IDAHO – If you haven’t pulled your decoys and waders out of storage yet, you’re almost out of time: Waterfowl season in Southwest Idaho kicks off this Sunday, Oct. 19.

In addition to charging your flapper batteries, tuning your calls, and untangling decoy weights before you head out, you should also be sure to review the Idaho Migratory Game Bird 2025-2026 Seasons & Rules Brochure, where you will find a few notable changes compared to last season:

• Limit change for pintail: An interim adaptive harvest strategy has been implemented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on an experimental basis, starting this year. What that means for Idaho hunters this season is simple: the daily bag limit is now three (3) pintails of either sex.
• A split season for light geese in Southwest Idaho: The first split opens with ducks and Canada geese on Oct. 19 and runs through Dec. 24. The second split starts on Feb. 1 and runs through March 10. Fish and Game surveyed goose hunters in 2024 to learn their preferences, which resulted in new hunt areas and season dates across the state.

Another significant change for Southwest Idaho hunters that you won’t find in the regulations (but will see signed on location): Access to the Fort Boise Wildlife Management Area is now open only from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. The same rule also applies at the nearby Roswell Marsh Wildlife Habitat Area. Access outside those hours is prohibited.

Waterfowl hunters can still use parking areas at Fort Boise and Roswell before 5 a.m., and hunters or anglers launching boats from the Fort Boise WMA boat ramp are exempt from the new user hour restrictions. You can read more about the change and why it was necessary here.

With the season opening on a Sunday this year, hunters are reminded that the portion of the Roswell Marsh Wildlife Habitat Area south of Highway 18 can only be hunted on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays – meaning it isn’t an option on opening day.

What can hunters expect for the 2025-2026 waterfowl season?

First, the big picture: Idaho Fish and Game biologists can generally provide an informed outlook for upland game bird and big game hunters at a regional level, but it’s harder to get a bead (see what we did there?) on how things might go for local waterfowl hunters before the season. In some cases, the migrations of ducks and geese span continents, and countless variables come into play as they travel between northern breeding habitats and southern wintering grounds.

With that said, Idaho waterfowl hunters can look to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s annual Waterfowl Population Status Report to get an idea of the potential for the 2025-2026 season, paying particular attention to the habitat conditions and population numbers in Alberta, where a good portion of the migrating dabbling ducks that are harvested in Idaho originate. However, local waterfowl abundance (and harvest) is generally dependent upon weather patterns and the timing of the fall and winter migrations.

One thing Idaho waterfowl hunters will certainly have an abundance of is opportunity. Idaho provides the maximum number of huntable days allowed under the federal regulatory framework for migratory bird seasons and routinely surveys hunters to ensure that season dates align with hunter preferences.

Southwest Idaho also offers plentiful public access for waterfowl hunters. That includes four Fish and Game Wildlife Management Areas with notable waterfowl hunting opportunities, dozens of Fish and Game boating access sites on the Snake, Boise and Payette rivers, and the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge that is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

What about the opener?

If history is any indication, the picture is a little clearer for the opener (and the first couple weeks of the season). Waterfowl hunting can be quite good in Southwest Idaho before the local birds begin to change their habitat use patterns or migrate out of the area.

“We have some substantial waterfowl production that occurs in the Southwest Region, including on several of our Wildlife Management Areas, which generally provides good early-season hunting,” said Regional Wildlife Manager Ryan Walrath.

Local wildlife habitat biologists who manage the Southwest Region’s WMAs reported high participation in the youth and veteran’s waterfowl weekend a couple of weeks ago, and good success for the hunters who participated, which points to a promising opener for the rest of the region’s waterfowl hunters on Oct. 19.