Birds of a feather flock together like migratory bird hunters to Sask.
Some of the migratory birds drawing hunters to the province with federal permits are ducks, various geese, sandhill cranes, coots and snipes.
“People come from other provinces and there’s still a lot of Americans who come up for migratory bird hunting,” said Dwayne Davison, president of the Lloydminster and District Fish and Game Association.
“It’s a lot of money that comes into the province—they’ll be staying in hotels, paying the licence fees, that type of thing.”
The migratory bird hunt runs from Sept. 1 to Dec. 16. High daily bag limits are part of the attraction in the province.
Hunters can bag up to eight ducks or eight allowable geese species a day, for example.
Locally, Davison says goose hunting comes first in popularity followed by duck hunting, with an additional snow geese hunt in the spring.
Sandhill cranes are also a favourite based on the reputation the bird is the ribeye of the sky when cooked.
“We actually had a sandhill crane at our banquet and it was really good. It’s quite a tender meat, actually,” said Davison. “I see them quite often in my travels.”
Davison says he hasn’t hunted migratory birds or game birds himself for over 40 years since he became a big game hunter of moose, elk and deer.
“My daughter got drawn for a mule tail deer, so we’ll be going out for that,” he said with an eye out for whitetail deer and moose hunting up north.
Elk season is also on right now, along with an archery hunt for moose in the Bronson Forest area.
“There’s no open season for moose in farmland areas,” said Davison, who loves being on the prowl in fall weather.
“The cooler the better when you’re hunting big game. Once you shoot big game, you have to cool it off real quick, so the warm temperatures are not your friend.”
Davison says a pilot big game management extended hunt for elk from Nov. 1-10 in the RMs of Livingstone, Hazel Dell, Kelvington, Bjorkdale and Leask is a good idea.
“It’s trying to mitigate the damage to the land owner’s bale stacks and that type of thing,” he said.
The need for an extended hunt is based on damage reported to the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. It’s for Saskatchewan residents only.
Each RM will be allocated 50 antler-less elk licences on top of what was available in the big game draw.
“The tags for that are open to anyone with the ability to hunt big game and be on the HAL licensing system,” said Davison.
“That’s good because it puts it back to the hunter to help with the problem elk and deer in various areas.”
Davison cautions that just because you see 50 deer, for example, around a bale stack in the winter, doesn’t mean there’s a lot of deer in that area.
“If that’s the only food source for miles around, they congregate there, but if you spread them out there’s not that many deer and elk in some areas,” he explained.
Davison recalled chronic wasting disease took a huge toll on deer populations a few years ago in various areas throughout the province.
Read more: Moose hunters fined after posting YouTube video
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