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360 



limit. 



Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 



Vol. 2^, Art. 2 



Gaps in the graph are due to 

 missing records. In "the good old 

 days" with no legal restrictions, the 

 kill per shooter per day was little 

 greater than it was in 1938. From 

 1885 through 1889 and from 1894 

 through 1901, the kill per hunter-day 

 averaged slightly over 10 ducks. From 



1933 and 1934, produced a further de- 

 crease in the individual daily kill. In 

 1935, the legal bag limit of ducks was 

 cut to 10 per day, and again the average 

 daily bag made by individual members 

 of this club dropped. 



It is apparent that a legal limit of 50 

 had little influence on the average daily 



Photo by Bob Becker 



Bag limits in the lower figures are effective means of preventing overshooting of waterfowl. 

 A mallard and two pintails are shown above. 



1914 through 1927, when the club 

 followed the state legal daily bag limit 

 of 15, club members took an average of 

 about 10 to 12 ducks per day each. In 

 1928 and the succeeding years the club 

 regulations conformed with the federal 

 limit. When the club elected to ob- 

 serve the federal bag limit of 25 in 1928 

 and 1929, rather than the state limit, 

 the members' average individual daily 

 bag rose to about 19. But in 1930 

 through 1932, with the federal limit 

 lowered to 15, the Duck Island Pre- 

 serve bag dropped to about 12. A 

 further drop in the legal limit to 12, in 



♦Record book made available by Ferd Luthy. 



kill of Duck Island Preserve members. 



However, as the bag limit decreased, 



it had increasingly greater influence; 



on the average daily take per hunter. 



With a bag limit of 25, Duck Island 



Preserve hunters averaged each about 



5 less than the limit; with a limit of 15, 



they averaged about 3 less; and, with a 



limit of 10, they averaged about 1 less 



than the regulations permitted. Since 



this duck club enjoys better shooting 



than most clubs in Illinois, the lag of 



the actual bag below the bag limit is 



much less than that of the average duck 



hunter. The better the habitat and 



the hunter, the more effective is the 



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