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Reelfoot Lake Duck Hunting
West
Tennessee Duck Hunting Report
2025-26
Fowler's Point
Guide Service
DUCK HUNTERS REPORT MIXED RESULTS
By Steve McCadams
When it comes to a comparison between deer and duck hunters thus far
this season, the deer hunters are definitely winning most of the
marbles.
Despite what some call pretty good duck weather, the local area is still
yearning for sightings of increasing duck numbers in what has been a
sluggish migration.
Waterfowlers in the Kentucky Lake area are reporting slow to mixed
results. Bottom line is duck hunters in this area are just not seeing
the numbers they had hoped for since the season opened.
There have been a few exceptions but overall the season thus far has not
yielded much activity across local public hunting areas. Most of the
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency’s wildlife management areas have
suffered a lack of ducks using the units such as West Sandy, Big Sandy,
Gin Creek, Camden and Dover Bottoms.
A few blinds got off to a decent opener once the second season got
underway but since then it has been a mediocre duck season for the
lion’s share of dreary duck hunters scanning somewhat empty skies.
Recent rains have really changed the waterfowl picture and flooding
across the region recently put water all over the region and especially
in the Mississippi River drainage areas of eastern Missouri and
Arkansas, western Kentucky and all across West Tennessee river bottoms
such as the Hatchie, Obion and Forked Deer.
It has scattered the ducks recently but it’s still early in the season.
Recently cold snaps that came in early this year should have delivered
more duck activity to our region. For most hunters the ducks have not
played fair and chosen to play the waterfowling game on their own terms.
Normally, flooding rains and cold weather bring the migration to
southern winter grounds a bit early. Unfortunately, for the lion’s share
of Tennessee duck hunters it has been a tough season.
There’s always the haves and have nots. Some areas have enjoyed a
successful start to the season so not everyone is sporting long faces.
You know how it goes.
FUTURE OF PINTAIL POPULATION
For the first time in nearly 30 years, duck hunters in the lower 48
states could have the chance to shoot three pintails a day as soon as
the 2025-26 season—a possible outcome of an interim population and
harvest strategy being put into use by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
However, it’s important to note that despite a change in the model, the
daily bag limit for all future seasons still depends on the pintail
populations and habitat conditions on the breeding grounds. The data
will become clearer in August when USFWS releases its annual Waterfowl
Population Status report. So, despite speculation by other media
outlets, there’s no guarantee of a three-pintail bag limit for the
2025-26 season.
Based on a new integrated population model for pintails, the USFWS
Regulations Committee on May 17 adopted an Interim Northern Pintail
Harvest Strategy to guide setting of regulations for the 2025-26
waterfowl season. The new strategy, which was developed based on
banding, population survey, and harvest data, allows four options: Bag
limits could be three pintails daily, two, one, or a closed season for
the Mississippi, Central, and Pacific flyways. The Atlantic Flyway will
have a three-pintail daily limit every season unless the model calls for
a closed season in the other three flyways.
“The new model, the new data is some of the best science we’ve ever had
on pintails,” said Jerome Ford, USFWS assistant director, during the
meeting. “In this application (of the new strategy), we’re trying to
learn. The Service Regulations Committee supports the implementation
moving forward with the Pintail Working Group proposed Interim Harvest
Strategy. The revised strategy addresses stakeholder concerns with the
current strategy, and the important technical updates conform with the
idea of using the best available science to support harvest management
decisions.”
Under Adaptive Harvest Management, which was put into use in 1995 and
updated for pintails in 2010, only three regulatory options for pintails
exist: two birds daily, one, or closed season. Regulations for the
upcoming 2024-25 season are already set: The daily bag limit is one
pintail daily in all four flyways.
The USFWS will use 2024 breeding population survey data obtained this
spring to determine 2025-26 regulations using the new Interim Pintail
Harvest Strategy.
“The biggest difference is the new model factors in the harvest rate,
which is the percentage of the population taken by hunters, rather than
just looking at the total harvest from the prior year as a predictor of
the upcoming season’s harvest,” said Dr. Chris Nicolai, waterfowl
scientist for Delta Waterfowl. “The new model makes predictions based on
the observed proportion of pintails shot, not on the estimated number of
what hunters shot the previous season.”
Here is a phone video clip from a Reelfoot Lake youth hunt..."Smokin
Teal"
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