ND Outdoors: Waterfowl season preview

BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) - The North Dakota regular resident waterfowl season opens September 27.

There will be a few regulation changes for waterfowl hunters in North Dakota in 2025.

“One of the bigger ones is the requirement of a state electronic waterfall stamp. That’s new this upcoming year that’s going to help us track the amount of resident and nonresident waterfowl hunters that we have in the state. We also had some zone changes as well. And also, our pintail bag limit went up to three for this year,” said John Palarski, North Dakota Game and Fish migratory game bird supervisor.

North Dakota was dry during the May breeding duck survey due to limited snowmelt and the dry conditions from last fall, which influenced how ducks settled across the state.

“A lot of the ducks and geese, especially our early migrants like mallards and pintails that were moving through the state, didn’t find a lot of water on the landscape, and a lot of the semi-permanent wetlands were mostly frozen. And so as a result, a lot of those early migrating species ended up pushing through North Dakota and going up into Canada, which again, unfortunately, they didn’t find very improved conditions there either. And probably went north to the boreal forest to nest,” said Palarski.

At the end of May, much of the state received a fair amount of rain, which certainly helped with duck production.

“And actually, we were up 28% from last year from our brood surveys, but down considerably from the 1994 to 2016 average, which is, you know, kind of the heyday of ducks in North Dakota, when we had good wetland and also good grass conditions that ducks need to nest in. So as a result, we kind of calculate a fall flight index, which is a combination of our May breeding survey estimate and also our July duck brood estimate,” said Palarski.

Canada geese are still doing ok in North Dakota.

“Our Canada geese were down 15% from last year and have been declining over the last three years, but still generally pretty robust and provide good opportunities for sportsmen in the state,” said Palarski.

Overall, what can waterfowl hunters expect in 2025?

“Obviously, we’ve been having a declining mid-continent duck population and some of our goose populations have been declining as well, but conditions and things are lining up to be pretty similar to last year and plenty of opportunity for folks,” said Palarski.

For more information on this year’s waterfowl season and duck populations, visit gf.nd.gov.