The general waterfowl season opens Saturday.

    This will begin a two and a half month odyssey for many local hunters that involves many early mornings, strenuous walks through the marsh and the joy spending time in the field pursuing their passion.

    What can hunters expect?

    “We’re seeing pretty good numbers of teal along with pintail, gadwall, shovelers and speckebellies,” said Shane Chesson of Drake Plantation Outfitters.

    Chesson said huge numbers of snow geese are yet to show but populations are building in Chambers and Jefferson County.

    “Out on the prairie and in some of the marshes there should be a lot of good hunts. The rains we have had recently have helped conditions and the birds are continuously pouring in,” he said.

    Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) officials are reminded that after three years under the Hunter’s Choice experimental bag, Texas will revert to a conventional six-duck limit per day in the aggregate.

    This will include the following species and sex restrictions: five mallards (of which only two may be hens), three wood ducks, two scaup, two redheads, one pintail, one canvasback, and one "dusky duck" (mottled duck, Mexican-like duck, black duck and their hybrids).

    Mottled ducks may not be harvested prior to Thursday, Nov. 5 in the North and South Zones and Nov. 2 in the High Plains Mallard Management Unit.

    This restricted limit is due to a U.S Fish and Wildlife Service push to hold Texas and Louisiana to a 20 percent harvest reduction on mottled ducks.

    "We ran our harvest-per-day numbers on mottled ducks and determined we could wait and open hunting of mottled ducks on the sixth day of the season and achieve a 20 percent reduction because we were already at one dusky duck per day (mottled duck, Mexican duck or black duck)," said Vernon Bevill, TPWD director for small game.

    "The sixth day falls on a Thursday (Nov. 5) and by opening on a weekday we feel mottled ducks will get a quick education before the hunting pressure goes back up on the second weekend," he said.

    "They have suffered the impacts of several hurricanes destroying their breeding areas and flushing the wetlands with high salinities and destroying their food sources.

    The bag limit on mergansers is 5 daily, of which only 2 may be hooded mergansers and the daily bag on coots is 15.

    The duck season in the north and south zones runs Oct. 31-Nov. 29 and opens back up Dec. 12, closing Jan. 24. The season is Oct. 31 through Jan. 24 for light geese and Canada geese and Oct. 31-Jan. 10 for white-fronted geese (specklebellies).

    The daily bag limit is 20 light geese in the aggregate and three Canada geese and two white-fronted geese.

    Look for waterfowl reports along with our detailed local fishing reports every week.



Chester Moore, Jr. is The News Outdoors Editor. To contact Chester Moore, e-mail him at cmoore@fishgame.com. You can hear him on the radio Fridays from 6-7 p.m. on Newstalk AM 560 KLVI or online at www.klvi.com.