Missouri Duck Season 2026-27: Zones, Dates, and Timing

Missouri hunts three duck zones on three schedules. The North Zone runs October 31 through December 29, 2026, continuously. The Middle Zone runs November 7 through December 13, 2026, then December 19, 2026 through January 10, 2027, with a five-day closure in between. The South Zone runs a short Thanksgiving segment November 26-29, 2026, then December 7, 2026 through January 31, 2027. September teal season is September 12-20, 2026. Goose seasons are statewide rather than zoned: Canada geese and brant run October 3-10, 2026 and again November 11, 2026 through February 6, 2027, while white-fronted, snow, blue and Ross's geese run November 11, 2026 through February 6, 2027.

Missouri splits into a North, Middle and South Zone, each with its own duck season dates. The North Zone line runs across the northern third of the state near Lock and Dam 25, Missouri Highway 79 and Interstate 70; the South Zone line runs across the southeast near Missouri Highway 74, US Highway 65 and US Highway 54; and the Middle Zone is everything between the two. The boundaries are legal descriptions rather than approximations, so confirm your county against the Missouri Department of Conservation's own zone map before you hunt.

Because the state spans about seven weeks of migration timing. The DuckCast season curves put the mallard peak around November 21 in northwest Missouri and around December 21 in the Bootheel, some 250 miles south. A single statewide season would either close in the north while birds were still arriving in the south, or open in the south weeks before they got there. The three-zone structure lets each part of the state hunt its own migration, and the current zone formulas are adopted for the 2026 through 2030 federal cycle.

It depends on your county, and the honest answer is to check the Missouri Department of Conservation's zone map rather than trust a summary. As a rough orientation: the northern third of the state above the Highway 79 and Interstate 70 corridors is the North Zone, the southeast corner below the Highway 74 and Highway 60 corridors is the South Zone, and the large middle band including the Missouri River Valley and the Confluence is the Middle Zone. Because the boundaries follow specific highways and river landmarks, counties near a line can be split, which is exactly where a summary will fail you.

It depends where you are standing, which is the whole point of the zone structure. The DuckCast per-region curves put the peak around November 21 in the northwest and north, around December 6 through the Missouri River Valley and the Confluence, and around December 21 in the Mingo Basin and the Bootheel, where good conditions hold into early February. Missouri is unusual in being both a staging state and a wintering state at once, so a hunter in Maryville and a hunter in Kennett are effectively hunting different seasons.

September 12-20, 2026, a nine-day season with a daily limit of six teal and 18 in possession. Shooting hours begin at sunrise rather than a half hour before, because only blue-winged, green-winged and cinnamon teal are legal and lookalikes like shovelers, pintails and wood ducks are hard to separate in low light. The nine-day length reflects a blue-winged teal breeding population below the federal 4.7 million threshold that would allow 16 days.