That’s a wrap! Well, sort of. This week marked the close of the 2003 – 2004 Regular Waterfowl Season but will offer a special youth hunt this weekend and the Snow Goose conservation season is still ahead. So it’s not over yet.
Hello, folks, and, as always, welcome to Waterfowler.com.
Only a few days remain to get your name in the drawing for the WFC South Africa Waterfowl Hunting Adventure Sweepstakes. Join Waterfowler.com before January 31, 2004 and you will have a chance to win a waterfowl hunt-of-a-lifetime in South Africa.
Thanks to Waterfowler.com’s ongoing partnership with Frontiers International, one very lucky duck hunter will experience the grand pursuit of exotic waterfowl and upland game species with their hosts, Game Bird Safaris in South Africa.
The South Africa Hunting Adventure includes a 5-night/4-day hunt with Game Bird Safaris in South Africa. This trip is to be taken May through July of 2004, and will be a mixed-bag hunting trip for francolin, guinea fowl, doves, pigeons, ducks and geese. The trip will include round-trip economy air transportation from your closest metropolitan airport to New York and Johannesburg. Accommodations (based on double occupancy), all meals with wine, beer and soft drinks, all land transportation in Vryheid until departure; hunting licenses, services of professional hunters, laundry service, and 14% VAT applicable in South Africa. See the WFC Home Page for full details.
The Spring snow goose season is about to get underway, be sure to update and/or renew your WFC membership now to keep you on the X as the final leg of the season gets into high gear.
Has this season left you with a story or two to tell? WFC would like to share your memories from the 2003-2004 season with your fellow WFC Members. Submission guidelines are now available on the Home Page of WFC. Click on the Submission Guidelines link located in the upper right navigation menu on the WFC Home Page for the complete guidelines.
And now, on to the Migration Update.
With the regular season over and most waterfowlers just now gearing up to do their part for the conservation order, we will take a breather from the regular Flyway-by-Flyway Report this week.
As the main focus for North American waterfowlers shifts from ducks to geese, we encourage all our users to participate in the WFC Migration Mapping System. Be sure to select “Light Geese” from the reporting menu when logging in your observations. In seasons past, WFC members and users have found this feature incredibly valuable for keeping them “in the know” about light goose movement as the spring return migration gets underway.
WFC would like to encourage all our members and users who reside in states offering a special youth hunt to make an extra effort to get the young one out and involved. These young men and women are the future of our tradition and they deserve all of our best efforts in showing them the wonders of our favorite passion.
The post-season blues are being widely reported. Although for some the season has been over for awhile, the official end is always felt across the map. Plans for next season are no doubt already underway and now we wait and watch as the birds we so love begin their return to their breeding grounds. With fingers crossed and a few extra dollars kicked in for conservation, North America’s waterfowlers steady themselves for the wait. Hopes, prayers and personal efforts will fill our time as we do our part in the off season to ensure the best for the continent’s waterfowl population. In hopes that next fall the skies blacken with returning waterfowl as we again reach another opening day.
