{"id":592,"date":"2024-09-16T21:01:53","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T02:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/?p=592"},"modified":"2024-09-16T21:01:53","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T02:01:53","slug":"heavy-rains-fuel-strong-conditions-for-teal-hunters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/heavy-rains-fuel-strong-conditions-for-teal-hunters\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy Rains Fuel Strong Conditions For Teal Hunters"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY WDNR Conservation Warden Mike Disher of Calumet County and Warden Jason Higgins of Winnebago County<\/strong><\/p>\n

This month we asked two of our wardens known for their expertise in the early teal season to write a column. Warden Mike Disher serves Calumet County while Warden Jason Higgins serves Winnebago County \u2013 two counties popular for duck hunting.<\/p>\n

What follows are the wardens\u2019 overview of what they are seeing in each of their service areas this season.<\/p>\n

\"Warden
Warden Mike Disher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Veteran Hunters Good with Duck ID on the Wing<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Warden Mike says he saw an increase in teal hunters this year on the heels of the abundance of rain the Calumet County area \u2013 along with a lot of southern Wisconsin \u2013 saw in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith water basically everywhere, most hunters this year were focusing on ducks and not doves,\u201d he said, and that\u00a0concentrations of hunters were found mostly on public lands (Brillion and Killsnake Wildlife Areas) while private lands were mostly void of teal hunters.\u00a0\u201cI am guessing due to high water, this year we actually had good numbers of teal around and several large flocks of blue-wing teal\u00a0were seen repeatedly on the Brillion.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he received no complaints concerning hunters shooting non-target birds, despite large numbers of mallards also flying in the area.\u00a0 \u201cMost groups I contacted were veteran\/die-hard waterfowl guys and it was somewhat obvious they were good with duck ID while on the wing,\u201d Warden Mike said, adding most hunters he talked with had one to three birds and mostly blue-winged. \u201cWeather was somewhat warm, but reasonable for this time of year.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, he says, \u201cSeveral areas had high numbers of mosquitos and bug spray was a must.<\/p>\n

\"Warden
Warden Jason Higgins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Teals Return in Larger Numbers Than Previous Years<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Warden Jason says as teal hunter numbers in Winnebago County were like previous years, and the number of teal on two popular public marshes were up from the last two years<\/p>\n

He says the majority were hunting on the large marsh areas of Uihlein Marsh and Rush Lake in Winnebago County, and most he contacted had bagged one to three birds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe early teal season over the last couple of years has had very few teal, with more arriving to the area around the regular duck season,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, this year the teal numbers were present, which may have been due to the large amount of water in the area from previous rainfalls.\u201d<\/p>\n

In years past, he says he received numerous complaints of people shooting duck species other than teal. \u201cThis year I did not receive any complaints\u201d.<\/p>\n

The early teal season in Wisconsin is a terrific opportunity but the teal only hunt also requires that hunters master the sport, he says.\u00a0\u201cEvery duck hunter knows how difficult it can be at times to sometimes identify a duck in hand, nonetheless a duck flying in low light conditions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For the first seven days of September in Wisconsin, teal hunters need to be cautious of what they are shooting and properly identify their legal target.\u00a0 It is not very often that hunters are required to be 100% accurate.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, law requires you shoot a bearded turkey in the spring, but let\u2019s face it, turkeys look like prehistoric dinosaurs,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, it is pretty easy to see a beard or no beard.\u00a0 But shooting a duck on the wing is a different talent all together, and any duck hunter will tell you it takes time in the marsh identifying birds.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost hardcore waterfowl hunters know the best training guide is being in the marsh watching the ducks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY WDNR Conservation Warden Mike Disher of Calumet County and Warden Jason Higgins of Winnebago County This month we asked two of our wardens known for their expertise in the early teal season to write a column. Warden Mike Disher serves Calumet County while Warden Jason Higgins serves Winnebago County \u2013 two counties popular for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-words-from-the-wardens"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}