ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN

Decoy debate has plenty of spin

— The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission will debate banning spinning wing decoys on wildlife management areas for the 2013-2014 duck hunting season.

At the commission’s monthly work meeting Jan. 16, several wildlife officers and supervisors briefed the commission about spinning wing decoys, specifically at Bayou Meto WMA. The devices are a collective point of conflict because many hunters believe they give an unfair advantage to those who use them. They also believe the devices help to disrupt hunts of those who don’t use them.

Ducks that are working to somebody else’s calls and decoys often drop down to look at SWDs, which resemble ducks lighting on the water. Those ducks do not intend to land in those particular holes, but many hunters will shoot at them as they pass across the treetops. After they get shot at, they aren’t going to land anywhere close.

Fred Brown of Corning, a member of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, recalled a public meeting in northeast Arkansas where he took an informal poll about SWDs. He said an overwhelming majority raised their hands in support of banning them. Not one person raised his hand in support of keeping them.

Several hunters e-mailed me about this when I reported this discussion last week, and they generously answered a few questions. In fact, one summarized the skybusting issue almost verbatim with the summary expressed by the wildlife officers. He said that ducks work in flooded timber a lot better when spinning wing decoys are not present.

I asked if he consistently kills a limit of ducks when he goes to Bayou Meto. The limit there is only three per day. If yes, then can he make a valid argument that hunters using spinning wing decoys reduce his success?

Yes, he consistently kill limits, he responded, and no, other hunters using SWDs do not reduce his success.

Yet that’s not the issue, he wrote.

“Etiquette was mentioned in banning the boat races,” he wrote. “Good hunter etiquette is not shooting ‘swing’ ducks. Public land is what it is. However, when we are visibly working ducks and other people shoot at our swingducks by sky busting, it’s really irritating. Those are the folks that need to get a clue. And those are the ones that are running spinners.”

He and others advocated lifting the regulation that bans being in Bayou Meto before 4 a.m. If the AGFC did that and banned SWDs, he said it would be a win-win situation.

“You won’t have idiots driving like maniacs cause they need to beat everybody to a certain hole, and the hunters that lacked skill wouldn’t be there cause they can’t use spinning wing decoys,” he wrote.

Skybusting has been an institution at Bayou Meto at least since 1972, when I started hunting there. That long predates SWDs. Also, SWDs are not used exclusively by unskilled hunters. Some very good hunters - skillful callers who scout and know how to work the wind - use them, too.

Banning that particular tool will not prevent inconsiderate or maladroit hunters from hunting in WMAs. They’ll continue to crowd other hunters as they always have, and they’ll continue to skybust as they always have.

It’s unethical and even dangerous to go after a turkey that another hunter is working, but some people do it, and some people always will.

The distasteful “subprime” hunter tag has driven the SWD debate since 2007. If the AGFC decides that SWDs are not an appropriate tool for duck hunting on WMAs, it should just say so and ban them without resorting to the elaborate justifications. Banning them on the arbitrary assumption that some hunters are more worthy than others is a mistake. That implies that only hunters with a certain aptitude level have a right to hunt ducks on WMAs.

How do you decide that? With a daily calling contest and an oral essay about decoy placement and wind direction? Everybody pays the same amount for a license and supports the AGFC by paying the state conservation sales tax. That makes everybody equal.

At least, it makes resident hunters equal. Nonresident hunters, another point of conflict, pay a lot more for their licenses and they pay sales tax while they are here. Many of them are fine hunters, too, and some residents resent the competition. Some of my correspondents say nonresidents are actually the root of the boat races and other conflicts within Bayou Meto.

There is probably not a fair resolution to that. When you have a good thing, everybody wants some.

It’s a good problem to have, really.

Sports, Pages 24 on 01/24/2013

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