Canada goose in Brown County, September 6, 2023. PC: Fox 11 Online
BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The early season for Canada geese and teal is underway.
With 60% more Canada geese in the field than the long-term average, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials say hopes are high for the early goose hunting season.
“Everybody’s been fishing, and boating, and ATV-ing, and hiking, and camping, throughout the summer. And this gives them an opportunity to kind of get out a little earlier,” said Jimmy Moore, DNR Conservation Warden.
Moore says before heading out, people need to know where they may, and may not, hunt.
“When it comes to hunting waterfowl, especially on the bay, with all the private land that’s around the bay, they do have to be in the water. If they are going to be on the land, they’d have to have consent from the local landowner to be there. Once a bird is harvested, you want to make sure you immediately retrieve that downed animal. If it ends up on private property, you have to get consent from that landowner to go out there, and retrieve it,” he said.
The early goose season started Sept. 1, with a daily bag limit of five.
At Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve in Suamico, Program and Natural Resource Manager Jason Petrella says creating habitat has an impact.
“Especially this year, being it’s such a dry summer, this particular wetland was almost just about mud. We do this every fall. We have a high-capacity well. We’ll actually pump water into this complex. It’s a giant bathtub, and we’ll flood that up starting now. So by the time the migration really picks up later in September, this thing’s well-flooded, and all that green vegetation that’s growing out there, well, that will be flooded that time, so that’s really good for all those migrating waterfowl coming through later,” Petrella said.
Meanwhile the early campaign continues. Jimmy Moore says hunters need to brush up on their bird identification.
“To make sure that the species that they’re going to harvest, is the one they intend to harvest. There are a lot of species that are hunt-able, that are not open right now,” he said.
The early teal season wraps up Saturday.
The early goose campaign runs through Sept. 15.
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