Columnist Paul DelGiudice: Hunting season a mixed bag so far

Paul DelGiudice

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999 | 10:33 a.m.

Paula DelGiudice's outdoors notebook appears Wednesday. Reach her at PDelGiudice@compuserve.com.

Unseasonably warm weather greeted hunters throughout Nevada during the second weekend of most hunting seasons last Saturday and Sunday. A front moved through midweek, leaving "blue bird" weather in its wake.

For waterfowl hunters, jump shooting was better than watching the small flights of ducks enticed into the decoys, as my husband and two stepsons found at Franklin Lake in Elko County on Saturday.

The most impressive part of their hunt was listening to the great numbers of Canada geese flying overhead early in the morning as the sun was rising. The truth be known, that's the reason why most waterfowl hunters love the marsh in the first place -- goose music, as Aldo Leopold put it.

The goose music was especially loud and plentiful because goose season doesn't open until Oct. 23 in all counties except Clark and Lincoln. The goose season in Clark and Lincoln opens Nov. 20. All goose seasons close Jan. 22. Ducks were making noise, but there were fewer of them, because the season has been open since Oct. 2.

The warm weather was a positive for sage grouse hunters hunting in central Nevada. According to Frank Chaves, supervising game warden with the Nevada Division of Wildlife, many hunters took their limits of two birds during the opening weekend of sage grouse season. The area that sage grouse inhabit has been extremely dry causing birds to concentrate on water. The sage grouse season closed last Sunday.

As predicted by NDOW, because of lack of winter and spring rainfall the opening season for quail and chukar in Southern Nevada was very poor. NDOW's Chaves reported that quail hunters had little success at Searchlight, Gold Butte, Kane Springs and the Mormon Mountains. Chukar hunting was poor around Lida and Gold Point. A few hunters reported fair to good chukar hunting in isolated areas near Beatty.

Because habitat was in poor condition in Southern Nevada, there was little brood production this year and opening day success was much lower than in 1998.

The opening season for ducks at Wayne E. Kirch Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Nye County was fair with 122 hunters harvesting 306 birds. On Sunday, the hunting dropped off with 82 hunters managing to take 64 ducks.

* CLIPPED WINGS: Hunters who clipped wings from sage grouse harvested during the nine-day season that closed on Sunday are asked to drop them off at any NDOW office. Wings should be dried and placed in a paper bag, not a plastic sack. When dropping them off, be sure to include the date and location of the harvest.

San Stiver, NDOW staff biologist, said the wings will aid the agency in ongoing research that is being conducted on the native game birds. From examining the wings, biologists can determine the bird's sex, age and, in the case of hens, if it produced a brood this year.

Stiver said there is growing concern about declines in sage grouse populations throughout their range in the western U.S. and Canada. States and provinces have agreed to work together to gather information and conduct research on sage grouse.

* TROUT TO THE RESCUE: Trout Unlimited has urged Nevada State Assemblyman John C. Carpenter (R-Elko) to reconsider his plan to lead a "work group" to conduct illegal construction in and along the Jarbidge River in the Humboldt National Forest of Elko County. TU's local and state leaders urged Carpenter to consider alternatives to his illegal road plans.

The Jarbidge River is home to North America's southernmost population of bull trout. This spring, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the river's population of bull trout as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

At issue was the recommendation of the closure by the U.S. Forest Service of a 1.5-mile portion of road that dead-ends at a wilderness trailhead. The road washes out regularly. The Elko County Commission promptly ordered work crews up the river to rebuild the road, without obtaining permits necessary under the Clean Water Act, Nevada law or Forest Service regulations. The crews stopped work two days later when a cease-and-desist order was issued by the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection.

The County's work channelized a 900-foot stretch of the river and did substantial damage to aquatic habitat. As a result of the damage, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service took the rare step of ordering an emergency listing of the Jarbidge bull trout population as endangered under the ESA.