Waterfowl Production Areas (WPAs) Explained

If you hunt ducks, pheasants or deer in the northern plains, Waterfowl Production Areas (WPAs) may be the best public land you've never heard of. They're small — the median named WPA in our data is under 200 acres — but there are thousands of them, and they're scattered across some of the most productive wildlife country in North America.

What is a Waterfowl Production Area?

WPAs are federally owned wetlands and surrounding grasslands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through Wetland Management Districts (WMDs). The program dates to 1958, when Congress amended the Duck Stamp Act to let revenue from Federal Duck Stamps buy small wetlands — the Small Wetlands Acquisition Program. Every WPA you walk on was paid for largely by waterfowl hunters.

WPAs are part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, but unlike most refuges, they are generally open to hunting, fishing and trapping in accordance with state regulations, with some federal restrictions.

Where are they?

Most WPAs lie in the Prairie Pothole Region — the glaciated country of the Dakotas, western Minnesota, northeastern Montana and Iowa — where millions of shallow wetlands produce a large share of the continent's ducks. Our database includes 3,251 named WPAs totaling 815K acres. The states with the most:

North Dakota — 1209 WPAs
Minnesota — 967 WPAs
South Dakota — 717 WPAs
Wisconsin — 106 WPAs
Montana — 99 WPAs
Iowa — 86 WPAs
Nebraska — 63 WPAs
Michigan — 4 WPAs

Fee land vs. easements: the most important distinction

The Service protects prairie habitat two ways:

Fee-title WPAs — land the government owns outright. These are the public WPAs listed on this site.
Wetland and grassland easements — permanent agreements on private land that prevent draining, filling or plowing. Easements do not grant public access. You need landowner permission to hunt them, just like any private land.

On refuge maps here, easements appear in a dashed violet outline and are labeled private. Only gold-outlined WPA tracts are public.

Typical WPA rules

Rules are set by each wetland management district, but these are common:

Walk-in access. Motor vehicles are allowed only on designated roads and parking areas.
No camping, fires or overnight use on most tracts.
Temporary blinds and portable stands usually must be removed at the end of each day.
Nontoxic shot is required for waterfowl everywhere; many districts require it for all shotgun hunting on WPAs.
Boundary signs mark most tracts. Adjacent land is almost always private.

How to hunt WPAs effectively

Scout on satellite imagery. Look for wetlands holding water this year, cattail edges, and grass cover next to crop fields. Each WPA page opens in satellite view.
Think small and many. Pressure concentrates on tracts next to highways. The 60-acre WPA a mile down a gravel road often holds more birds.
Plan a loop. Use the "Nearby WPAs" table on each page to string together several tracts in one day, and download the county KML/GPX for your GPS.
Mind the calendar. Early teal and goose seasons in September, opening-weekend ducks in October and late-season pheasants in December all play out differently on WPAs.

Start with the WPA directory, or the map with WPAs switched on.