Waterfowl Reports

[Lunker]

I guess I will do the honor of starting the annual thread, even if the MN hunters can't contribute for another week

Hunted the WI opener today. My original central WI plans fell through so I ended up doing some last minute scouting yesterday close to home. Wound up on a WI river backwater in northern WI.

It was a very weird day. Saw 2 woodies from about 9-11:45 and that was it. Just before noon when I was going to pick up it got really crazy. A huge flock of mallards got broken up by another hunting party and all of a sudden there were groups all over the place working. About this time good numbers of woodies and a few ringers showed up as well. Should have probably done more shooting but was fun to watch. Wound up with 3 mallards down(1 lost, ran into the woods while I was reloading). While I was attempting to recover the cripple, birds continued to work my decoys and had about 12 woodies land in my spread...It was an action packed 20 minutes or so in an otherwise slow day.

Saw quite a few other hunters out. Not a ton of shooting but a fair amount. Gonna try again in the morning.

River was really high. A lot of flooded vegetation. Birds were staying off the main bays and sticking to smaller backwaters.

[creepworm]

Went out in South Dakota for a couple of hours on Saturday morning. Could not get to the spot I originally wanted to hunt due to the flooding. Hunted some public land and got 3 Gadwal and 1 Goose. Saw a ton of birds.

[Beast26]

Sounds like there is plenty of birds out in the Dakotas. A co-workers was out scouting a week ago and said he saw a ton. I was looking at the "marsh cam" where we are headed on Wednesday and there is a ton of birds just north of Winnipeg. Check this out

http://www.oakhammockmarsh.ca/nature/live-video/index.html

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Sodak Opener: WATER EVERYWHERE. the area i wanted to hunt was impossible to get to from any direction due to water over the roads. didn't have plat books for the 2 counties i found good fields in so i sat around all weekend watching football.

[Lunker]

Terrible morning this morning. Missed a couple pass shots and that was about it. Saw a few birds but not very many.

[TylerS]

For all the birds I saw during early goose season, I can't begin to wonder where they are now.

Went to our usual resident opening spot in North Dakota and didn't see half of what we usually see. By Sunday, there were even less. I'm going to hit it hard this weekend and see where they all went. I was literally covered in ducks in August, but now they're nowhere to be found. I think all the water really has them spread out.

So in conclusion: yes, you will find ducks in Nodak, but be prepared to log some hours behind the wheel!

Oh yeah, and good luck to all you non-residents this weekend!

[Maxxed Out]

It's the same in MN I was seeing piles of ducks up to about a week ago and they seem to have left or are spread out by all the water we got last week. Gonna be warm and sunny up to opener maybe that will dry up the fields and push the birds back to the big water. If not it will be a lackluster opener in western MN

[tweedlap]

Hello, we had a brief cool down a couple of weeks ago and a Youth

Hunting Day.

A few teal and woodies left around here but not many.

tweed

[Gordie]

Tweed I was down your way today and saw tons of ducks most in flooded fields east of you and a bunch off of the over flow on the Minnsota river. I was really suprised to see that many ducks most of them in the fields were mallys.

[CANOPY SAM]

As I was cleaning the garden yesterday evening I watched several large flights of Honkers lined up in V's, flying pretty darn high in a beeline south. If I didn't know any better, I'd say some of these birds are migrating already.

Could we be in for an early freeze up?

[TylerS]

As I was cleaning the garden yesterday evening I watched several large flights of Honkers lined up in V's, flying pretty darn high in a beeline south. If I didn't know any better, I'd say some of these birds are migrating already.

Could we be in for an early freeze up?

Funny you say that. I was talking to a friend last night, and he goes "you know, they are forecasting a nice fall, but those hairs sticking up on the back of my neck tell me we're going to get two feet of snow by mid-October."

I hope he's right!!!

[Lunker]

I was noticing the same thing from my deer stand yesterday evening.

[CANOPY SAM]

Scouting report: NW MN: 09/30/10 - this morning the fields that held thousands of geese last week are now empty. There are still decent numbers of birds around, very few ducks from what I've noted, but the remaining geese are scattered out. The weather is beautiful, and the fields are still pretty sloppy from last weeks rain, so if you're coming up I'd plan to bring insect repellent. With weather so cooperative, and such an abundance of food available, it's going to be a tricky opener up here. Even fields with decent numbers of birds have them scattered out over much of the field - no real concentrations of birds. I'm pretty sure we've seen some birds moving south already.

[deerwoody]

Definetly some birds on the move already.Been watching pods of birds on the river and rice around here for a couple months with comparable numbers as last year.Leech is loaded as usual along with several remote local spots.Keep the barrel warm and the dog wet!!

[fishuhalik]

beast, i love that camera! i find myself watching it more and more every year, just wanting to get back up there. it's been 5 years now and it's driving me crazy

[Shoot2Kill]

Worst opener I've had since moving here 5 years ago. We had 3 mallards buzz our slough and that was it. On the way out I ran into the landowner that asked me if I had seen all the ducks funneling into the corn field to the south of his property line on the other side of his timber....uh no, so off I went to get permission from that landowner who has let me bowhunt in years past so I thought it would be a lock...denied. Since it rained heavy 10 days ago he has a low spot in the middle of his field that has about 2 feet of water in it and in his estimate there are a couple hundred mallards on it. Aaaagh. Denied because his son bowhunts the adjacent timber. Frustrated.

Hopefully sunrise tomorrow will be better.

[buckx37x]

The slough we hunt we had no luck on,really about as slow as I remember.We then went and jumped four little ponds including some flooded corn, finally on the last pond woodies. We came out of it with four all drakes hopefully sunday a.m. will show some better results.

[walleyehunter80]

3 guys 4 doz. decoys 1 slough and 18 ducks in 1.5 hours flat, and we were picky for our last 10 birds( 9 mallards, 2 pintails, 4 blue winged teal, 1 green winged teal, 1 gadwall, 1 spooner) of all 9 were drakes not sure on the B.W.T!? Lots of ducks around!!!!

[FLnick87]

pretty slow morning...ended up w/ 2 ducks and a goose. highlight was seein my 6 month lab try to retrieve the goose...she tried the foot, the wing, the neck and still couldnt get it off the ground. she did do a good job on the duck tho, defanitly got excited and wanted more birds!

[Markit]

Was a slow start until we started jumping ponds. Ended up with 1 goose, 4 teal, 1 shoveler, 1 widgen, and 13 woodies. Great day to be outdoors.

[morefishplease]

Slow, not many local ducks around. Talked to friends that were hunting other lakes in the county and the same results for them.

[Todd Caswell]

First time in a few years Iv'e hunted the MN opener, should have had a limit of woodys and Mallards but.......... Nice morning to be out and accually seen enough birds to make it interesting.

[Stringerless!]

Hunted Carlos Avery both days. Saturday saw a fair amount of birds. All before the wonderful 9:00 start of course. Never fired a shot ! Were pretty pumped up about this morning but when the shooting started ( a FULL 13 minutes early !) Nothing survived. It was a non-stop firework grand finale that did not die down till 3 minutes after legal time. We never saw a duck. For the first time I left my calls home ! If you wanted to hear pathetic calling you should have heard us trying to call ducks and geese by mouth ! Finally got a shot at a Suzie and we got her. Missed 2 teal. That is all the oppurtunities we had. What is with the new stealth mode these hunters have now ? They do not turn on a light and stay quiet so u don't know they are there. Light comes and we were surrounded. Bad scene ! If you are gonna be close enough to hunt my spread at least flash a light so I can move !!!!

[certified jumbo]

Solid pics Todd, sweet

[strait-meat]

hunted out west. 3 guys 17 birds the first day. 6 mallards, 1 redhead, 3 bluebills, 5 gwt 2 bwt. and missed a decent number also.

the next day 2 guys same spot and shot 3 bwt and 1 can

wasn't really that great even on the first day.

In our area, it started about 15 mins before legal shooting hours on both days.