This is the working list. It is short on purpose: seven or eight publications carry almost everything the two territories of this almanac are governed by, and a longer list would only dilute it. Each entry says what it is for.
For doves and the season calendar
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the federal migratory bird hunting regulations establish why a state cannot set a dove season alone. The annual regulatory framework published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sets the outer limits a state chooses within. The Service's annual population status report for mourning doves is the measurement side of the same process. Together they are the first two links of the chain described in how a season date is made.
For the Texas half of the same chain
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission adopts the state's hunting regulations inside the federal framework, in public session. Texas Parks and Wildlife then publishes the consumer facing summary that a hunter actually carries, and that publication is the only place this almanac will ever send you for a date, a zone or a limit. The department's upland game bird programme also runs the late summer roadside counts discussed in seed and counts.
For Bristol Bay and the Nushagak
The Alaska Board of Fisheries sets escapement goals and the policy framework they sit in. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game runs in season management, operates the counting equipment on the river, publishes the daily figures, and issues the emergency orders and announcements that open, close or restrict a fishery while it is running. Those three functions, and the difference between them, are the subject of reading the water.
For weather and rainfall
National Weather Service and NOAA climate records are public and organised by station. They are how a reader checks for themselves whether a spring was wet, rather than relying on anyone's recollection, and they underpin everything in after the rains.
What is deliberately absent
No forum thread, no outfitter page, no aggregated regulation site and no secondary summary is used for anything factual here. They are often right and they are never the document. If a page on this site cannot be traced back to one of the publications above, that is a fault worth reporting through the desk.