The Mississippi Flyway harvests a stunning amount of ducks, but is it enough to take the top spot?
Do you love hunting ducks in the Mississippi Flyway? 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 ducks is.
Harvesting a duck is the most iconic achievement in waterfowl hunting, especially when it’s a memorable hunt or you get a banded bird. However, there are a few people who have made harvesting ducks their specialty, and you’d be surprised just how many ducks have been harvested in each flyway in America since the turn of the millennium.
So, to look deeper into the duck harvest by flyway, we decided to do some research into just how many ducks are harvested each year and what flyways shoot the most – here’s what we found.
For this research, we looked at the adaptive harvest reports for each flyway in 2021 in the United States, to reveal which American flyways are best for harvesting ducks.
What Flyways are the Most Ducks Being Shot?
We discovered that hunters who hunt ducks in the Mississippi Flyway are the most likely to harvest the most amount of ducks per hunt, followed by in the Central and Pacific Flyways. Since 2021, those in the Mississippi Flyway have harvested 4,408,800 ducks, whilst in the Central and Pacific Flyways, hunters have harvested 2,774,900 and 2,5774,900, respectively.
The four flyways that harvested the most ducks, and the number each flyway has recorded for 2021, are as follows:
- Mississippi – 4,408,800
- Central – 2,774,900
- Pacific – 2,544,000
- Atlantic – 1,361,400
(Sources: USFWS Harvest Survey)
The data showed that the duck hunters sticking to the fields and waterbodies of the Mississippi Flyway harvest the most ducks annually. Shockingly, Atlantic Flyway duck hunters have fallen drastically on the harvest list and you have to wonder if they will even get half a limit 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 Shotguns Used in the Mississippi Flyway
When looking at which shotgun people had used to harvest a duck, 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 ducks, and discovered that December was the most common, with 43% of Ducks harvested. The months of November (33%) and January (24%) came in second and third. This is likely due to duck season timing by flyway and hunter participation levels peaking at certain months.
Waterfowlchoke editors, after reviewing the data, said:
“As any duck hunter will know, harvesting ducks consistently takes more than just luck – unless you’re a well-known hunting guide, a beginner hunter with multiple limit hunts on ducks is quite the accomplishment.
“It’s interesting to see those in the Mississippi Flyway harvesting so many ducks – especially when hunting season length is shorter than several other flyways – 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 duck harvests in the US are changing – who knows, maybe the Central Flyway will surpass the Mississippi Flyway this time next year.”
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