MISSOURI'S DUCK HUNTING ZONES CHANGE

JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri's new, three-zone waterfowl hunting season offers new advantages to duck hunters, according to Wildlife Research Biologist Dale Hamburg. But hunters should be aware of changes in zones.

Missouri will be divided into north, middle and south waterfowl hunting zones for the first time this year, instead of the north and south zones used in the past.

"Missouri has been locked into the two-zone format since 1977," said Hamburg, whose specialty with the Missouri Department of Conservation is waterfowl research.

"With the 1991-1992 waterfowl season, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) gave us several options for changing that format. We studied them all, keeping in mind what duck hunters say they want and what we know about duck migration over the past 30 years. We chose the option that we think is most likely to put hunters throughout the state in the field at the times they prefer."

Duck season in the South Zone will run from Nov. 30 through Dec. 29. This zone is the area south of a line running west from the Illinois border on Missouri Highway 34 to Interstate 55; south on Interstate 55 to U.S. Highway 62; west on Highway 62 to Missouri Highway 53; north on Highway 53 to Missouri Highway 51; north on Highway 51 to U.S. Highway 60; west on Highway 60 to Missouri Highway. 21; north on Highway 21 to Missouri Highway 72; west on Highway 72 to Missouri Highway 32; west on Highway 32 to U.S. Highway 65; north on Highway 65 to U.S. Highway 54; west on Highway 54 to Missouri Highway 32; south on Highway 32 to Missouri Highway 97; south on Highway 97 to Dade County Highway NN; west on Highway NN to Missouri Highway 37; west on Highway 37 to Jasper County Highway N; west on Highway N to Jasper County Highway M; west on Highway M to the Kansas border.

Duck season in the North Zone will run from Nov. 2 through Dec. 1. The North Zone is the area north of a line running west from the Illinois border on Interstate 70 to U.S. Highway 54; south on Highway 54 to U.S. Highway 50, and west on Highway 50 to the Kansas border.

The Middle Zone is the remainder of the state. Duck hunting in this zone will run from Nov. 9 through Dec. 8.

Humburg pointed out that the new season format allows hunters in any given zone to hunt ducks for 30 days. Hunters who are willing to travel to other parts of the state can hunt longer. Season dates in each region are calculated to coincide with the dates when ducks have historically been most numerous there.

"This is a pretty dramatic change from the way our duck season has been structured," says Humburg. "Like any change, it has some hunters wondering whether it will be as good as the old system. There's no exact way of predicting when ducks will arrive in a particular area in a given year. That depends on weather, and the weather is different every year. But this season fits long-term migratory patterns better than anything we've had in the past. We hope hunters will give it a chance and see how it works out."

Humburg said the FWS will require Missouri to stay with the new season structure for at least five years, which should give the three-zone system a fair test.

Additional information about duck season dates and limits and goose seasons is contained in the 1991 Waterfowl Hunting Digest. For a copy of this publication, write to: Waterfowl Digest, Missouri Department of Conservation, P.O. Box 180, Jefferson City, Mo., 65102-0180.