DEC Announces Duck Season Dates For 2019-2020

Due to a slow, but steady decline in mallards across the northeastern United States, the mallard daily bag limit has been reduced this year.

The daily limit has been reduced from 4 birds per day to 2 birds per day. The Canada goose season length in the Northeast, West Central, East Central, Hudson Valley, and Lake Champlain zones has been reduced from 50 days to 30 days and the bag limit has been reduced from 3 per day to 2 per day.

New York duck seasons offer opportunity to hunt from the first week of October through the last Sunday in January, depending on the waterfowl hunting zone. By having five waterfowl zones, it allows DEC to select dates that maximize duck abundance in each zone which varies based on habitat and latitude.

Canada goose hunting regulations can often be confusing because of the number of zones, varied bag limits and season lengths. Although some of the boundaries and bag limit differences appear to be random, they were designed using scientific data to maximize opportunity for resident Canada geese, but also to protect migratory populations that are much more sensitive to hunter harvest.

There are no changes to season dates or bag limits for any of the other webless migratory game birds.

Listen to Smitty in the Afternoon weekdays from 2PM to 7PM on 101.5 WPDH. Stream us live through the website, Alexa-enabled device, Google Home or the WPDH mobile app.There are no changes to season dates or bag limits for any of the other webless migratory game birds.