The Wild Side for July 13

• By JOE MACALUSO
• Advocate Outdoors writer
• Published: Jul 13, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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If hunting seasons come close to the success of saltwater fishing, then there won’t be much discussion about it: The other 49 states will have to swallow their pride and admit Louisiana is THE sportsman’s paradise.

Fishing is so good along the coast that folks aren’t concerned about “fishing the moon.” Heck, catches “between the moons” is terrific.

Even better is all the terrific speckled trout, redfish and offshore reports had some company in the good news department last week.

State upland game biologist Mike Olinde announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a dove-hunting plan southeastern states had researched and studied for years.

The inner workings of the new dove management program has its roots in the Adaptive Harvest Management Plan the USFWS uses to set the duck seasons in the Atlantic, Mississippi, Central and Pacific flyways across the continental U.S. Have a so many mallards in the May Waterfowl Breeding Count survey and you get a set number of days and a bag limit in that flyway.

That’s sorta the way this dove plan works: We will have daily limits on doves set by estimates taken in the months before the season.

Olinde said the dove season differs from the duck season in that the plan carries a permanent 70-day season — or as near permanent as you can have when it comes to dealing with the Fish and Wildlife Service, other states and migratory birds like doves.

That’s terrific news. For years, north and south Louisiana dove hunters were at odds over the USFWS’ two dove-hunting options, a 60-day, 15-bird daily limit or a 70-day, 12-bird-a-day limit. North Louisiana hunters liked the first option, because all their doves were gone by October’s first cold front. South Louisiana hunters like the second option because they had the extra late-season days when the doves were in their fields.

Agreements were struck in the early 1990s to alternate options in a statewide season.

Since 2000, the push from south Louisiana dove hunters was to revert back to North Zone and South Zone hunting. That happened last year.

The new dove program mimics the duck plan in the adaptive part: The number of birds allowed in the daily bag can vary year to year.

Olinde said the new plan’s “liberal” framework gives hunters a 20-bird daily limit, a “moderate” framework a 15-bird limit and the “restrictive” label reduces the take to 10 birds a day.