Special Honker Season Starts Today 9-1-25

[RednekF350]

The Special Canada Goose season starts today allowing 15 geese per day per hunter. If I wasn't In the early stages of recovery from rotator cuff surgery, I'd be out there. It's the first of the hunting seasons, and for me it marks the end of summer and the beginning of fall.

The September Special Season regs permit the removal of the magazine plug in pumps and autos allowing hunters a 7-shot capacity instead of the usual 3. The primary purpose of the September special season is to thin out the resident geese. The truly migratory Canada geese numbers are stable but not expanding and the seasons for them are relatively limited with a bag limit of 2 birds..

There is also a winter season for resident geese in two specific zones with the research showing that if the geese are still hanging around here in February and late January, then they are mostly residents.

https://dep.nj.gov/njfw/migratory-bird-season-information-and-population-status/

 

[bobpbx]

It's odd, that there was a gaggle of about 21 of those geese strutting around the pond and pooping in the roads and on the sidewalks here for almost 2 months while their young matured, but a couple weeks ago, I stopped seeing them. Now we have a green heron on one tiny Island and a few ducks.

Where did they go?

 

[RednekF350]

It's odd, that there was a gaggle of about 21 of those geese strutting around the pond and pooping in the roads and on the sidewalks here for almost 2 months while their young matured, but a couple weeks ago, I stopped seeing them. Now we have a green heron on one tiny Island and a few ducks.

Where did they go?

Golf courses, housing developments, shopping centers. Essentially, anywhere there is a stormwater management basin. They roost on water. Around here, they roost on a few large private ponds, Atco Lake, Elmtown Lake, Haluwasa Day Camp, Great Times Day Camp, Beaver Dam Lake and some old bogs here and there. There have been none on the bogs near me recently. They feed on local farmers' fields.

Me and a very large gang of buddies, two of whom are now deceased, killed 105 in 2 hours during the extended February season about ten years ago. They were coming from every direction. We killed 4 banded birds. 3 were banded in Hammonton and 1 was actually banded in Canada.

 

[MuckSavage]

That's good community service Scott!

 

[noboat]

How do you know there residents
Do you ask for ID