Passport to Texas

2011 Teal Season Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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[SFX…teal]

Teal season is like Christmas in September for duck hunters.

08—This year the population numbers is going to put the September Teal season at a 16 day season, which will open September the tenth and run through September the 25th.

Dave Morrison, small game program director at parks and wildlife, says the teal population is as high as he has ever seen it and explains how the number of birds determines season length.

21—If it’s below 3.2 million, we have no season. From 3.2 to 4.7, we have a nine day season. Anything over 4.7 is a 16 day season. This year the survey show the blue wing numbers are at 8.9 million. And that’s rivaling mallard numbers which is really unheard of. They’re the second most populous duck this year in our survey—so there’s a lot of blue wings this year.

Despite the surplus of teal, hunters will not see an expansion of the season—ever. Yet, Morrison says hunters may one day see the daily bag limit increase from four to six birds.

19—There’s a lot of people who ask the question, ‘why four during September teal season, and not six like the regular season’? that’s one of the things that we’ve been trying to deal with. There is a group of people right now looking at biological needs and information about blue wings. And hopefully in a year or so we may be able to answer that question, and see if we can go more liberal during that September teal season.

Find hunting information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program supports our series… For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.