Whats the point of a possession limit?

moellermd

moellermd

Super Moderator
I was wondering what is the point of having a possession limit on Pheasants. Currently the average hunter kills 10-12 birds a year in SD (and I know a bunch of us are helping to really bring up that average.) The possession limit does not apply to most guys. For those that due shoot a bunch of birds why do we have to eat pheasant 2-3 times a week or give a bunch of birds away to stay under the possession limit. I would rather be able to save a bunch in the freezer and enjoy them year-round. From a management prospective it makes no sense.
 
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I don't know, other than the fact that there are areas that don't have all that many birds? Pluss you would have guys that would just go crazy and fill freezers with birds that don't get eaten. There is always some that get carried away. If there was no position limmit anyone could just keep shooting the crap out of them and doing the stash, and go shoot another limmit deal. That would most likely get out of hand after awhile.
 
Technically I am sure it applies to the deep freeze in my garage, but in practice it is primarily for the cooler in my truck during my trips out hunting. Lots of good stories about wardens in South Dakota using a thermometer to try and determine when all the birds were placed in the cooler.
 
If there were no limits you would see the roads full of road hunters out to kill as many as they can just because they can. As for me , when I kill my daily limit that is it, time to go clean them drink a beer and tease the guys about the easy shoot they missed or ??? what ever. I do not try to give them away so I can go and shoot another limit or two if I could. I was taught by a smart man and a great conservationalist, my father, no matter what the limit is you only take what you need up to the limit as I have tried to teach my boys. There is more to it than killing a limit of birds, like good or at times great dog work, seeing a young guy or gal take their first bird, and if we kill as many as we can we will miss out seeing such things. Or even worst, a closed season due to guys who care less about regulated, limits set by knowledgable game commissions. If you think I am wrong , well so be it . I will not be one and I hope I am not alone.
Jim
 
copheasanthunter said:
If there were no limits you would see the roads full of road hunters out to kill as many as they can just because they can. As for me , when I kill my daily limit that is it, time to go clean them drink a beer and tease the guys about the easy shoot they missed or ??? what ever. I do not try to give them away so I can go and shoot another limit or two if I could. I was taught by a smart man and a great conservationalist, my father, no matter what the limit is you only take what you need up to the limit as I have tried to teach my boys. There is more to it than killing a limit of birds, like good or at times great dog work, seeing a young guy or gal take their first bird, and if we kill as many as we can we will miss out seeing such things. Or even worst, a closed season due to guys who care less about regulated, limits set by knowledgable game commissions. If you think I am wrong , well so be it . I will not be one and I hope I am not alone.
Jim
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I am not talking about a daily limit, I would agree that it is needed. I would also agree with what you are saying are the vaules of hunting. But a possession limit serves no purpose. I use all the birds I shoot. So what is the difference if I have 15 in my freezer of 40 if I use them all? No one is in favor of wanton waste.
 
A few years ago in South Dakota 2 guys from Wisconsin were busted with a 127 pheasants. The possession limit was for them.
 
niceshot said:
A few years ago in South Dakota 2 guys from Wisconsin were busted with a 127 pheasants. The possession limit was for them.
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Well that would be about 63 birds a piece. If they had each hunted for 21 days and had bought licenses to hunt those 21 days should that be a problem (I am sure they didn't)? It is perfectly legal to shoot 63 birds in 21 days as long as you eat 48 of them.
 
moellermd said:
I was wonder what is the point of having a possession limit on Pheasants.
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I always looked at it as the aggregate of combined daily limits. Geared more towards regulating the transient sportmen as to cap the total they can bring back from their trip.

Just a management tools for the CO's.

SD trip mazes at 15 birds and thats a pretty good batch in the freezer.
 
I think the current possession limit is about right. For those on a week trip could cook up a few, they make great camp meat. For the locals don't you just make sure you wife has a license or your Grandmother.:cheers:
Only kidding around, but I think if I were a SD resident in good pheasant country I would have Pheasant for supper accordingly to keep under the possession limit.
 
Well, because soon pictures of gluten's like this start to appear in news papers, magazines and now on the inter-net.

stanchapin.jpg


There are always those who take more to killing then cleaning & eating.

In waterfowling, there are still plenty in the duck haven of the southern wintering grounds. who pay no attention to possession limits. Guys have bragged for years of having 3-500 duck's for each person in their family in the freezer. They say, well, what would we eat for duck in the summer if we didn't shoot that many. Another FACT, the more a person kills. The poorer job of processing they do. Most that kill this many ducks. Breast them all and I mean boneless.

Quote from possession law
"POSSESSION AND TRANSPORTATION LIMITS
You may not possess or transport more than the daily limit of migratory birds at or between the place where taken and (1) your automobile or principal means of land transportation, or (2) your personal abode or temporary or transient place of lodging, or (3) a commercial preservation facility, or a post office of common carrier facility, whichever one you arrive at first.

The photo I provided circled the hunting world a few years back, along with others from the same hunt. It infuriated real sportsman. Not that they shot too many snow geese(which many believed they took the conservation order WAY too far). They bragged of using radio's, cell phones, standers & drivers. snuke over dikes and water swatted, ground pounded, flock shot, Etc, Etc, Etc. it made all us hunters look like kill happy Red Neck idiots and that's how the non hunting community viewed it as well. There were write ups in all kinds of sporting publications. Some applauding it but most disapproved of it.

Tony Dean on these pictures and their style of hunting
http://www.tonydean.com/pages/posts/the-price-of-theldquoconservation-orderrdquo135.php

If they took away the possession limit. Soon we would see pictures of conservation officer raids,, showing Doz. of uncleaned birds hid in old grain sheds, dumped in ditches, Doz. of freezer burnt birds dumped in the garbage.

i know many if not most of us on here, who are true hunters and enjoy every meal of game. would not waste it and the possession limit wouldn't be a big deal as long as we didn't get greedy but you know it and I know it. There are those who would wreck it for all of us. Like the 9 deer found dumped under the Hwy 169 bridge in Eden Prairie Mn after our gun deer season. They figure they came from a area of the state where intensive harvest was in play. Then they got home and realized what a job they had on their hands processing the deer. They started processing, then the job they were doing got less and less quality. until they were just cutting the loins out to not taking any of the meat. A perfect example of what could and would happen.

onpoint
 
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onpoint said:
There are always those who take more to killing then cleaning & eating.
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I think you are missing the point. I am willing to bet that almost all of the regulars here shoot more than a possession limit each year. In order to stay legal they eat a lot of birds during the season and then are only left with 15 to enjoy the rest of the year. There is no limit to the number of birds you can shoot in a year. If I had licenses for 60 days I could legally shoot 180 birds as long as I only possessed 15 in the freezer at a time. That is what does not make sense. A possession limit does nothing to limit the number of birds killed.

To say that if people were allowed to keep more birds they would end up being freezer burned and thrown away I do not think is true. I have neighbors you raise chickens and but 30-40 in the freezer a year and eat'em all up. We all know people who buy a 1/4 of beef and eat it all up too.

If someone does a wasteful job of cleaning birds they will be wasteful weather they have 15 birds in the freezer or 50. The guys who only took the loins out of the deer are guilty of wanton waste. That is probably how they would have cleaned deer if they just shot one.

I got no problem with a daily limit. It makes good sense. Doing away with a possession limit will not do anything to make more bad hunters. The only thing that a possession limit probably helps with is when they bust poachers. That way they would not need to prove the birds were all shot in one day. They could just prosecute them for being over the possession limit.

Wow that is a lot of typing for me. I need a :cheers:
 
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