Arkansas Game and Fish Commission biologists were able to survey the waterfowl landscape last week with no significant delays, following weather-related slowdowns during December’s partial count. The results from those flights and counts for the annual midwinter survey will be released in the coming days.
Anecdotal reports, including from Brett Leach, the AGFC’s waterfowl coordinator, indicate biologists may not have come across as many ducks as they saw before Christmas. Leach said he saw ducks from the air in the Plumerville area of the Arkansas River Valley when he took to the air, but the randomly selected area transects counted, and that number imported into the algorithm for the waterfowl estimate, did not show nearly as many ducks as he’d hoped to see.
Migration maps that indicate waterfowl observations based on biologist reports and other data showed a strong amount of ducks counted and/or estimated in eastern Arkansas near the Mississippi River a week ago, which fell in line with the aerial survey results that were released in late December.
That December estimate of mallards in the Delta was nearly 500,000 birds, a big jump over the December 2024 estimate. Birds were observed in a few clumps around limited water sources, which introduced greater uncertainty into the overall estimate, which reported 1.4 million total ducks in the Delta. Arctic geese were estimated at more than 2 million.
Clear skies, a good wind and cooler temps seemed to help some waterfowlers over the weekend, according to local duck hunters. There are ducks being harvested in southeast Arkansas, per anecdotal reports.
Arkansas hunters will be looking at highs in the 40s and lows at night in the 20s this weekend, which might lock up some areas of water and move ducks around to more open water areas overnight. By midweek Jan. 19-24, though, daytime temps will rise again to 50-60 degrees. The extended forecast does not show a drastic cold push into Arkansas before the end of the season Jan. 31.
There is snow in parts of Illinois, which could move the large number of birds (both ducks and geese) seen in the southern part of that state, according to reports from Ducks Unlimited, which spoke with bird observers, biologists and hunters in that region.
Numbers from Missouri’s conservation areas in the Bootheel are very low. Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area (CA) had 2,500 ducks counted on Jan. 4; Ted Shanks CA was reported a 3,000 total ducks on Dec. 29; and the best news was the 13,500 ducks estimated Jan. 11 at Ten Mile Pond CA, which is closest to the Mississippi River.
The best duck harvest per hunter reported was the 1.72 ducks per hunter harvested at Ted Shanks (160 ducks for 93 hunters) and reported at the end of December; those total estimates were higher at Ten Mile Pond, where average duck harvest per hunter was 1.22 in its Jan 11 report.
Missouri’s conservation area hunting is by permit only, and hunters report their harvest at the end of their hunt. Most of Missouri’s ducks, by the end of December, appeared to be in the upper middle and northern portions of the state, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.
Meanwhile, Mississippi’s aerial survey in December estimated 92,947 mallards and 390,183 total ducks. Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks biologists were scheduled to survey the week of Jan. 5, like Arkansas’s biologists, but results were not available at press time.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in mid-December estimated 1.665 million total ducks in the state, with 13,000 mallards, 244,000 gadwalls and 434,000 pintails, along with 209,000 green-winged teal and 198,000 blue-winged teal. Dabblers (scaup, ringnecked and canvasback) accounted for 361,000 of the estimate.
