Season Arrives: Waterfowlers May See Some Needed Rainfall Before, After Opening Day

Arkansas hunters have already had early shots at teal and geese in recent weeks, but the state’s 60-day waterfowl season officially kicks off Saturday, Nov. 22. Included over those 60 days are two breaks dividing the season into three “splits.” The first split will run Nov. 22 through Monday, Dec. 1. The other splits are Dec. 10-23 and Dec. 27-Jan. 31.

The season opens 30 minutes before sunrise, and each day’s hunting concludes at sunset. (Sunrise times are available in the Arkansas Waterfowl Guidebook on Page 5; subtract 1 minute for every 9 miles east of Little Rock and add 1 minute for every 9 miles west of Little Rock according to the chart). Hunting on most WMAs managed for waterfowl concludes at noon (see the Waterfowl Guidebook for rules on your preferred WMA; hunters must be off the water at noon in two WMAs, George H. Dunklin Bayou Meto WMA and Dave Donaldson Black River WMA, and off by 1 p.m. on certain other WMAs).

Limits and other waterfowl regulations can also be found on the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s website. 

Hunters must have a valid Arkansas hunting license, both state and federal duck stamps, and have 2025-26 registration in the Harvest Information Program. All of these requirements can be met on the agfc.com website under “Get a License” on the website’s main page. 

Early forecasts for the season call for a few “Halloween” mallards milling around throughout the Arkansas Delta region, but warm temperatures and windy conditions may have most of the early migration actively moving around. The bigger migration of mallards and other ducks that frequent Arkansas annually has yet to move out of the northern locales, national waterfowl biologists say.

Spring breeding numbers in the Prairie Pothole Region by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in its 2025 Waterfowl Population Status Report indicated that total duck numbers were in line with the last few years (about 34 million), and 4 percent below the long-term average, which covers the last 70 years. This number was in spite of the May pond estimate — where the ducks hang out — being down 19 percent over last year (from 5.2 million ponds to 4.2 million ponds). That marked the lowest pond estimate in 21 years, though conditions rebounded in that area after the May count with late-season rains, improving the surroundings for renesting ducks and late-season nesters.

The Prairie Pothole Region of the northern Great Plains, where more than half of North America’s ducks are produced annually, has been hit hard by dry conditions and loss of habitat over the last several years, factors that have brought the total numbers down from record highs seen a decade ago.

Mallards in the breeding grounds were estimated at 6.6 million, similar to last year’s estimate but 17 percent below the long-term average.

Brett Leach, the AGFC waterfowl program coordinator, urges hunters to temper expectations early. He notes that Arkansas’s duck harvest is greatly influenced by nature not only within the state’s boundaries, but in the northern areas where the waterfowl are beginning their migration south. Below-freezing conditions with winter precipitation haven’t set in up north, and big migrations likely won’t move until they do.

In Arkansas, recent Octobers and Novembers have been very dry, but the state has seen some welcome rainfall this fall, and a front with rain is forecast for Thursday in the run-up to opening weekend. Sunday and Monday are also expected to see some rainfall. Beginning around Thanksgiving, temperatures are forecast to drop from mild to cool or cold in the state. That should work for the ducks already milling around within the state, but we’ll be watching the weather in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and their neighbors to forecast more duck movement as we move into December.

The biggest change in daily limits for hunters to note for opening weekend is an increase in the pintail limit from one to three. This change is an interim harvest strategy implemented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in cooperation with the four North American Flyway councils. Pintail populations saw a 13 percent increase from last year, to 2.2 million estimated birds in the spring Waterfowl Population Status report, but the harvest increase was planned before those numbers were revealed. Biologists were consistently seeing that daily bag limits played a much lower role in population dynamics than other factors, such as declining habitat, which had caused a drop in pintail numbers nearly a half-century ago. Since the 1980s, the pintail numbers have stayed consistent.