Northwest High Plains Duck Migration Forecast

Where Northwest High Plains is

Northwest High Plains is drawn from 14 counties in Kansas: Cheyenne, Decatur, Ellis, Gove, Graham, Logan, Ness, Norton, Rawlins, Sheridan, Sherman, Thomas, Trego and Wallace. Those are the counties its shape on the DuckCast map is built from, so a hunter in any of them reads this region’s score.

When Northwest High Plains peaks

DuckCast’s season model puts the pintail peak here around late October. The timing follows the statewide curve; what differs here is how many birds the model expects, below. That is a modelled typical curve, not a prediction for any single year. The actual push depends on cold fronts and freeze-up upstream, which is what the daily score tracks. Always confirm season dates with the state wildlife agency, linked below.

Which birds the model expects in Northwest High Plains

In DuckCast’s season model, the species that can score highest in Northwest High Plains are snow geese, pintails and blue-winged teal. Against the state as a whole, it expects fewer mallards in Northwest High Plains.

Those weights come from harvest records, survey counts and the kind of water, not from a count taken here each season. They cap how high each species’ score can climb; the weather still has to bring the birds.

What DuckCast watches upstream of Northwest High Plains

2 upstream stations feed this region's freeze line, nearest first: McCook, NE, about 60 miles north and Ogallala, NE, about 140 miles northwest. When those stations ice over, the score here starts climbing before anything changes in the local sky.

Radar over Northwest High Plains

Each morning DuckCast reads the night’s NEXRAD data from KDDC, the National Weather Service radar at Dodge City, about 110 miles south of the region’s weather point. That is well outside the region, so treat the radar reading as area context rather than a measurement of this ground. Radar sees every bird in the air, not only ducks, so it confirms or questions the score rather than moving it.

Locations stay generalized

Hunter reports for Northwest High Plains are always shown at the region level. DuckCast never collects or displays exact coordinates, so filing a report here never burns a spot.