Even though the temperatures still may be warm outside, the first round of hunting season in Nevada is already coming to a close.
Archery season for antelope has come and gone but muzzleloader and any legal weapon hunt is upon most of Nevada for antelope, deer, bighorn sheep and elk. Muzzleloader season is just days away, while any legal weapon season is at the start of October and running through November. For specific dates and seasons www.ndow.org has those.
Nevada’s big game hunts are conducted by a random draw process and are available to those 12 years old or older. Applications are generally available in mid-March and the application deadline is around mid-April. A second drawing is conducted for remaining tags in June, and any remaining tags after that draw can be applied for on a first-come, first-served basis.
Mountain lion tags are available over the counter and furbearers can be hunted or trapped with a trapping license.
Upland game birds like chukar partridge, California and Gamble's quail, ruffed grouse, blue grouse, dove, and the Himalayan snowcock are popular upland game, or hunters may choose to hunt waterfowl or certain migratory birds.
Unprotected species like coyote and black-tailed jackrabbit may be hunted without a hunting license by both residents and nonresidents, but a trapping license is required to trap them.
If you failed to get a tag for big game hunting, there is plenty of water fowl and bird hunting in Nevada. Duck hunting runs from Sept. 26-Oct. 25 and Oct. 28 and Jan. 10, 2016.
A Nevada State Duck Stamp ($10) is required for any person 12-64 years old who hunts migratory game birds, except mourning or white-winged dove, snipe, coots, moorhen or crows. A Federal Migratory Game Bird Hunting Stamp ($27 at NDOW) is required for any person age 16 or older who hunts any migratory waterfowl (ducks, mergansers, geese and swans).
Hunting hours are one half-hour before sunrise to sunset.
Chukar season, which opens at the end of September are expected to have good numbers do to the rainy spring experienced in Humboldt County and eastern Nevada. Overall there was a 6 percent drop in numbers. But other areas saw improvement from a survey done by NDOW from Aug. 16-19. However, the Santa Rosa's saw a 25 percent increase.
NDOW wants hunters to recognize that these surveys are simply a one-time snapshot within a relatively small segment of much larger mountain ranges and there may be certain areas that perform much better (or worse) than the results within that same mountain range.
