M ISSISSIPPI VALLEY DUCK HUNTERS ASSOCIATION A NON-PROFIT ASSOCIATION OF , BY , AND FOR THE DUCK

HUNTERS .

MAY 7, 2020 VOLUME 64 ISSUE 5

MAY 2020

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

FROM OUR PRES 1

TROUT TRIP UPDATE 2

FAMILY FUN UPDATE 3

WETLANDS MAY 3

FREE FISHING 4

DELTA 4

UPCOMING EVTS 5

GENERAL INFO COV

CWD RESULTS 4

FROM OUR PRES MAY 2020

GREETINGS!!

With the continued Social Distancing we don’t have any meetings currently scheduled. Once things are back are back to a new normal we will let you know when the meetings will resume. Hope everyone had a successful turkey season this year. Still a little time left to try for that bird if you haven’t gotten one yet. If you plan on attending the MVDHA picnic on May 30th, please let Jerry Mercurio know as soon as possible. Jerry will need a head count of the number of adults and children that will be attending. We are hoping for a good turn out. There will be plenty of space to spread out and maintain proper social distancing and we are taking all the necessary precautions during food preparations. It will be a fun and SAFE day with friends. Take care and stay safe. Ken Liebel President Mississippi Valley Duck Hunters Assocication

Jerry Mercurio II First Heavy String-er

Art Wende Second Heavy Stringer

Judy Hoffmann Third Heaviest Stringer

Jerry Sr. Fourth Heaviest Stringer

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MVDHA BOARD President: Ken Liebel First V. Pres.: Scott Thoele Fin. Secretary: Rob Mueller Rec. Secretary: Bill Hilgeman Correspondence Secretary: Bill Hilgeman and Brad Douglass Membership Chairman: Erik Liebel Board of Directors: Chairman of the Board Jerry Mercurio Asst Chairman of the Board Art Wende Directors: Bill Truebe, Jerry Mercurio Jr., James Edwards, Dale Westerhold, Dave Hamilton, Robert Urbanek,

TROUT TRIP UPDATE As usual we had a GREAT time this year at our annual trout trip to Trout Hollow, if you have never been, you really need to try and make it next year. Nothing like waking up in the morning to the water running by and smelling that cool fresh air and enjoy the great wonders before us. The fishing this year was great as usual, even though they were run-ning water during the entire trip, hard for us waders but great for the boaters! We had a true wild game feast for the Saturday evening dinner, from pheasant, quail (thanks Tony), white bass, back strap, trout, turkey and lots more! Complete with all the fix-ings! It was a great time had by all. Below are some pics I took for the winners of the trout tournament, sor-ry about the quality of the pics, should have had my flash on.

Ken Harsin Largest Fish

Chris Mercurio Second Largest Fish

A huge thanks goes out to Jerry Sr for all the coordination that went on with this years event along with all others who put this together. It is a time I personally look forward to each year, hopefully we will see you next year! If you are thinking about going next year, call Trout Hollow now and make your room reservation, you have up to 30 days before the trip to cancel your reservation if you decide not to go. Make your reservations now so that you will be ensured of a room. You can call Trout Hollow at 800-328-1246 or 417-3342332, Remember to tell them if you need a boat slip or if you need to rent a boat out so they will have that available for you also. Make sure you tell them that you are part of the MVDHA.

FAMILY FUN UPDATE We are still planning on the Family Fun Day, with a bit of caution due to Covid19. I will be sending out an email about a week prior to the event to get a head count of who all is going to attend so we can be prepared for food etc. At the event we WILL practice all of the current rules in play. Social dis-tancing, keeping exposure to a minimum, wearing masks etc. On the food, we will be preparing indi-vidual plates for you to receive with NO contact of the food other than gloved hands. So consider it when replying. We are going to try and do this again this year, depending on how Covid19 plays out but save the DATE! May 30, 2020 for a family fun day out at the Perry Communi-ty Lake in Perry County. Come when you want to come on out to enjoy the great outdoors with your family, kids, grandkids and friends! Your MVDHA will provide some easy up shelters, hotdogs, chips and water. We are planning on eating at noon. So bring your

lawn chairs, any other beverages (NO ALCHOHOL), fishing poles, bait etc. to enjoy a wonderful day! The lake has great banks from fishing from but if you want to bring a boat you can! There are a couple of ramps to be used but it is a no wake lake, but a boat is really not needed. This lake is great for kids to catch lots of fish, it will be great fun for them! Make sure you bring mosquito spray and sunscreen since the bugs will be out, along with tics! There is also an archery range near by with tree stand targets to practice for the upcoming season. From the MDC site: Perry County Community Lake is located about two miles west of Perryville and can be accessed from Route T and from the Inter-state 55 west outer road. The Conservation Department, in cooperation with the citizens of Perry County who passed a bond issue to purchase 310 acres from private landowners to create the public area, developed the site and constructed a 103-acre im-poundment, which was opened to fishing in 1971. The area now in-cludes two access roads, four parking lots, two boat launching ramps, a fishing access trail for bank anglers, and two small picnic areas. The area also features a disabled-accessible fishing pier, where fish cover structures have been placed to improve fish habi-tat. Disabled-accessible restrooms are located near the fishing pier.

WETLANDS MAY From the MDC site: Celebrate Missouri wetlands during American Wetlands Month in May Learn how Missouri’s different wetland natural communities play an important role in the ecosys-

tem. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Con-servation (MDC) encourages the public to learn about Mis-souri’s wonderful wetlands dur-ing American Wetlands Month in May. Wetlands play a critical role in every ecosystem by im-proving water quality, providing habitat for plants and animals, and reducing flooding by ab-sorbing excess rain. “May is a great time to experi-ence Missouri’s rivers, streams, and wetlands,” said MDC Wetland Ecologist Frank Nelson. “Water is flowing, tem-peratures are warming, and plants are bursting with a myri-ad of green hues.” Wetlands are a transition zone between land and aquatic en-vironments, and they protect the quality of both. Once abun-dant, wetlands now make up less than 1 million acres, or roughly 2-percent, of Mis-souri’s landscape. “We have nine different wet-land natural communities in Missouri,” explained Nelson. “They include marshes, shrub swamps, bottomland prairies, bottomland forests, swamps, sinkhole ponds, oxbow lakes and sloughs, and riparian are-as and groundwater seeps.” Missouri’s wetlands provide numerous ecological benefits, such as erosion control, water quality improvement, pollution filtration, and even supporting fertile farm land. They are also the primary habitat of hun-dreds of plant and animals that are considered rare or endan-gered in Missouri. “Wetlands are frequently re-ferred to as nature’s kidneys because of their ability to store

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and filter contaminants from the land that could harm other water-ways,” said Nelson. “They also are likened to sponges because of their ability to soak up floodwaters.” Wetland areas also provide the public recreation and tourism op-portunities, such as wildlife watch-ing, fishing, boating, hunting, and hiking. To find a wetland near you, visit MDC’s website at https://nature.mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/places. WETLAND PLANNING INITIATIVE According to Nelson, wetland con-servation activities in Missouri are crucial to protect habitats, maintain those that have been restored, and take advantage of opportunities to enhance and improve upon the ef-forts of previous conservationists. Extensive partner collaboration has led to the newly created Missouri Wetland Planning Initiative, which provides strategic vision to manage existing wetlands and engage a variety of partners to plan and in-corporate wetland conservation and management into lands that include local agriculture, business-es, and communities. “We’ve been assessing the current conditions of Missouri’s wetlands over the last several years,” ex-plained Nelson. “We’ve looked at the function wetlands and other bottomland habitats provide. We’ve also been looking at a range of wetland species and their habitat requirements throughout the year. Our goal is to determine what we’re doing well and what we can im-prove upon.” Nelson added that the Wetland Planning Initiative also assesses the social landscape. “Do people value our rivers and wetlands?” he said, “What activities do they enjoy at wetlands? What are major obstacles or opportuni-

ties we’re facing? We’ve used sev-eral different surveys to various groups of people, including water-fowl hunters, birders, and the gen-eral public. The Initiative will help us lay out our vision and goals for wetland conservation for the next 25 years.”

FREE FISHING DAYS Want some free fun that gets fami-ly and friends outside in nature? Get hooked on fi shing with our Free Fishing Days June 6 and 7. During Free Fishing Days, anyone can fi sh in the Show-Me State without purchasing a fi shing per-mit, trout permit, or trout park daily tag. Other fi shing regulations re-main in effect, such as limits on size and number of fi sh an angler may keep. Special permits may still be required at some county, city, or private fi shing areas. Tres-pass laws remain in effect on pri-vate property. Conservation makes Missouri a great place to fi sh, and Free Fishing Days encourages people to sample the state’s abun-dant fi shing opportunities. Mis-souri has more than a million acres of surface water, and most of it provides great fi shing. More than 200 different fi sh species are found in Missouri, with more than 20 of them being game fi sh for the state’s more than 1.1 million an-glers. For information on Missouri fi shing regulations, fish identifica-tion, and more, get a copy of A Summary of Missouri Fishing Reg-ulations where permits are sold or online at short.mdc.mo.gov/Zq3

CWD RESULTS From the MDC website MDC reports CWD results for 2019-2020 season MDC confirms 46 more cases of deadly deer disease. Learn more at mdc.mo.gov/CWD. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Con-servation (MDC) reports it has completed its monitoring and testing efforts for the 2019-2020 chronic wasting disease (CWD) surveillance year. From those efforts, MDC reports it has confirmed 46 new cases of the deadly deer disease. These new findings bring the total number of CWD cases in the state to 162. MDC has test-ed more than 137,000 deer since the first cases of CWD were found in free-ranging deer in Missouri in 2012. The 46 new cases were found in the following counties: 3 in Adair, 6 in Franklin, 1 in Jeffer-son, 8 in Linn, 8 in Macon, 2 in Oregon, 2 in Perry, 1 in Polk, 10 in Ste Genevieve, 2 in Stone, and 3 in Taney. Previously this season, MDC confirmed 25 of the 46 new cases of CWD in Missouri from nearly 29,000 tissue samples collected from white-tailed deer and submitted for disease test-ing. Most of the tissue samples were taken from hunter-harvested deer. MDC has also confirmed an additional 21 of the 46 new cases of CWD through its post-season targeted culling efforts in January, February, and early March in areas where previous cases of CWD have been found. MDC thanks the 1,390 participating landowners who helped MDC staff remove near-

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ly 2,400 deer in those areas to manage CWD. All deer harvested through target-ed culling that did not test positive for the disease were either re-turned to the landowner or donated to local food pantries through the Share the Harvest venison-donation program. According to MDC, post-season targeted culling can help decrease CWD transmission by reducing the number of potentially infected deer within infected areas. Missouri and other states, such as Illinois, have successfully limited the percent of deer infected with CWD by sustain-ing a long-term, targeted-culling management program. For more information on MDC targeted cull-ing efforts, visit mdc.mo.gov/cwd under “Post Season Targeted Culling.” CWD is a deadly disease in white-tailed deer and other members of the deer family. The purpose of MDC’s CWD sampling and testing efforts is to find cases early so the Department can limit the spread of the disease by implementing man-agement actions such as targeted culling. Learn more about CWD at mdc.mo.gov/cwd.

DELTA From the Delta Waterfowl Site Wildlife Habitat Canada Grants Support Delta Waterfowl’s HunteR3, Duck Production Ef-forts A pair of grants from Wildlife Habi-tat Canada will boost Delta Water-fowl’s duck production and HunteR3 recruitment and advoca-cy programs throughout Canada. The grants — which WHC has generously increased over past years — are pending a final agree-ment between WHC and Environ-ment Canada.

The first WHC grant of $121,410 will support The Duck Hunters Or-ganization’s HunteR3 efforts to se-cure the future of waterfowl hunting across Canada. Delta’s HunteR3 programs include First Hunt, the largest waterfowl-specific hunter recruitment program in North America; the University Hunting Program, which educates non-hunting wildlife students about hunting’s role in conservation; and Defending the Hunt, which protects and expands waterfowl hunting opportunities. Recent Defending the Hunt victo-ries in Canada include increased Sunday hunting opportunities in New Brunswick, progress in the modernization of Canada’s water-fowl hunting regulations, reducing the game-bird hunting age to 10 in Alberta, retaining hunting access on Gravelly Bay in Ontario, and more. “Approval of this grant once again proves WHC’s confidence in our efforts to help stem the decline of waterfowl hunters in Canada,” said Jim Fisher, Delta’s senior director of Canadian conservation and hunting policy. “HunteR3 programs in recruitment, access and advoca-cy are critical to the future of hunt-ing in Canada. And we couldn’t achieve these successes without WHC’s support.” The second WHC grant of $75,000 focuses on Delta’s duck production efforts, including maintenance of mallard-producing Hen Houses across Ontario, Manitoba, Sas-katchewan and Alberta. Delta Hen Houses provide mallard hens with safer, more productive places to nest. In intensely farmed regions of prairie Canada, mallards using a Hen House are 12 times more like-ly to hatch a nest than those nest-ing in the grass cover. Overall, nest success in Hen Houses is 60 to 90 percent, compared with less than

10 percent for mallards nesting in the grass. Delta Waterfowl maintains more than 8,500 Hen Houses in Canada and the United States. “We greatly appreciate WHC’s longstanding and generous support of Delta Waterfowl’s mission,” Fisher said. “These grants will go far in benefitting ducks and duck hunters.” WHC funding comes from sales of the Canadian Wildlife Habitat Conservation Stamp and Print, a.k.a. Canada’s “duck stamp.” WHC in turn of-fers grants to conserve, re-store and enhance wildlife habitat, foster conservation leadership, promote conserva-tion contributions of waterfowl hunters, and encourage water-fowl hunting participation. The $8.50 stamp — required of anyone who hunts waterfowl in Canada — has not in-creased in price since 1991. “Can you name another activi-ty that hasn’t gone up in price in 30 years?” asked Fisher, an avid waterfowler. “The revenue the stamp generates is crucial in so many ways to the future of waterfowl hunting in Cana-da. We must look at increasing the price of these stamps.” For more information about purchasing the Canadian Wild-life Habitat Conservation Stamp and Print, vis-it WHC.org. —Bill Miller

Up Coming Events May 13 : NO MEETING Due to Covid19

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This newsletter is distributed to our active members. For non-active members check the website for the cur-rent newsletter. We have our general meeting the second Wednesday of every month at 7:30 PM and our Board of Directors’ Meeting every fourth Monday at 7 PM. Members meetings are held at the American Le-gion Post Goff – Moll Post 101, at 2721 Collier, Brentwood, Mo. 63144. Board Meetings are held at TBD. In case of bad weather call the Post at 314-961-3263 or Art Wende at 636-343-4254 or Jerry Mercurio at 314-603-6548. Visit YOUR web site at http://www.mvdha.com/ to get the most recent news, events and updates. There you will find this newsletter and other helpful information concerning conservation and the great outdoors that we love. If you would like to be added to the email listing of important news and updates you can do that through the web site through the contact us link, fill out the form and make sure you add your email address. Any comments or suggestions concerning the newsletter or the website can be sent to mvdha@mvdha.com. I am always looking forwards to suggestions concerning content and what you would like to see or be pre-sented in these publications.

General Information

Next members meeting: NO MEETING

Next Board Meeting: May 25, 2020 TBD Members are invited to the Board Meeting

Member’s meeting start at 7:30, Board meeting starts at 7:00