Mid-South Duck Migration Report: Nov 3, 2026

This is our first weekly migration report for the 2026-27 season. It's built only from what the state and federal agencies publish: aerial and refuge counts, agency news, river gauges, and the U.S. Drought Monitor. No hunter reports and no rumors. When an agency hasn't posted something yet, we say so.

The short version

• No Mid-South state has posted a 2026-27 duck count yet. The only fall count in our four states is Louisiana's September teal survey. Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee usually start counting in November or December (schedule below).
• The drought got worse last week. On the Oct 27 Drought Monitor, 37% of Arkansas was in the worst category (exceptional drought), up from 19% a week earlier.
• Water is where the pumps are. AGFC's own tables show a short list of managed units with real water. Most rain-fed units are still dry.
• The Mississippi River keeps dropping. Memphis fell about 3 feet in a week, to about −4.1 feet. The NWS forecast holds it near −4 feet through mid-November.
• Birds are stacking up to our north. A Missouri refuge and Iowa's statewide count both jumped last week, mostly pintails, green-winged teal and gadwall. Mallards are a small share so far.
• Rain is in the forecast Tuesday. The National Weather Service calls for storms Tuesday and Tuesday night, then cooler, dry weather. One rain won't erase a 20-inch deficit, but watch the Cache and the small rivers later in the week.

1. Official counts in the Mid-South

What LDWF said about its September survey, in short: the blue-winged teal estimate was 28% below 2025 and well below the 5- and 10-year averages, no green-winged teal were seen, and much of southwest Louisiana and the Little River Basin was extremely dry, with less than 5% of the southwest farm country flooded. Because one observer's counts weren't recorded on transects 8–10, LDWF says the real number could be higher and can't say by how much (LDWF).

2. Drought: the biggest story this fall

U.S. Drought Monitor, map dated Oct 27, 2026 (share of each state in each category or worse):

Source: U.S. Drought Monitor state statistics (National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA and NOAA). The next map comes out Thursday, Nov 5.

AGFC laid out what this means for Arkansas in an Oct 22 news release (AGFC):

• At the start of October, AGFC had water to flood only 42% of the moist-soil units it manages, and said that share would drop as long as the drought lasts.
• Shirey Bay Rainey Brake greentree reservoirs won't be flooded from Lake Charles until the lake recovers; the lake is more than 8 feet below normal pool. AGFC said the same kind of call is being made at Harris Brake.
• At Steve N. Wilson Raft Creek, AGFC is pumping from the White River around the clock, and its best case is about 34 permit hunt locations by Christmas.
• Only about 5 to 10 of the 47 WRICE private-land hunt locations had enough surface water to flood at the time. AGFC said each location is checked weekly and goes into the draw only if it has water.
• Arkansas rice acreage fell from over 1.1 million acres to 851,000 acres in USDA's 2026 Prospective Plantings report, the first year under 1 million since 1983, and AGFC said hunters should expect lower duck numbers statewide.

3. Where Arkansas WMA units have water

AGFC keeps public tables of its moist-soil units and greentree reservoirs (AGFC wetland management). A unit marked "flooded" there means at least 1 inch of water. From the units open to hunting table, as AGFC's notes read on Nov 2 (the notes carry their own dates, most from late October):

• Mostly or fully flooded: Dardanelle WMA's McKennon Bottoms and Potter's Pothole; Ozark Lake WMA's three Dyer units at 90%; Sheffield Nelson Dagmar's Conway George Unit A (90%) and Dark Corner 1 (95%); Raft Creek unit D (90%); Frog Bayou units 2 through 4 (90 to 100%); Point Remove's Race Track (100%) and LIL Hole (80%); Prairie Bayou unit 1.
• Partly flooded or being pumped: Freddie Black Choctaw Island's seven units (10 to 80%); Raft Creek A (AGFC says it will take until Christmas to fill), B (not close to full until January) and C; Cypress Bayou unit 2; Wiville West at Rex Hancock Black Swamp; several Frog Bayou and Dagmar units.
• Dry so far ("no rainfall" or no water available): most of Cypress Bayou, the Big Lake moist-soil units, Galla Creek, Ozan, the Knobel units at Dave Donaldson Black River, and most of Point Remove, which AGFC says it will evaluate as water becomes available.
• Greentree reservoirs: the GTR table shows no current status for any unit yet. AGFC's notes say greentree flooding at Big Lake WMA is planned to begin Nov 12.

Check the live table before you drive. It changes as units are pumped or rained on.

4. Rivers and lakes

Readings at about 7 a.m. Central, a week apart. Source: NWS river gauges via water.noaa.gov and USGS. Live charts for each are on our river levels page.

• Mississippi River: the NWS forecast issued Monday keeps Memphis near −4 feet and Helena near 3 feet through Nov 16. Our Tunica Cutoff and Mississippi River at Memphis guides explain what low river levels mean for those spots.
• Cache River: the NWS forecast has Patterson rising to about 3.8 feet by Friday after Tuesday's rain. Flood stage there is 9 feet, so that's still a channel-only river.
• Reelfoot Lake: 11.0 feet on the USGS gauge Monday morning, about where it sat in late October.

For how to read these numbers, see How to Read River Gauges for Duck Hunting.

5. What's coming from the north

These counts are outside the Mid-South, but they're the official numbers closest to "what's on the way."

• Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge, Missouri (USFWS), Oct 27: 43,775 ducks, up from 15,237 the week before. Northern pintails (16,020), green-winged teal (13,730), gadwall (7,565) and ring-necks (3,995) led the count. Mallards: 170. The refuge also counted 11,600 white-fronted geese (USFWS report, PDF).
• Iowa DNR statewide survey, week ending Oct 30: the duck count rose 50.6% from the week before and was 30.9% above the same week last year. Pintails were the most common duck, followed by green-winged teal and mallards. Red Rock (12,450 ducks) and Rathbun (8,775) had the biggest totals (Iowa DNR, PDF).

What that means for us: the early ducks (pintails, teal, gadwall, ring-necks) are moving south of the Canadian border ahead of our openers. Mallards are still a small part of the picture: 170 of 43,775 ducks at Loess Bluffs, and third behind pintails and green-winged teal in Iowa. The big mallard flights usually wait for harder cold farther north.

6. Weather this week

From the National Weather Service forecasts for Memphis and Stuttgart issued Monday morning (NWS):

• Tuesday and Tuesday night: showers and thunderstorms. The Memphis forecast calls for 1 to 2 inches of rain Tuesday night; the Stuttgart area has lower rain chances overnight.
• Wednesday through Friday: sunny and dry, highs from the mid-60s to mid-70s and lows in the upper 40s, a little cooler than this week.

That's a cooldown, not the kind of hard front that pushes big numbers of mallards south. We'll flag a real push here when the forecasts show one.

7. Season dates coming up

Applying for a draw? Every open window and deadline is on the draw deadline calendar.

When the next official counts should come out

None of the four states has posted a date for its first 2026-27 count. Here's when last season's counts ran, from each agency's own reports:

• TWRA: refuge and WMA counts through the winter; the last one posted was Feb 27, 2026 (TWRA).
• MDWFP: Delta aerial surveys during the season; the last one was Jan 20, 2026 (MDWFP).
• LDWF: aerial surveys during the fall and winter; the September 2026 survey above is the latest (LDWF).
• AGFC: aerial surveys from mid-December through late January; the last one was Jan 23, 2026 (AGFC).

We'll add each one here the week it's posted. The migration map shows every count on a map as soon as we've checked it.

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