Thread: Whats your solutions to the duck decline?

Originally Posted by Druid

Wildlife need the right habitat to breed and feed etc, It is habitat , habitat , habitat .

We know, from licence sales and from personal comments , that many shooters have quit the game because of the introduction of steel shot .
Land owners/occupiers ( who cant be checked by looking at licence sales) probably quit in the same percentage and for the same reasons .

For landowners/occupiers to keep non productive land like swamps and ponds , they must have a stake in them , ie there must be some other benefit to them .
When they stop shooting they look at the valuable land that no longer has any recreational value to them and is now going to waste and convert it to pasture . Exit stage left one swampy pond .

Loss of habitat before any thing else , before steel, before multishot shot guns, before feeders before flappy decoys , with an ample sufficiency of habitat all the other things can be absorbed by natural means

To paraphrase T S Elliot in the Hollow Men

This is the way the duck shooting ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

Now that is the most common sense comment on this whole debate. Are you listening F&G.

It no use having all these rules if the ducks have nowhere to do the honky bonky and raise their young


2 Years ago A group of us were considering raising/releasing pheasants. 10 of us had ideas purchasing between 50 and 100 chicks each and raise/ release em. Would have been a sizable investment in money and time for each of us. It all got too difficult. We were hoping to have a single shoot, on one day where we might get to shoot 2-3 brace each on the day given all the money/cost/ time / effort which would be invested. Broached it with local F&G at the time as they were tying to push "habitat enhancement". The reply was good idea but l no special permission for you sorry guys, limit is 1 Cock per day and and season was 9 days nine total. Last year the season was 3 months / ! bird per day on private land in the region, (F&G definition of private land is that "local forestry is public land even though PUBLIC do not have general free access at any time and have to apply and PAY for a permit fee to the lease older to gain access") It was just not worth it.

The idea has not died yet, We are still keen to do something, currently thinking that we might substitute the "Pheasant" for Guinea Fowl and hope they go "feral" enough to be an OK substitute.
Then hunt em with the dogs and have a good day out with no hassles, no bag limit (other than common sense), common sense not silly rules, and best of all no License required. If it worked out most likely I might never buy a licence again and just make do with gees, guinea foul and clays