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Reelfoot Lake Duck Hunting
West
Tennessee Duck Hunting Report
2025-26
Fowler's Point
Guide Service
COLD FRONT AND OPENING DAY EXCITE
DUCK HUNTERS
By Steve McCadams
Coinciding with the opening of the statewide duck season will be a
dramatic weather change that may well turn out to be a game changer.
Suddenly, weary waterfowlers who have been sweating it out lately while
doing final chores of preparation have pep in their step. The weather
makes it actually feels like duck season is here.
Just a week or so ago mosquitoes were out buzzing about. Some talk
emerged about sightings of cottonmouths still crawling about in the
marshes too!
What had been a very warm and dry fall season has flipped the page, and
changing the whole atmosphere for all outdoorsmen. Fishermen aren’t too
happy about the north winds and falling temperatures but duck, deer and
rabbit hunters sort of welcome it with open arms.
Tennessee’s statewide duck season begins Saturday for a short two-day
segment. After opening weekend season closes for three days, reopening
for the second and longest segment on December 5.
The 60-day season, once it reopens after a two-day flurry, has a 58-day
straight segment lasting all the way through January 31, 2025. Hunters
will again have a wide window of opportunity during a long and liberal
duck season across the Volunteer State.
Daily bag limits haven’t changed much since last year. Regulation
language reads hunters may harvest 6 birds daily which may include no
more than four mallards of which only two can be hens. Then not more
than three wood ducks, two canvasbacks, two redheads, two black ducks
and one pintail.
A daily bag limit on scaup is only one through December 17 and then
increases to two from December 18 throughout the rest of the season,
according to a somewhat strange management philosophy passed on to the
flyway states by The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
States such as Tennessee must adhere to federal framework regulations on
both season dates and bag limit restrictions.
We’re allowed a 60-day season but it cannot go past the last day of
January, says USFWS. The exception being a special Youth Waterfowl
weekend February1 and again on the 8, both of which are Saturdays.
Another special exception is for two days of hunting for Veteran and
Active Military Personnel also for two days on February 2 and again on
February 9.
Meanwhile, the reason for the somewhat unusual segments of southern
state seasons is to open on a weekend to accommodate the largest number
of hunters. In order to maximize the days allowed from USFWS the states
set season dates based on the latest date allowed, which has
traditionally been the last day in January,
From there they count backwards on the calendar to obtain the opening of
the second season. This year it fell on the midweek return of a
Thursday.
Although Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency could have deferred the
second opening segment to the following weekend hunters across the state
always seem to ask for the most days allowed in the federal framework.
Thus, the reason for the weekday opener for the second segment.
In times past having a few days of closure between the first opening
segment and the second worked well for most of the state’s public
hunting spots and wildlife management areas. Giving the ducks a few days
of rest for feeding and roosting without disturbance from boating and
hunting activity seemed to work out well.
This year it will be a very short hiatus. Only three days between the
opening weekend and the return of the second season don’t allow much
quiet time for the ducks.
Hunting pressure can easily send ducks back to refuges and other areas
free of traffic and hunting.
It’s somewhat a roll of the dice. A lot depends on weather, water
conditions and food availability.
Fortunately, most all hunters across Tennessee will have ample water
this year to access their blinds and hunting areas where some opt to
explore wade-in zones.
Conditions that will kick off the season this year are much better than
last year. A lot of areas were dry last year at this time.
Plus, ducks follow the water and a lack of it last year may have sent
waterfowl further west on the flyway. The mighty Mississippi River has a
lot of influence on the routes of migration. Recent rains have helped
somewhat.
When the tributary river bottoms across West Tennessee such as the
Obion, Forked Deer and Hatchie yearn for water like they did half way
into last year’s duck season it had a negative impact.
It will be interesting to see how things play out but decent duck
numbers are in the fall flight forecast. Good weather has arrived, along
with early water.
Hunters have a reason for optimism. But then we are, by nature, an
optimistic bunch anyway!
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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