The Texas Teal Season is already looking good with bag limits going up. Texas bird hunters might consider need a little more ammo this fall to take advantage of increased bag and possession limits and expanded teal hunting opportunities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has approved for Texas this year an expanded Special White-wing Dove Area (SWWDA), a six bird daily bag during the September teal season and increased possession limits for all migratory game birds.
Also new this year, teal hunters will be able to take up to six teal daily during the statewide September teal season, set to run September 14-29. The higher possession limit will be especially helpful for the thousands of waterfowl hunters who travel for duck hunting trips each year and want to take their birds home with them. For hunters that take week-long trips across the country to harvest waterfowl, this change will make a difference.
The early Canada goose season will also run September 14-29 in the Eastern Goose Zone with a daily bag limit of three Canada geese. Under new rules, the possession limit for all migratory game birds is three times the daily bag.
Blue-winged Teal Fall Season Migration
Source: “Blue-winged teal are generally the first ducks south in the fall and the last north in the spring. They migrate from the Prairie Pothole Region to wintering areas in Florida, the Caribbean Islands, the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, Mexico and Central and South America. Wintering habitats are diverse, including mangrove swamps, fresh and brackish estuaries and shallow wetlands. In the United States, the highest winter densities occur in southern Texas and peninsular Florida. Blue-winged teal are common in winter from Central America, the Caribbean and South America south to Peru and northeastern Brazil. They also stay regularly in small numbers in the Galapagos Islands and are vagrants to Chile, southeastern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.”