North America’s continental duck population estimate reached a record 49.2 million breeding birds this spring. The question is how many of those ducks Minnesota hunters will get a shot at this fall.
Minnesota’s duck season opens Saturday. Again this year, the state will have a 60-day duck season with a three-zone structure. In the North Zone, the season will run from Saturday through Nov. 25.
“Our expectation is for a good opener, from all the reports I’ve heard,” said Steve Cordts, waterfowl specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Typically, Minnesota hunters don’t rely on the continental duck flight for most of their birds.
“We derive a fair part of our harvest from our local birds,” Cordts said.
Minnesota’s breeding duck numbers weren’t nearly as good as the continental numbers, but DNR officials say that could be because of weather and visibility of waterfowl from aircraft. Minnesota’s mallard breeding population was estimated at 257,000, which was 12 percent below last year’s estimate of 293,000. The blue-winged teal population is 102,000 this year, compared with 144,000 in 2013, and remains 53 percent below the long-term average.
The combined populations of other ducks, such as ring-necked ducks, wood ducks, gadwalls, northern shovelers, canvasbacks and redheads was 116,000, which is 53 percent lower than last year and 35 percent below the long-term average, according to the DNR.
An estimated 76,000 Minnesotans hunted ducks last year, down more than 30,000 from 2001 numbers. In the 1970s, as many as 140,000 people hunted ducks in Minnesota. Minnesota hunters killed 782,000 ducks last fall.
The average Minnesotan duck hunter goes out about 10 days during the season, Cordts said, and kills an average of 10 ducks per season.
The daily bag limit for ducks in Minnesota this season will be six per day, which may include no more than four mallards, of which no more than two may be hens; three scaup; three wood ducks; two pintails; two redheads; one black duck; and one canvasback. The limit may include up to six ducks for species not listed.
The Canada goose season in the North Zone opens Saturday and continues through Dec. 25, with a limit of three.
For complete waterfowl regulations, go to mndnr.gov or pick up a waterfowl regulations synopsis where licenses are sold.
Sixty days in Wisconsin, too
Wisconsin duck hunters also will have a 60-day season opening Saturday. The daily canvasback limit has been reduced from two to one. The daily bag limit for ducks statewide will be six, including no more than: four mallards, of which only one may be a hen; one black duck; one canvasback; three wood ducks; two pintails; three scaup; and two redheads.
There’s a lot of water on the landscape, said Greg Kessler, DNR wildlife biologist at Brule.
“That means there will be more opportunity, but it’ll be spread more thinly over a large area,” Kessler said. “There are lots of places for the ducks to go and lots of places for the hunters to go look for them.”
Some northern migrants such as mallards and geese already have arrived, he said.
Wisconsin’s 2014 breeding duck population estimate of 395,099 was down 25 percent from the 2013 estimate of 527,340 and was 11 percent below the long-term mean. But state wildlife officials cautioned that survey results this year could have affected by the late spring. That resulted in “abnormal duck migration and breeding activity, while widespread flooding affected visibility (from aircraft),” according to the DNR.
The mallard population was 160,000, compared to about 180,000 last year.
