ST. PAUL, Kan. — After Labor Day, hunters in Southeast Kansas typically begin gearing up for duck season: They touch up the paint on decoys, repair their blinds, haul their waders out of storage.

But recent studies by biologists indicate some species of waterfowl that use the Central Flyway are arriving in this area later than in decades past — meaning hunters have to wait a little longer to harvest them. The state’s southernmost hunters noticed the trend, prompting them to petition for a change in the decades-old hunting season that traditionally opened the last weekend in October.

Last year, they lobbied for — and were granted — pushing the opening date to Nov. 5. This year, at its August meeting, the Kansas Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Commission opted to make this year’s season even later. It opens Nov. 15 and closes Jan. 27.

“For several years, we have had requests from folks in Southeast Kansas for a later season, mostly from those who hunt mallards,” said Mike Miller, a spokesman for the state wildlife department and editor of Kansas Wildlife & Parks Magazine.

Mallards are later migrators, following early-season waterfowl like teal and gadwall that don’t respond as well to hunters’ calls.

But it’s not just about bagging a particular species of duck for the dinner table. Whether hunters are successful also has significant economic ramifications.

Hunting pumps an estimated $270 million into the Kansas economy from an estimated 78,500 hunters. A study by the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies shows that Kansas waterfowl hunters alone account for $30.5 million in retail sales, for a total multiplier effect of $62 million. They pay for $15.5 million in salaries and wages of the 5,408 hunting jobs in the state, 763 of which are specific to waterfowl. They pay $1.7 million in sales and motor fuel taxes.

Many come from out of state — waterfowl hunters alone account for 103,667 visits and 644,668 days of hunting. Those hunters won’t come, owners of hunting clubs say, if the season doesn’t allow for the optimum harvest of ducks.

Roy Carter, whose family has had waterfowl leases along the Neosho River since 1886, said the shift in the duck season will “help us a lot, not only for our benefit but the whole area and the state as a whole.”

“If there’s no ducks, I can’t sell any hunts, and if I can’t sell hunts, the tire shop down the road’s not selling tires, the gas station isn’t selling gas, the state isn’t selling out-of-state stamps,” he said. “If our dates aren’t when the ducks are here, there’s no opportunity for the sportsman. And there’s no sense in having a 74-day season if there’s no opportunity for the sportsman.”

Since it opened a guide service in 1986, it’s been rare for Carters Big Island Duck Club to book hunters before about Nov. 20. Carter lobbied last year to push the season later so that the federally allotted 74 days would stretch through January.

“We just don’t have our ducks yet,” Carter said of the early weeks in previous seasons. “With our weather getting warmer, it’s slower for these ducks to get down here. Last year in January, there were still mallards in North Dakota on Devils Lake.

“Opening it any earlier than that can waste two or three weeks of a season, because you lose about 21 days if they’re not here yet.”



STATE SPLIT

For hunting purposes, the state has long been split into two units: the Low Plains Unit, which runs from Dodge City to the eastern border and has a 74-day season, and the High Plains Unit, which runs from Dodge City west to the Colorado border and has a 96-day season.

The geology and weather patterns of the Low Plains Unit made establishing uniform hunting dates somewhat challenging, said Miller, with the state department.

“For example, the shallow marshes to the north often freeze up by mid- to late December, but farther south, the rivers, deeper reservoirs and farm ponds do not,” he said.

The Low Plains Unit has long been divided into early and late zones to give hunters chances at migrating birds when they’re most numerous within that zone.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted the state permission to add a Southeast Zone to the Low Plans Unit, creating three zones. The new zone includes the Marais Des Cygnes Wildlife Area north of Pleasanton and the Neosho Wildlife Area near St. Paul.

The results of a survey of about 6,000 hunters indicated that 30 percent wanted the latest possible opening date. The state commission, after a long debate, agreed.

“It’s a balancing act,” Miller said. “You know you’re not going to please everybody, but you need to please the majority.”

Message boards and chat rooms visited by Southeast Kansas hunters have lit up with the topic since the decision was made, with hunters voicing both displeasure and appreciation.

Tom Correll, a lifelong Cherokee County waterfowl hunter, said he returned his questionnaire with a request to keep the season as it was.

For about 10 years, he has played a role in developing a marsh in the Neosho River bottoms east of Chetopa, where land is prone to flooding and farmers have enrolled more than 700 acres in the Wetland Reserve Program. That kind of development, he said, has yielded results: Waterfowl arrive and, finding a wealth of resources, they don’t need to go much farther.

“There are more refuges now than there were years ago; we hold a lot more waterfowl in those areas than we used to,” Correll said.

Rural Girard duck hunter Dan Smith, part of a group that owns a 100-acre marsh near the Neosho River, can see the benefits of both an earlier and later season.

“We’re a pretty avid group of guys, and we take it seriously,” he said. “The season wasn’t really productive early. But I’m sure there is a group out there who would like to see it open early like it has in the past. I guess I can see it both ways. There’s a lot of years I have wished I could have hunted in January when it’s piled up with ducks, but there probably are some fellows out at the ponds who enjoy the hunt in October.”

Smith said he’ll be watching the harvest numbers this year, as he is curious whether more ducks will be shot in January this season than in November last year.

“There’s a biologist perspective, a green-head hunter perspective, a pond hunter’s perspective — and the hope would be is that you could fall in there somewhere in the middle and appease everyone’s interest,” he said.

Monte Manbeck, manager at the Neosho Wildlife Area near St. Paul, said he sees about 1,000 different hunters in a season, each making three to four trips. A challenge to pushing the season later there, he said, is that the shallow waters of the pools often freeze over later in the season.

“If you get into a typical weather pattern, you may only have a 30-day season out of 74 you can potentially hunt because of the freeze-up,” he said. That’s when hunters must seek out farm ponds or use ice eaters, he said.

Manbeck said his peak mallard migration is around Thanksgiving and the first part of December.

“They stay until it freezes or until food resources run out,” he said.

Data collected for five decades by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that the average harvest date of mallards and other species has gone from Nov. 7 in 1961 to Dec. 5 when the study concluded in 2008.

Whether those later harvests were affected by migration due to climate change, or agricultural practices or later hunting seasons has not yet been determined.





Duck seasons



KANSAS DUCK SEASONS are as follows:

• High Plains Unit: Oct. 6-Dec. 30 and Jan. 19-27.

• Low Plains Early Zone: Oct. 6-Dec. 2 and Dec. 15-30.

• Low Plains Late Zone: Oct. 27-Dec. 30 and Jan. 19-27.

• Low Plains Southeast Zone: Nov. 15-Jan. 27.