through them. Many of them stayed a couple of feet above the water and kept flying straight. He got along side of one and grabbed it. Of course he let it go but man that was crazy cool. Or so I've been told. I think he was about 15 or 16 at that time.:noidea:


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## toasty (May 15, 2008)

Fowlmouth said:


> I have chased down cripples in my boat and it's tough to get completely stopped before dispatching the wounded bird. I used to see a lot of guys run and gun, but haven't the last few years.


I am not worried about chasing down a cripple. What ticks me off, is about 3 years ago, on a mountain lake, I saw a group of 4 guys boating into bays at full speed that held ducks and shooting before they even cut the engine. Then they would pick up a duck or two and jump to the next bay and so on. This went on for hours and they hit the same bays several times. The ducks that day were really skittish and 90% of them pushed off the lake. Very few ducks on that lake the whole season which made me wonder if they were doing it regularly. I often wonder if anything happened after I called it in, probably nothing.


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

toasty said:


> I am not worried about chasing down a cripple. What ticks me off, is about 3 years ago, on a mountain lake, I saw a group of 4 guys boating into bays at full speed that held ducks and shooting before they even cut the engine. Then they would pick up a duck or two and jump to the next bay and so on. This went on for hours and they hit the same bays several times. The ducks that day were really skittish and 90% of them pushed off the lake. Very few ducks on that lake the whole season which made me wonder if they were doing it regularly. I often wonder if anything happened after I called it in, probably nothing.


I have seen guys do that out on the Turpin unit multiple times. I have also watched guys park in the middle of Turpin, set up their boat blind and toss decoys. I never see them shoot any ducks though.:? Another problem that was happening a few years ago were the tender boats rallying birds for the layout boats.


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## Pumpgunner (Jan 12, 2010)

Fowlmouth said:


> I have seen guys do that out on the Turpin unit multiple times. I have also watched guys park in the middle of Turpin, set up their boat blind and toss decoys. I never see them shoot any ducks though.:? Another problem that was happening a few years ago were the tender boats rallying birds for the layout boats.


I remember a huge #*%&fight over rallying on this forum a couple years ago....it got ugly!


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## dkhntrdstn (Sep 7, 2007)

Fowlmouth said:


> I thought the draw has always been in August. Hmmm.... what do I know? I stopped applying years ago.


it was in Aug. they changed it so it was easier to put in for swans,cranes and sage grouse all at the same time.


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

After what the manager of BRBR is doing this summer it might be really tough to get a swan this fall at BRBR. Maybe a good year to accumulate points.


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## dkhntrdstn (Sep 7, 2007)

LostLouisianian said:


> After what the manager of BRBR is doing this summer it might be really tough to get a swan this fall at BRBR. Maybe a good year to accumulate points.


they will just be at ogden bay and farmington bay sooner then later


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## JerryH (Jun 17, 2014)

LostLouisianian said:


> After what the manager of BRBR is doing this summer it might be really tough to get a swan this fall at BRBR. Maybe a good year to accumulate points.


 Rumor on the street is he is retiring!!!


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## paddler (Jul 17, 2009)

JerryH said:


> Rumor on the street is he is retiring!!!


How old is he???


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