Outdoor Insights: Mallard trends disturbing at best in Mississippi Flyway

What will waterfowl hunters see when they visit their blinds for the regular opener this weekend? By most accounts, Minnesota hunters enjoyed a good season in 2023, while hunters down South complained about seeing few birds.

A recent piece by Natalie Krebs (who lives in Arkansas) in Outdoor Life tackled the ubiquitous question: “Where are all the ducks?” Most of the country, she posits in her first paragraph, considered 2023 one of the worst duck seasons ever in an era when duck numbers continue to slide.

Yet, year after year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pitches liberal, 60-day seasons with six-bird limits. Meanwhile, the annual Waterfowl Population Survey (which the feds released Aug. 20) showcased a small increase in mallard numbers while waterfowl chatter also foreshadows a possible hike in the pintail limit in 2025.

How do we reconcile what the official report says and what hunters actually see from their blinds?

For starters, it’s important to note that the annual waterfowl population report from the USFWS showed a breeding mallard count up 8% continentally from 2023. That’s good, but consider where the increases took place. Alaska and Yukon Territory, Alberta and British Columbia, and northern Saskatchewan saw impressive increases from 30 to 50-plus percent in greenheads. But those birds migrate to the northwestern United States, like eastern Oregon and Washington and Idaho.

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The 2024 counts for mallards in the classic prairie pothole region of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the eastern Dakotas, were all down – not terribly, but 10 to 15%. Those are the birds that migrate through the Mississippi Flyway.

Mallards are down 16% from the long-term average continentally from the 70-year survey, but in those prairie pothole areas I mentioned above, mallards are down 40-plus-% from the long-term average.

Delta Waterfowl biologist and North Dakota duck hunter Chris Nicolai called those numbers “catastrophic” in Krebs’ article. Indeed, why are we shooting two hen mallards given those trends?

Overall, continental duck numbers are down from historic highs (highs that many waterfowlers consider paper ducks) although they showed a 5% increase from 2023. Wigeon and green-winged teal showed the biggest increases from last year. 

But Krebs’ piece cites hunters up and down the flyway who aren’t seeing birds and are advocating for lower limits. Being more conservative with days and limits would get no argument from me, although smarter duck minds than yours truly say the declining number of shotguns in North American wetlands each fall means hunting has a shrinking impact on duck populations. The greater issue is deteriorating, increasingly dry habitat, particularly in prairie Canada.

Nonetheless, in the absence of managers demanding lower limits, some hunters and even outfitters are policing themselves. Peter Krog owns Pit Properties in Fergus Falls, Minn., where he and his guides focus mostly on Canada goose-hunting opportunities.

Though the limit allows for five birds per day, his operation has imposed lower limits depending on the number of hunters, out of respect for historical limits, optimizing the experience, and managing expectations. The operation posted a lengthy explanation of its self-imposed limits on its Facebook page last week.

Krog told me Monday that Pit Properties has had self-imposed limits for several years, but just lately it’s gotten a lot of attention.

The data suggest that duck numbers are down in Minnesota and in the Mississippi Flyway migratory corridor for this season, but I was pessimistic about 2023, and that turned into a solid season. Weather and water (now is ample on the state landscape) will influence hunting success, too. One thing’s for sure: You won’t have any luck at all unless you’re in the marsh, so good luck this weekend.