Duck hunters who enjoy bagging pintails might be able to bring home more of them in the daily bag limit in 2025-26.

They may get a chance to legally shoot three pintails a day during the season as early as the 2025-26 season, which could be considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Waterfowlers will know more after August when U.S.F&WS officials release the annual Waterfowl Population Status, according to a story posted recently on deltawaterfowl.org.

The U.S.F&WS Regulations Committee adopted an Interim Northern Pintail Harvest strategy in mid-May based on a retooled population model for pintails. The new plan, based on banding, population survey and harvest data, calls for four options: Bag limits of three pintails daily, two, one or a closed season for the Mississippi, Central and Pacific flyways. (NOTE: The Atlantic Flyway will have a three-pintail limit unless the model calls for a closed season in the other three flyways.)

“The new model, the new data is some of the best science we’ve ever had on pintails,” Jerome Ford, U.S.F&WS assistant director, said during the meeting May 17.

“In this application (of the new strategy), we’re trying to learn. The Service Regulations Committee supports the implementation moving forward with the Pintail Working Group proposed Interim Harvest Strategy,” Ford said. “The revised strategy, and the important technical updates conform with the idea of using the best available science to support harvest management decisions.”

If the limit is raised to three pintails in 2025-26, it would be the first three-pintail limit since 1997. Restrictive harvest regulations on pintails started in 1985, when one hen was allowed from 1985-87. From 1988-94, the limit was one pintail.

Then duck hunters faced a one-pintail limit from 1998 to 2008. During the 2010s, graced with “wet years” in the breeding grounds, limits increased to two each day before going back to one again in 2017 and every season since 2019.

The harvest regulations for the 2024-25 season remain in place contrary to some reports. The daily bag limit in all four flyways will be one pintail daily.

Since 1995, waterfowl regulations were set by Adaptive Harvest Management. Those rules were updated for pintails in 2010 with just three options for pintails: two birds daily, one or closed season.

Why the sudden shift in waterfowl management policy for pintails? Plain and simple, it’s because the federal agency realized restrictive harvest regulations the past four decades haven’t led to increased pintail populations, an indicator hunter harvest isn’t an issue.

Waterfowl Habitat and Breeding Population Surveys show pintail numbers show dipping below 2 million only in 1991, 2002 and 2022. The 2022 population estimate of 1.78 million, was the lowest in the survey’s history, then pintail numbers increased to 2.21 million in 2023.

“The proposed interim harvest strategy provides for an open hunting season when the observed breeding population is above 1.2 million birds, and allows a liberal season length with a three-bird daily bag limit under some conditions,” Todd Sanders, U.S.F&WS Pacific Flyway representative, said. “The appropriate thresholds for each regulatory alternative are derived each year based on the data and learning about population demographics and the predictive harvest models.”

U.S.F&WS plans to use 2024 breeding population survey results from this spring to determine new Interim Pintail Harvest Strategy.

According to Dr. Chris Nicolai, Delta Waterfowl scientist, “The biggest difference is the new model factors in the harvest rate, which is the percentage of the population taken by hunters, rather than just looking at the total harvest from the prior year as a predictor of the upcoming season’s harvest.

“The new model makes predictions based on the observed proportion of pintails shot, not on the estimated number of what hunters shot the previous season.”

Writer Paul Wait noted in his Delta Waterfowl story the U.S.F&WS is ready to collect three seasons of data under a three-pintail bag limit in all four flyways. However, he wrote, it may take several duck seasons to have three-pintail limits as the regulatory option. The federal agency plans to study the impacts on harvest and the pintail population.

Sanders said, “Evaluation results will be provided to the flyway technical committees for consideration in the development of a proposed operational harvest strategy, which may or may not include an option for a three-bird daily limit. The Service and flyway councils will annually monitor implementation of the strategy and can address any issues that may arise.”