Hill Country and Edwards Duck Migration Forecast

Where Hill Country and Edwards is

Hill Country and Edwards is drawn from 49 counties in Texas: Bandera, Bexar, Blanco, Brewster, Brown, Burnet, Coke, Coleman, Comal, Comanche, Concho, Crane, Crockett, Ector, Edwards, Gillespie, Glasscock, Hays, Irion, Jeff Davis, Kendall, Kerr, Kimble, Kinney, Lampasas, Llano, Mason, McCulloch, Medina, Menard, Midland, Mills, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Real, Reeves, Runnels, San Saba, Schleicher, Sterling, Sutton, Terrell, Tom Green, Upton, Uvalde, Val Verde, Ward and Zavala. 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 Hill Country and Edwards peaks

DuckCast’s season model puts the pintail peak here around mid January. 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 Hill Country and Edwards

In DuckCast’s season model, the species that can score highest in Hill Country and Edwards are green-winged teal, blue-winged teal and gadwall. Against the state as a whole, it expects fewer mallards in Hill Country and Edwards.

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 Hill Country and Edwards

3 upstream stations feed this region's freeze line, nearest first: Altus, OK, about 280 miles north, Ardmore, OK, about 285 miles northeast and Lawton, OK, about 285 miles north. When those stations ice over, the score here starts climbing before anything changes in the local sky.

Radar over Hill Country and Edwards

Each morning DuckCast reads the night’s NEXRAD data from KEWX, the National Weather Service radar at Austin/San Antonio, about 110 miles southeast 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 Hill Country and Edwards are always shown at the region level. DuckCast never collects or displays exact coordinates, so filing a report here never burns a spot.