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Hooded Merganser Harvest Study

| by Topics: Hunting, Waterfowl Harvest

hooded-merganser-harvest-study

Do you love hunting Hooded Mergansers in Minnesota? We’ve got some good news for you….

At WaterfowlChoke we love everything about hunting ducks, whether it’s making the perfect shot, learning to call effectively, or buying the best choke tube, we want to help people in every aspect of duck hunting – so we know as well as anyone how important harvesting Hooded Mergansers is.

Harvesting a Hooded Merganser is the most iconic achievement in duck hunting, especially when it’s a memorable hunt or you get a banded bird. However, there are a few people who have made harvesting Hooded Mergansers their specialty, and you’d be surprised just how many Hooded Mergansers have been harvested in America since the turn of the millennium.

So, to look deeper into the Hooded Merganser harvest, we decided to do some research into just how many Hooded Mergansers are harvested each year and what areas shoot the most – here’s what we found.

For this research, we looked at the adaptive harvest reports for each state in 2021 in the United States, to reveal which American states are best for harvesting Hooded Mergansers.

Where are the Most Hooded Mergansers Being Shot?

We discovered that hunters who hunt Hooded Mergansers in Minnesota are the most likely to harvest the most amount of Hooded Mergansers per hunt, followed by in Michigan and Kentucky. Since 2021, those in Minnesota have harvested 15,601 Hooded Mergansers, whilst in Michigan and Kentucky, hunters have harvested 5,741 and 5,176, respectively.

The fifteen states that harvested the most Hooded Mergansers, and the number each state has recorded for 2021, are as follows:

  1. Minnesota – 15,601
  2. Michigan – 5,741
  3. Kentucky – 5,176
  4. Wisconsin – 5,099
  5. North Carolina – 4,869
  6. Louisiana – 4,381
  7. Georgia – 3,951
  8. Texas – 3,654
  9. Arkansas – 3,336
  10. Virginia – 2,603
  11. New York – 2,379
  12. Mississippi – 2,245
  13. Tennessee – 2,050
  14. Illinois – 2,000
  15. New Jersey – 1,924

(Sources: USFWS Harvest Survey)

The data showed that the Hooded Merganser hunters sticking to the rivers and lakes of Minnesota are most likely to harvest a Hooded Merganser. Shockingly, Texas Hooded Merganser hunters have fallen drastically on the harvest list and you have to wonder if they will even see a Hooded Merganser on the average duck hunt.

More Waterfowl Harvest Studies
Harvest studies are conducted by the USFWS each year in the U.S. to gauge the number of ducks and geese that are taken by hunters. This aids in setting bag limits and managing migratory bird populations from year to year. Below are the most common migratory species with available harvest data. Please click the links below to see how many birds were harvested and where.

The Most Common Shotgun Used for Harvesting Hooded Mergansers

When looking at which shotgun people had used to harvest a Hooded Merganser, the 12-gauge was revealed as the most commonly used shotgun, with over 80% of hunters choosing it. A 20 gauge and a 10 gauge shotgun rounded off the top three, with 20 gauge being the second most popular.

The 28 gauge came in fourth place with 12% usage, while the 410 bore came fifth, with 5%.

We also delved into which month people had been harvesting the most Hooded Mergansers, and discovered that December was the most common, with 43% of Hooded Mergansers harvested. The months of November (33%) and January (24%) came in second and third. This is likely due to duck season timing by state and hunter participation levels peaking at certain months.

states-that-shoot-the-most-hooded-mergansers

Waterfowlchoke editors, after reviewing the data, said:

“As any duck hunter will know, harvesting a fully plumed Hooded Mergansers is a lifetime achievement – unless you’re a well-known hunting guide, an amateur hunter with multiple limit hunts on Hooded Mergansers is quite the accomplishment.

“It’s interesting to see those in Minnesota harvesting so many Hooded Mergansers – especially when the hunter participation rate is lower than many other states – you have to wonder what tactics they’re using out there on the Mississippi Flyway! We’re planning to make this research a recurring thing, so that we can track how Hooded Merganser harvests in the US are changing – who knows, maybe Michigan will surpass Minnesota this time next year.”

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