Waterfowl Reports

[gurkster]

Seeing good numbers around me, but I did see more birds over the 9/24-25 weekend than the 10/1 - 2 weekend.

[JimBuck]

We had a pretty good mixed bag on Saturday. 1 goose, 3 woodie, 1 redhead, 2 pintails, 1 ringbill and a few BWT. Lot's of birds flying all morning including a big flock of Snows that wanted nothing to do with us. Beautiful weekend but I'm ready for some colder weather to move in.

[Brocster]

Hunted south of the metro on public land. Hiked back a ways to get away from the expected crowds to a back woods pond I found/scouted a while back. Hunted both days, Saturday and Sunday.

Had one group around a bend to the right 150 yards away one day, another group 200 yards around a bend to the left on Sunday. Both days tons of Woody action and limited out both days on Woodies. Got two Mallards on Saturday. Other than the two Mallards, all we saw were Woodies. But plenty of them.

Saturday, the other group and our group did not screw each other up and all were pretty good about Sky Bustin'. Yesterday, I bet the two guys who set up to the left of us went through 120 + shells. Even had pellets come splashing by us pretty good once, and to do that they had to be shooting almost right at us through some woods and brush. They knew we were there.

Funny thing is was that we could really see birds coming in and out of the general area, and we often didn't see anything coming or going from where they shot. We figured they must have been gunning at anything that was flying in their general area.

It was annoying, but comes with the territory. The BEST part was when we got two woodies down that were flying so fast their trajectory carried them 80-100 yards away to a spot in their line of sight. First one fell on the other side of a point, and the dog goes on a blind retrieve, works the area and brings back a nice drake. The other bird was wounded, unfortunatley, but the dog goes back out across the pond, into the woods we guessed about 60-75 yards, you hear some commotion and soon pops back out with the other Woody.

Smiled long on that one! It's my dog's first year duck hunting and it looks like I have a winner.

Safe hunting everyone.

Broc

[Jaspernuts]

Lots of dumb geese in Mankato area. Me and my neighbor got our limit by 9:30 and 4 ducks to boot. Woodies and teal. I have never had geese lock so fast on the dekes. Needed one more to limit and had 7 come in. Wish those came sooner. My 9 month lab old got all the ducks and her first goose today and its only the 2nd hunt of her life. Very happy with her.

[MinnetonkaMan]

Killed two woodducks this morning on public. Should of had my limit of woodies and teal but most swung around from a corner that I could not see from where I was standing and they were moving at full speed. Shooting was horrible also!!! Have a landowner that has property right up to a public waterfowl lake and we have padded the path down and this morning when we checked their was around two hundred greenheads out there with a bunch of Woodies and teal and a few redheads but if they don't fly by us there is not enough water for us to move to different spots and the mud is incredible.

[Musky Buck]

Steve Cordts, what was the quote in the star and trib, record numbers of ducks in the state ah ah well ah really ? Compared to when ? I heard little to zero shooting and we saw maybe a dozen ducks. In 1983 through the mid 90's maybe, we'd see hundreds and hundreds of ducks so record numbers I'm very confused by hearing that. We see about 90 geese per duck in our area(s). I live in 3 counties in a way and no one I'm talking to are seeing any, maybe this warm weather messed em up but read the sunday sports/outdoors and clarify what record numbers meant ?

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Steve Cordts, what was the quote in the star and trib, record numbers of ducks in the state ah ah well ah really ? Compared to when ? I heard little to zero shooting and we saw maybe a dozen ducks. In 1983 through the mid 90's maybe, we'd see hundreds and hundreds of ducks so record numbers I'm very confused by hearing that. We see about 90 geese per duck in our area(s). I live in 3 counties in a way and no one I'm talking to are seeing any, maybe this warm weather messed em up but read the sunday sports/outdoors and clarify what record numbers meant ?

http://news.dnr.state.mn.us/2011/07/29/d...lent/#more-6129

http://blogs.twincities.com/outdoors/files/2011/09/Sept.-29-2011-MN-WF-Mig-Report.pdf

The weather has played a big part in where the ducks are or aren't right now. The state had big numbers of blue wing teal and woodies up until before the opener. How many NW winds have we had to blow the early calendar birds out? Then we get strings of 80 degree days where nothing seems to move around much. I was in west central MN this past weekend hunting and heard plenty of shooting, and had piles of birds roosting in the property I was hunting. Sometimes, regardless of numbers, its still all about the location during the early part of the season. There was honestly more ducks on that property in MN than my favorite spots in SD are holding right now.

[Musky Buck]

Interesting I also was in west central MN, more central than west though and heard barely any shooting but like you said location, maybe the best waters are holding the majority of the ducks and maybe that's what has changed over the last 15 years. We had 0 hit our 14 wood duck houses again this year and our classic blue wing teal pond had 3 in it most of the summer. Those woody boxes used to be at capacity every year, we maintain and clean them, but talking to bow hunters they aren't seeing them or hearing them whistle by like the good old days. What is the deal, all these farms I can choose from and there's nothing there hardly ever, years back it was absolutely just nuts. I'm asking every waterfowler I come in contact with and they just give ya the what ducks at least there's geese around, most would quit buying stamps if there were no geese around like the 70's to mid 80's. Going to float a 10 mile stretch of river this wkd where we made hay for many years, will report back.

[tracker x-2]

Was out this morning at got a limit of geese in a T shirt . Luckly the only flock that came in. They must have liked my calling cuz they came into my landing zone like i had a string around their neck.

I'm gunna try a new field tmrw I'll check back in when get in.

[Gordie]

I got 2bwt 1 Drake woodie and a goose. Not much flying but I did see some birds

[Finlander]

Hunted north of Ortinville last weekend. Not very may ducks or geese. Ended up with three geese 15 ducks for 5 hunters. Last year on the opener we got 48 in two days for 4 hunters! Every year is different for sure!

[tracker x-2]

My brother an I were out in a bean field and got our birds(geese) by 8:15. I was very suprised to see so many flying in this wind today. Probably 10-15 flocks. Only seen one duck as we were picking up. Tmrw sounds fun with cooler temps and rain!

[Musky Buck]

I scouted Monday-Friday at the farm I live at with a nice river that runs through it, beans are combined, corn chopped/ not quite combining yet, ponds, etc. My 9 year old and I saw a total of zero ducks and surprisingly no geese. So where should we set up the dekes ? jk, we also drove around about half a dozen sections and we saw nothing, maybe they walk and don't fly anymore, rather than drive a few hours away, I think we'll sleep in . My cousins duck report from scouting for the week 4 counties away is similar, he saw geese around some, but no ducks. Heck that's the same story from the last decade, my assumption was as many ponds became dry, with less places to sit, we'd at least have a few around, maybe early AM they fly ? But, we're up then to and haven't seen a duck since august. Pheasants beware, we have itchy trigger fingers.

[Finlander]

We were just north of Ortnville last weekend and didn't see one pheasent. We could hear one in the distance when we were duck hunting and we drove around alot looking for more places to hunt saturday afternoon. I think last winter really took it's toll on the pheasents!

[Musky Buck]

Agreed Finlander, in my area not a known pheasant hotspot but the DNR map has it listed as very populated accordingly, we're seeing very very few, the thought was once the beans came out but boy it looks really bleak, hopefully not but within the month we'll know for sure. Ducks if you shot every bird in the county you'd be 3 short of a limit and no I'm not near ortonville.

[MinnetonkaMan]

Got the new dog on some birds today. Shot three ducks which included a drake Woodie and a hen Woodie and a drake mallard. Saw tons of birds but came from the big water this morning which was totally opposite of the previous morning scouting. Lots of birds in area. Saw over a hundred wooducks which all made us look stupid flying ten feet off the water on public and pulling up before we saw them. Also three large flocks of over a hundred mallards . Teal also present but a ton of ducks are feeding and roosting on the same large wma and never fly around. We are not able to throw dekes out because mud is out thirty feet around whole lake with no boat access. We are getting on from private land that we have permission to cross to get down to the wma. Hoping that some other diehards get out tomorrow and work that mud to push birds around a little more. Good luck and keep scouting because birds are still around!!!.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Got the new dog on some birds today. Shot three ducks which included a drake Woodie and a hen Woodie and a drake mallard. Saw tons of birds but came from the big water this morning which was totally opposite of the previous morning scouting. Lots of birds in area. Saw over a hundred wooducks which all made us look stupid flying ten feet off the water on public and pulling up before we saw them. Also three large flocks of over a hundred mallards . Teal also present but a ton of ducks are feeding and roosting on the same large wma and never fly around. We are not able to throw dekes out because mud is out thirty feet around whole lake with no boat access. We are getting on from private land that we have permission to cross to get down to the wma. Hoping that some other diehards get out tomorrow and work that mud to push birds around a little more. Good luck and keep scouting because birds are still around!!!.

any chance you could set honker shells and fullbodies on the mud? you would probably draw more ducks in rather than having to try to pass shoot. If I get done with my projects early this afternoon we are hunting a mud flat this evening...then geese in the corn tomorrow!

[icecold]

another great morning of hunting, My 12 year old and myself had 6 woodies and 2 mallards by 7;45 ,wooducks by the hundreds and a lot of teal only saw about 20 mallards

[Mr.Outdoors]

Slow morning for us. We saw 40 or so geese and a handful of ducks. Nothing wanted to commit or even come into range. Tomorrow off to a different lake and try that.

[canman]

shot my woodies in short order...not seeing much else

[carpshooterdeluxe]

8 geese and 2 mallards in the silage this morning...had to burn a few flocks of geese trying to figure out where to put the blinds with no wind, most of the mallards worked just out of range over a puddle in the field, and whey the did get into range we shot poorly. Great morning in the rain though!

[crawler harness]

shot 16 for 3 guys today on an area lake. 15 bl wingers and 1 mallard.

[Cheetah]

I went to my usual spot this morning. Lots of wood ducks flying around, most ignored me as usual. A few pairs of mallards, again ignoring me. I did get three woodies to land outside of my spread at about 40yd, I didn't shoot. Had one other commit and I didn't see it until it went crazy over my head. I shot once, those nearly straight-up shots are bad news, I have missed three shots in a row this past week all doing the same darn thing.

I picked up a couple of those Edge Quiver Magnets on sale since they were old stock and tried them out. I used about a 12" lead of 20lb mono and looped it over a decoy's head so it would stay near the decoy. With freshly charged batteries it generated about enough rippling to look like what the live ducks were doing when they sit out in the middle of the lake laughing at me. The problem though with looping around the decoy head is the quivering forces the decoy to move backwards, which isn't exactly what I wanted. Next time I will attach to the decoy's butt so that it hopefully pushes the decoy forward, maybe I can get the decoy to swim around. That would be pretty slick.

[RuddyDuck]

Ended up doing pretty good this weekend on the little lake west of town. Got 3 greenheads and 2 Bw teal yesterday. So much for the warm weather being a killer. I was pretty much thinking if I only saw a duck or two I would be lucky! It was windy, so that always seems to help.

Today my daughter and I made it out and ended up with 7 Bw teal. She had a good time. Not as many bigs ducks today, but the teal were moving thru at least.

Did start to see some divers this weekend, cans and ringecks.

[hunter322]

thats a pretty good idea josh. im going to have to find mine and give it a try! didnt go out this morning but my bro was out bow hunting and he said the ducks were like crazy yesterday and this morning. he also said the ducks arnt really around in the eve only geese.