Best Waterfowl Hunting States, by the Harvest Numbers

The short answer

Arkansas, Louisiana, California and Texas lead the United States in ducks killed. Texas and Arkansas have the most waterfowl hunters. Kansas, California, Arkansas, North Dakota and Michigan lead on geese. Those are not our opinions, they are the top lines of the federal harvest survey, and the state figures behind them are reported in the published summary of that survey linked at the bottom of this page.

That is the whole honest version of a question usually answered with hype. What the harvest numbers cannot tell you is how pleasant any of it is: Arkansas leads the country in ducks harvested and sits second in hunter numbers, which means the famous flooded timber is also some of the most pressured public water in North America. If your question is really “where should I drive this season,” read the birds per hunter section before the ranking, because it reorders the list.

Where these numbers come from

There is exactly one national count of waterfowl harvest in the United States, and it is not a magazine poll. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service runs the Harvest Information Program, under which every state registers migratory bird hunters, and then surveys a sample of those registrations through the Migratory Bird Harvest Survey and the Parts Collection Survey. The results are published annually as Migratory Bird Hunting Activity and Harvest, and the most recent edition covers the 2025-2026 season.

Three things about that report matter before you read any ranking built on it. First, the figures are estimates with published confidence intervals, rounded to the nearest 100 — a state leading another by a few thousand birds is a tie, not a win. Second, the national and flyway tables are more precise than any single state's, because the sample is designed at that scale. Third, the service itself notes that the 2025-2026 Parts Collection Survey was disrupted: envelopes for wing submissions did not arrive until mid-November because of budget uncertainty and a government shutdown, which the report says particularly affected Mississippi Flyway participants and may have undercounted early-season species. Species splits from that season deserve more caution than the totals.

For scale, here is the national picture in the 2025-2026 report: an estimated 1.2 million duck hunters spent 8.2 million days afield and harvested 15 million ducks, a harvest 4 percent above the prior season. On the goose side, 629,600 goose hunters spent 3.6 million days and harvested 3.7 million geese, up 4.8 percent. Brant hunting is a rounding error by comparison: 8,400 hunters and 11,600 birds.

States that kill the most ducks

For the 2024-2025 season, the published state duck harvest leaders were Arkansas at 1.42 million ducks, Louisiana at 1.25 million, California at 1.11 million, Texas at 1.1 million and Minnesota at 655,700. Nationally that season, hunters took 14.34 million ducks, so those five states accounted for roughly a third of the country's duck harvest between them.

Read that list as a map of habitat rather than a leaderboard of skill. Arkansas sits at the bottom of the Mississippi Flyway with flooded green timber and rice country that holds mallards all winter; Arkansas led every state in mallards specifically, at 530,183 birds. Louisiana is coastal marsh and rice on the continent's biggest wintering ground. California's Central Valley concentrates Pacific Flyway birds into managed wetlands and rice, which is why a state most people do not picture as a duck state ranks third. Texas spans the Central Flyway coast, the rice prairie and the playa lakes, and has the hunters to work all three.

Those are also four different kinds of hunting, and the gear follows the water rather than the state line. Flooded timber and rice want a small, loud spread and a call you can work in tight quarters — see best duck calls for timber and duck decoy spreads. Coastal marsh and big water want bigger decoys, longer lines and a boat you trust, which is where open-water calls and diver decoys earn their keep.

States with the most hunters

The same published state tables for 2024-2025 put Texas first in active waterfowl hunters at 119,700, Arkansas second at 79,400, with Wisconsin, Minnesota and Louisiana completing the top five. Nationally that season, 1.26 million people hunted ducks and geese, a 2.5 percent drop from the year before — part of a long decline in waterfowl hunter numbers that every state agency is watching.

There is a second, blunter measure of how many people are competing for birds, and it comes straight from the newest report: Harvest Information Program registrations by state for 2025-2026. Texas registered 781,968, California 122,291, Minnesota 126,466, Wisconsin 125,458, North Carolina 111,336, Michigan 109,709, Arkansas 107,731 and Georgia 105,880, out of 3,125,121 nationally. Treat those as a ceiling rather than a hunter count: HIP registration covers every migratory bird hunter in the state, including the dove hunters who make up most of the Texas figure. It is still the one number published per state every single year, and the states with the highest registrations are the states where you will share a boat ramp.

Birds per hunter: the honest metric

Divide one published figure by the other and the ranking changes character. Using the 2024-2025 state numbers, Arkansas's 1.42 million ducks across 79,400 hunters works out near 18 ducks per active hunter for the season. Texas's 1.1 million ducks across 119,700 hunters is closer to 9. Louisiana, with 1.25 million ducks and a hunter count inside the national top five, lands between them.

That arithmetic is ours, not the service's, and it is crude: it ignores season length, bag limits, nonresident travel, and the fact that a hunter who goes out thirty times is counted the same as one who goes twice. What it does capture is the trade every traveling waterfowler is actually making. The states at the top of the harvest list are at the top partly because they hold the most birds and partly because they hold the most hunters, and the two do not cancel out evenly. A state in the middle of the harvest table with a quarter of the hunting pressure can be the better week of your season.

If you are choosing a destination rather than a season pass, weight it toward dates and water instead of state totals. Our waterfowl hunting season guide covers how the federal framework sets each state's season, and late-season gear covers the part of the calendar when birds concentrate and pressure thins.

The goose states are different states

Goose harvest does not follow duck harvest, and anyone who picks a state off a duck list and shows up with a honker spread learns that the hard way. The published 2024-2025 goose harvest leaders were California at 276,100, Kansas at 258,200, Arkansas at 256,400, North Dakota at 184,400 and Michigan at 169,400. Oklahoma led the country in cackling geese, at 42,432.

Kansas and North Dakota are the tell: both are field-hunting states where the gear is a layout blind, a trailer of full bodies and a short reed, not a boat. Michigan is a resident-goose and Great Lakes story. California shows up on both lists because the Central Valley holds enormous numbers of white-fronted and cackling geese alongside its ducks, and the hunting there is as much goose as duck.

Two notes on seasons that a state ranking hides. Early September Canada goose seasons target resident birds before the migration, with liberal limits in many states. And the spring Light Goose Conservation Order in the Central and Mississippi Flyways is a different sport entirely, with its own rules and its own gear — see spring snow goose gear and electronic caller laws before you plan a snow goose trip, plus best electronic snow goose callers for the one piece of gear that is legal only in that season. If you are headed to the field states, start with best layout blinds and best goose decoys.

What each flyway actually offers

Harvest is managed by flyway, not by state, and the flyway you hunt determines your season framework, your bird mix and most of your gear. The 2025-2026 report breaks the national duck harvest down by management unit, and the Mississippi Flyway is the largest of the four by a wide margin, with the Central and Pacific Flyways next and the Atlantic Flyway smallest.

Mississippi Flyway. Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois. Mallard country, flooded timber, rice and the big river. The Mississippi Flyway kit covers what that water asks for.

Central Flyway. Texas, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma. Fields, playas, prairie potholes and the strongest goose numbers in the country. See the Central Flyway kit.

Pacific Flyway. California first by a distance, then Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah. Managed wetlands, rice, pintails and wigeon, plus heavy goose numbers in the valley. See the Pacific Flyway kit.

Atlantic Flyway. North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, New York, Maine, New Jersey. Black ducks, sea ducks and brant — New Jersey alone led the country in brant harvest in 2024-2025, at 2,535 birds. Smallest total harvest, most specialized hunting. See the Atlantic Flyway kit.

What harvest data cannot tell you

A harvest ranking is a measure of birds killed, not of hunting quality, and four things it leaves out decide most trips.

Access. A state can lead the nation in harvest while almost all of its best water is leased or clubbed. Public land acreage, draw systems and walk-in programs vary enormously between states, and they are published by each state's wildlife agency rather than by the federal survey. Check the agency, not the harvest table.

Pressure and timing. The same marsh that is excellent on a cold front in January is unhuntable on a warm opening weekend with a boat every two hundred yards. Harvest totals average over the entire season and every hunter in it.

Weather, which moves everything. Southern states depend on northern freeze-ups to push birds down. A mild winter leaves birds short of Arkansas and Louisiana and makes the mid-latitude states look better than their ten-year averages. One season's state numbers are weather as much as habitat, which is why the federal report prints a ten-year average beside every current figure.

Regulations are state-specific and they change. Season dates, bag limits, zone splits, nonresident license costs and license-allocation caps are set each year by each state inside the federal framework. Never plan a trip from a number on any website, including this one — read the current regulations from the state agency and the federal framework before you buy anything.

Pick a state by what you want

If you want the highest odds of a limit of mallards: Arkansas, with the pressure that comes with it. It led all states in both total duck harvest and mallard harvest in 2024-2025. Hunt the late season, hunt a weekday, and expect company.

If you want volume and variety in a single state: Louisiana or California. Both sit in the national top three for ducks, and California is also a top goose state, so a week there can be two different hunts.

If you want to hunt geese in fields: Kansas, North Dakota or Oklahoma. The goose harvest numbers point at the Central Flyway, and so does the gear — layout blinds and full bodies rather than a boat and floaters.

If you want the most season for one license: a state in the middle of the harvest table in your own flyway. Nonresident trips are expensive, travel days eat the cold fronts, and the hunter across the country from you is driving to a state that looks like yours. Our duck hunting gear list is the version of this advice aimed at the gear instead of the map.

If you want a spring season after everyone else quits: the Light Goose Conservation Order states of the Central and Mississippi Flyways. Different birds, different rules, and the one context where an electronic caller may be legal.