Move up the duck opener?

[Musky Buck]

It does make sense, I'll add the young alledged next generation of waterfowlers,I bet they'd like to pull the trigger a bit to. The youth day will teach them get em now before you're 16 or you'll have to wait and put up a decade of zero's like musky buck. I asked a fairly wise man what do you think has happened, he said remember lake X, I said sure, there were 3 cabins on the lake when I hunted it growing up, now there's 300 cabins and every lake in that area has gone just like X. Just a factor of many in deteriorating the waterfowl supply. He also added remember pond X ? I said sure, he added instead of wild rice/duck celery etc. the shore is now covered with cattails and tall reeds, minimal to no food and most of the ponds in the area are as such.

[jparrucci]

Again, you proved my point. When the few birds we do have start leaving in numbers before the season starts, why not move it forward? Granted more habitat would help dramatically, why do so many ducks leave the state before a shot is fired, and why are we not taking advantage of these few ducks we did produce. The habitat was good enough to produce the ducks and keep them here up till a few weeks from opener. (Again, I agree with you 100% on the lack of habitat) I guess maybe I should as why do you want to keep opener where it is, and not split the season?

[RumRiverRat]

(Again, I agree with you 100% on the lack of habitat) I guess maybe I should as why do you want to keep opener where it is, and not split the season?

Where did I say I did not want the season moved? Do not put words in my mouth.

A split season would be fine, as long as it is a 10/50 split. with the break between Oct 1st to the 15th.

Open it Septmeber 20th and close it September 30th.

I hunt the Mississippi River quite a bit, so it is nice when everything is frozen and we can hunt until the end of Nov or the first few days of Dec.

[skee0025]

First week of the season and I was breaking ice on the pond this morning. 2 teal and no woodies seen today. What I did see were buffle heads, red heads and Cans. Move the season up..

[shnelson]

It doesn't feel right shooting ducks while sweating in your waders because its 80+ degrees out.. Seems that mid september is starting to trend this way more and more each year (then followed by a week or two of rain).

With that being said, I'd vote to drop the youth hunt before voting to bring the entire season up. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be teaching the youth to hunt and giving them every opportunity to get a fun chance at it (after all, who is going to carry on after we are all dead?) - but I think this gets the ducks in the 'it's time to leave mode' more than anything..

[kobear]

There are bird around but it is always slim this week it's true. I would support a split from Oct.1 to 15 I would also support more refuges like ND, they have NWR's about every hours drive, some of which are huge Arrowwood, Upper Souris, J Clark, Rock Lake, Tewaukon, Chase Lake, Lostwood, Long Lake, Cottonwood, Hiddenwood, Ardoch, Kelly's Slough, Hobart, Etc.

[skee0025]

Oct 1 - Oct 15 to extreme. Thats half the month, to close to freeze up for alot of the sloughs. Cut it off the tail end.

[chub]

It's plain and simple boys and girls. The MN DNR is not managing our waters for waterfowl. They are being managed for the fishing and tourism industries. A lot more money in that.

Bingo!

As for the few that claim there's lots of birds around,....."just gotta get out and scout", LMAO... if you've been hunting more than a few years you'd realize what a joke waterfowling in this state has become.

You don't know any better.

But.... it what it is, and I think it's highly unlikely it's going to be changed, unless the H1N1 wipes out a substantial part of our population....lol Too many people and too much money involved in other areas besides ducks.

I'll keep going, and keep killing birds no matter what. It just gets a little more irratating with the passing years.

[RumRiverRat]

First week of the season and I was breaking ice on the pond this morning. 2 teal and no woodies seen today. What I did see were buffle heads, red heads and Cans. Move the season up..

Why?

Redheads and Cans are more fun to hunt and shoot.

[dillrodd]

I think one week earlier would be better, the week before the opener there were the most ducks I've seen for a long time between Lowry and Starbuck but it appears most had pulled out by the weekend. I'm however not so sure they went south I think maybe west. We were around the Britton SD area over the weekend for the youth Pheasant hunt We saw tens of thousands of ducks. We saw one flock of mallards working a corn field that easily was 3 thousand ducks. There was not one duck hunter any where to be found. If this was in the area where I live there would have been 50 vehicles surrounding that field. We saw 2 duck hunters all weekend they were from Illinios. With all that water and no hunters a duck would be nuts to fly through MN.

[Bowfin]

I agree 100% with jparrucci! I've been hunting a wild rice bay in central Minnesota for over 25 years. BW Teal and woodies are there in numbers until the rice drops and we get our 1st cold snap. They then exit in a hurry - especially the teal.

This year my kid shot 2 boxes of shells in about 4 hours on youth day. Two weeks later, on opener, the two of us shot a total of 2 boxes of shells in 11 hours over two days. Definately related to the exit of local teal and woodies. I've seen this year after year.

I vote keep youth day in mid-September

Put opening duck a week after youth day instead of two weeks later.

Everyone who wants to start the first week of October still can!

[norwall]

good suggestion , NOT. for yrs everyone complained that Sept was too early ,only to have a warm fall and the ducks migrate through when the season is closed. I can understand you are fraustrated that all the teal n woodies have possibly departed in your neck of the woods but thats the way the ball bounces buddy, Ya take the good wit the bad . Ya Cant have complete success all the time its just how mother nature works. Or maybe i feel this way because Im from southren MN.

[Bowfin]

I can see why folks in the south would like Minnesota to keep the season where it is - more ducks for them! I vote to move it up to the 3rd week of September and keep our present end date. This will result in keeping more ducks in the state (in our freezer)!

Cut em all Jack!

[Bowfin]

Thanks for the edit - lets keep it civil.

[RumRiverRat]

I can see why folks in the south would like Minnesota to keep the season where it is - more ducks for them! I vote to move it up to the 3rd week of September and keep our present end date. This will result in keeping more ducks in the state (in our freezer)!

Cut em all Jack!

You cannot add days to the season, if it starts earlier it closes earlier.

[Gordie]

personally I would like to see it start later in October like the second week end so it could go longer into December. Teal and woodies are great but the late season divers and mallards cant be beat. Iknow that some guys dont like the cold well it doesnt bother me cause you get a warm feeling after blasting some big northern mallards or golden eyes but thats just how I feel.

[norwall]

Split season..hmm ?

[broken_line]

i dont really care... just be happy we are able to be out in the marshes and feilds.. im sure there are a few minnesotans who would be tickled pink to go hunting, but are in another country if you get my drift.

[Quackaddict9]

Norwall makes a point, if it opened early, gets too warm that no ducks are moving and we lose 7 days and then we see a big migration come the week after season close, people will complain.

I like how it is right now, I don't get much time to scout but I have friends that live close to our hunting grounds so it helps a ton. But still get to scout after a mornings hunt for the next day and do fine. I think 50% or more of duck hunters go on water and see nothing then need someone to blame and say they scout, I think people have different ways of scouting.

Leave the way it is.

[alwaysonthemove]

Jees it is hard enough on opener the way it is to tell young drakes from females. 1 week earlier and we are cutting are own throats for the following year.

[goblueM]

yep people need to stop complaining and trying to get their cake and eat it too

[benbosh]

i dont really care... just be happy we are able to be out in the marshes and feilds.. im sure there are a few minnesotans who would be tickled pink to go hunting, but are in another country if you get my drift.

i totally agree with that. everytime you have a complaint/comment/idea about how the hunting seasons are/should be set up, just be lucky you get to go. a kid that went to school with me and is a year older then me and that is my best friends cousin and im friends with him too, left for afghanistan today for the first time. hes an avid hunter and fisherman and hes missing all of the seasons for us

[CANOPY SAM]

I come from the same tribe as Elwood. You can keep your little squeeky Teal, and your smelly Wood ducks. Keep your sweaty weather and mosquitos while setting out dekes.

Growing up we refered to them as "sh_t ducks". Still do! When Teal and Woodies are milling around my decoy spread I just stand up and spook em' off. They're not even worth the cost of the shell to pull the trigger. It's kinda like shootin' really fast Blackbirds or Robins, isn't it?

I grew up in Northern Minnesota and I could care less about early season hunting. I sit up at night waiting for the big northern flights to start moving down from Canada.

When I'm field hunting geese I wanna hear birds honking like ocean-going ore boats coming outta the snowy fog. I wanna let fly three rounds of triple BBB, or T shot into ducks that only [PoorWordUsage] on me and laugh as they fly away. I want mallards with three curly-tails, and scaup as big as bowling balls so when you do dump em' you can feel the earth move when they hit the ground 40 yards away. I wanna open up birds so thick with Canadian grown corn and barley fat that my hands will be water-proof for a month.

When you set out to buy a good hunting dog you don't come home with a Chihuahua or a [PoorWordUsage]zu. You get the big stuff. You get Chese's and Labs with big square heads like butcher's blocks. When you get yourself a hunting vehicle you don't buy the two-wheel drive 76' Pinto hatchback. You get the 88' Chevy Suburban with four-wheel drive and enough interior cubic footage to hold the entire high school football cheerleading squad!

The same thing holds true with hunting. Do you wanna shoot the little pencil-horned, spotted Bambi that just tip-toed into the clearing, or do wanna drop that 12-point bruiser that just exploded thru the willow swamp carrying the blaze orange trousers tangled in it's rack from the last poor hunter who thought he knew how to shoot?

What it all boils down to is Hunting Pressure. Growing up we had pretty liberal bag limits and reasonably long seasons - and significantly less hunting pressure! The birds leisurely filtered out of Canada and thru the prairie pothole region all season long, and we had good gunning from the second weekend in October till the snow got deep. Now the birds hold tight to southern Canada (where there is little, if any, significant pressure to push them) until freeze up. Then they blow thru three or four states in two days with the first big winter Alberta clipper on their tails.

There's still great hunting throughout the entire season, but you definately have to get "on" the birds, and be strategic about where you hunt in relation to the throngs of other gunners out there.

No, I don't think moving, or splitting the seasons would make a whole heck of a lot of difference to the birds. The locals peel out pretty fast once they've been busted off their home ponds a few times. They scatter out and get smart, or they die.

I guess if anything might improve our first couple weeks of waterfowling it might be to simply take our kids hunting on the regular season opening weekend in October, rather than making a special weekend ahead of the regular season. I still can't quite figure out why we need a special youth weekend? The early Canada goose season blows a ton of birds outta state before the regular season as well - including the ducks! News flash...ducks and geese don't LIKE the sound of gunfire!

There's already too many guns going off early season before the migration gets started. Moving the season up would just leave a bigger hole in a state already devoid of birds by the second weekend in October.

[spivak]

I grew up hunting Northern Iowa and still try to make it down for the early teal/duck season. That can be hit and miss as well. Our cool weather in late August pushed many birds out of the state. One of the sites which tracts migration reported teal migrating in to southern states at that time.

[bassislife]

Not only move it up a week, but lets open @ sunrise and shoot till sunset like the Dakotas!!!!!