The 2024 Woodcock Population Report is Out!

[finsfurfeathers]

Ok...I call BS on this. Refer to exhibit "a" in the Ducks forum...under the thread "Do to you pluck or wax your birds"

... you typed (I quote)

fortunately don't get much waterfowl early just breast them out if not heavily pinned will pluck. Any other bird gets plucked using hot water.

Care to explain?

sure, You read "if not heavily pinned will pluck" right? If there are alot of pin feathers then can't fully pluck a heavily pinned bird so breasting it out, taking the legs and then the heart/liver gizzard its the best way to recover as much edible meat as possible right?.
How do you process a heavily pinned bird?

[chocolateman]

sure, You read "if not heavily pinned will pluck" right? If there are alot of pin feathers then can't fully pluck a heavily pinned bird so breasting it out, taking the legs and then the heart/liver gizzard its the best way to recover as much edible meat as possible right?.
How do you process a heavily pinned bird?

Sorry my bad....that's on me. I must of misinterpreted your response of just never breasted a bird & it confused me.
Somehow I thot you were calling out all hunters who choose to breast a bird and it was an unethical thing to do.

Know I understand you do both the pluck and breasting of bird when convenient to you.

We are good.

[ninepointer]

Honestly, I'm surprised that our daily woodcock limit is still at 8. Five would be plenty IMO. I would also not object to a reduced daily limit of 2 ruffed grouse south of the Trent-Severn.

[finsfurfeathers]

Honestly, I'm surprised that our daily woodcock limit is still at 8. Five would be plenty IMO. I would also not object to a reduced daily limit of 2 ruffed grouse south of the Trent-Severn.

yup we can only speculate as why. I can only reason as a shared resource with the States, to meet our quota the limit is set at that number. Figure there isn't that much harvest to warrant a reduction. Do my part by sending in my wings to the survey. Sure if there was an excess taken by us the US would call for a reduction.

[Cass]

or hawks. My husband is a member of a "bird club". Each year they count hawks across Ontario on a certain day. That happened this weekend and they have never seen fewer hawks of all kinds counted.

Maybe this is my issue. I'm having one heck of a time trapping a falconry bird this season. Definitely not seeing nearly as many around but I'm hoping it just means they're not migrating much yet.

[Couliewalker]

Up until recently, I never heard or saw of woodcock being taken in their southern winter haunts .Now with the decline of the Bobwhite, I'm seeing you tube videos of winter woodcock hunting.
This can't help populations.They don't breed again down there.

[Frank16]

I have already seen two pics of guys up north with 30 plus birds on their tailgates this season. Throughout a weekend.

[Frank16]

Honestly, I'm surprised that our daily woodcock limit is still at 8. Five would be plenty IMO. I would also not object to a reduced daily limit of 2 ruffed grouse south of the Trent-Severn.

We need a better management system. MNR in Ontario stinks ! I wish we had the wildlife and habitat management the States do! The limit for woodies there is 3! Keeps the population stable I guess!

[ninepointer]

Early anecdotal reports from the southern states point to a normal flight. Why didn’t we see that here? Smarter people will be analyzing this.


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[Gilroy]

Honestly, I'm surprised that our daily woodcock limit is still at 8. Five would be plenty IMO. I would also not object to a reduced daily limit of 2 ruffed grouse south of the Trent-Severn.

I don't know much about these birds except that on my land I used to see more on their evening flights than I do now, which corresponds with the reduction in wet areas I have noticed increasing in the same time period. From a purely common sense view point a daily limit of eight would indicate to most folks these birds have a healthy population and the managers have figured out the population can sustain that harvest, that appears not to be the case so the limit should be dropped.