
crippling losses which might be found during that period. Data 
on this subject were gathered in 1960. , 
Illinois did not permit presunrise shooting in 1960, so data 
from that State have been eliminated from all consideration. 
In Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, a total of 5,657 hunters 
were checked in 1960. Of these, 2,002 hunted during the presunrise 
period, although none were checked that hunted in the presunrise 
period only. The 5,657 hunters took 7,488 ducks for a daily aver- 
age of 1.32. The 2,002 presunrise hunters bagged 609 ducks, for 
a daily average of 0.30 ducks for each presunrise hunt. Thus, 
22.73% of the daily average bag was taken in the presunrise half- 
hour. Based on total ducks checked (total ducks checked - 7,488, 
total checked in presunrise kill - 609), the presunrise kill | 
amounted to only 8.13% of the checked bag. 
Hunters checked in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa were afield 
24,408 hours to bag the 7,488 ducks checked. It required 3.25 
hours of hunting for each duck brought to bag; or there were 0.30 
ducks bagged per hour. Consequently, if 0.30 ducks were bagged 
per hour, then for each half-hour there were 0.15 ducks bagged. 
Yet the presunrise hunters averaged 0.30 ducks each day they 
hunted that first half-hour for a success rate double that of any 
other 30-minute period of the day. 
If there were 2,002 presunrise hunters, then it can be 
assumed that they hunted 1,001 hours in bagging their 609 ducks. 
On this basis, it required only 1.64 hours of hunting for each 
duck bagged compared to the overall average of 3.25 hours, and 
there were 0.60 ducks bagged per hour of hunting. So it appears 
that hunting success during that first half-hour of presunrise 
shooting was twice as good as for any other half-hour of the day. 
What about crippling losses? Opponents of the presunrise 
shooting contend that crippling losses during that period of 
darkness are disproportionately high. What is really the case? 
Let us look at the data. 
In Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, where presunrise shooting 
was permitted, a total of 5,598 hunters were questioned about 
losses. These hunters reported losing 2,183 ducks, for an aver- 
age loss of 0.38 ducks per day. Of that number (5,598 hunters), 
a total of 1,921 were presunrise hunters. These 1,921 hunters 
lost only 129 ducks in presunrise shooting, for an average loss 
of 0.06 ducks per day. This was only 5.95% of the total loss, 
and it was accomplished by 35.76% of the total hunters checked 
(2,002 of the 5,598 checked, 129 cripples of the 2,183 reported). 
Reducing the crippling loss to a loss per hour, we find that 
for all hunters there were 0.089 ducks lost per hour of hunting. 
hb 
