Pintail duck limit raised

Youth Hunting Day moved to Sept. 19, 2009

Salt Lake City — For the first time in 11 years, you can have two pintail ducks in your daily duck bag limit.

Northern pintail drake at Harold Crane Waterfowl Management Area.

Photo by Phil Douglass

That change, and moving Utah's Youth Hunting Day into mid-September, were among the changes the Utah Wildlife Board approved recently for Utah's upcoming waterfowl hunting season.

Two pintails

Allowing you to have two pintails in your daily bag limit was one of the three bag limit changes the board approved.

You can also hunt canvasback ducks during the entire 107-day season this fall. And you can have up to three scaup ducks in your seven-duck daily bag limit.

Last season, you couldn't hunt canvasbacks. And the daily scaup limit was capped at two birds.

"The biggest reason for the change is more water," says Tom Aldrich, migratory game bird coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources. "That extra water provided good habitat for nesting ducks this past spring. As a result, most of the species, including pintail, canvasback and scaup, are doing better this year.

"That's great news for Utah's duck hunters."

Youth Day moved to Sept. 19, 2009

If you're 15 years of age or younger, you'll be able to kick this year's waterfowl season off earlier than ever before.

In the past, Utah's special Youth Hunting Day was held the Saturday before the general hunt opened. This season, it will be held Sept. 19. That's two weeks before the general season opens on Oct. 3.

"Several upland game hunts, including the chukar partridge hunt, now start on the last Saturday in September," Aldrich says. "We want to give young hunters as many chances to hunt as we can. Moving the youth hunt to Sept. 19 will free these hunters up to participate in the upland game hunts that start on Sept. 26."

Burning phragmites

If you enjoy hunting on the Ogden Bay or Farmington Bay waterfowl management areas, Aldrich has some news for you. If conditions are right, the DWR will burn phragmites plants on the two waterfowl management areas during the hunts this fall.

Parts of the two WMAs—or possibly the entire WMAs—will be closed to the public on the days the burns occur.

As many as five burns could happen this fall. Most of the burns would happen at Ogden Bay. All of the burns would happen on weekdays.

"Atmospheric conditions and other conditions must be just right to burn areas we've sprayed for phragmites. Those conditions didn't come together this past spring or summer," Aldrich says.

"They may not come together this fall, either, but we need to take advantage of them if they do. If we don't, the areas we sprayed on these WMAs last fall could start to recover."

DWR relations with the public staff are in the process of creating an area on the agency's Web site that hunters can check for updates about the burns. Twitter updates about the burns should also be available.

2009–2010 Waterfowl Guidebook

All of the rules the board approved for this fall's waterfowl season can be found in the 2009–2010 Utah Waterfowl Guidebook. The guidebook should be available at www.wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks during the week of Sept. 7.