Ohio’s duck season commences on Oct. 17 across all three newly established hunting zones, a change that's little more than a new name for the central Ohio area.
Counties including Franklin, Union, Delaware, Licking and Knox remain in what this season has been designated as Zone C, and which in previous years was known as the South Zone.
Zone C encompasses a healthy chunk of the state, but not necessarily the most duck-filled. Still, opportunities to take ducks on rivers and reservoirs are far from absent. Additionally, Canada geese, opportunistic feeders that they are, abound in many fields where scatterings of seed remain.
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The first part of the split season for geese and ducks in Zone C runs
through Oct. 25. Goose hunting resumes Nov. 21 and continues through Feb. 15. Duck season reopens Dec. 12 and runs through Jan. 31.
The daily goose limit is five for a combination that includes Canada and white-fronted geese. One of the five may be a brant. The daily limit is 10 for a combination that includes snow, blue and Ross’s geese.
The daily duck limit is six, including no more than four mallards (two may be hens), three wood ducks, three pintails, two redheads, two canvasbacks, two black ducks or one mottled duck. A single scaup may be included among the six during the first 15 days of the season and two scaups during the next 45 days.
The daily limit on coots is 15. The limit on mergansers is five, though only two may be hooded mergansers.
Waterfowl hunters are required to purchase a federal duck stamp, a state waterfowl stamp and have a HIP Survey certification number on their hunting license. Hunting hours are one-half hour before sunrise to sunset.
Hunters in the northern part of the state must deal with shifts in counties and the hunting dates within the new zones. Both the Lake Erie Marsh Zone and the North Zone have been reconfigured and rebranded.
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Sixteen counties, including those comprising the former Lake Erie Marsh Zone, have been designated as Zone A. Zone A stretches to 100 yards of Lake Erie from the shoreline.
Zone B consists of all or most of 23 counties, a portion of Holmes County and all the open water of Lake Erie.
The jiggered zones “were created in response to waterfowl hunter surveys and within regulation frameworks established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” the Ohio Division of Wildlife stated in a news release.
The zone designations are scheduled to stay in place through 2030.
What hunters can expect during the waterfowl season is plenty of homegrown Canada geese and a somewhat iffier forecast regarding migrating ducks.
Ohio lies between two important migratory paths, known as the Mississippi and Eastern flyways, which various species of duck travel to reach their winter homes. Still, weather patterns can and do push plenty of ducks this way. A healthy number of ducks is out there to be pushed.
The estimated total of breeding ducks in North American surveys has been put at 33.4 million, a hair below last year.
Mallard and pintail numbers are down, especially from averages dating back to 1955. Northern shovelers, redheads and canvasbacks are more numerous, reported the conservation group Ducks Unlimited.
Parting shots
Woodcock season opens statewide Oct. 16 and runs through Nov. 29 with a daily limit of three. … The fall turkey season remains open through Oct. 26 in 70 counties, including Franklin, Fairfield, Licking and Delaware. The season limit is one bird of either sex.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio waterfowl season opens Oct. 17 with some changes
