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Waterfowl hunt good � for now By Mark Freeman Duck and goose hunters will start the new century with the same sort of top-flight season that closed the old one. Oregon waterfowl hunters will enjoy enormously bountiful opportunities in the field under new duck and goose hunting seasons for this fall and winter. But this year�s long hunting seasons and liberal bag limits likely won�t be repeated next year because West Coast waterfowl production is starting to take a nose dive. "Unless we get some spectacular rains filling up the wetlands, I�d say this is the end," says Brad Bales, the game-bird program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Bales sounded a similar alarm last August when the agency announced a 1999-2000 season that was the most liberal allowed by law. While production of new geese and ducks has dropped from last year�s all-time records, there are still enough holdover birds to allow this year�s hunters a similarly wide-open season. This time when Bales says the good ol� days are gone after this year, believe him. "But I�d be happy to be wrong again," he says. Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission last week adopted duck- and goose-hunting seasons that open Oct. 7 or Oct. 14, depending upon the location. In all, the seasons allow a full 107 days of hunting in Oregon, the most allowed by migratory bird treaties and equal to the number of hunting days last year. But the difference this year is that the actual regular season is shortened to 105 days, with a new September juvenile waterfowl hunting weekend accounting for the two remaining days, Bales says. The statewide Youth Waterfowl Hunt will be Sept. 23-24, before the start of regular waterfowl hunting in October. This will give young guns a better shot at taking birds without pressure from adult hunters. The commission set the youth hunt after extensive public comment in favor of it, Bales says. To make the two-day loss as painless as possible to waterfowlers, the ODFW took Oct. 19 and 20 � an early-season Thursday and Friday where hunting pressure is expected to be light � out of this year�s hunt. "Giving up a couple days in October for kids (in September), I think, are worth it," Bales says. "It�ll come and go before anybody knows it." In Jackson , Josephine and the rest of extreme southwest Oregon, duck hunting starts Oct. 7 and goose hunting starts Oct. 14. Both seasons run through Oct. 18, then resume Oct. 21 and run through Jan. 21. In Klamath , Lake, Harney and Malheur counties, the duck and goose seasons both start Oct. 7 and run through Oct. 18, then re-start Oct. 21. But goose hunting in these counties closes Jan. 14, while duck hunting continues through Jan. 21. In the rest of Eastern Oregon , the duck and goose seasons run concurrent. They are Oct. 14-18, and Oct. 21 through Jan. 21. The bag limits are the same this year as last year. For geese, the limit is four dark geese and three white geese a day. For ducks, the limit is seven a day, but no more than two hen mallards, one pintail, two redheads, four scaup and one canvasback. This year�s September hunt on resident Canada geese in southwest Oregon will be Sept. 9-15, with a five-geese daily limit. Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA