Waterfowl Reports

[fishuhalik]

Hey feathers, tried calling ya and left a message but never heard back. Whatd you Find? I'll be there opener, along with my dad, a buddy and his nefew. My dads heading over there on Thursday to do some more scouting. I'll let ya know what he finds out.

[Scott M]

Had a great opening day (Hutchinson area), a couple birds shy of filled out, half mallards, half teal. Could have had more teal but I think the rest of the group was holding out for the wood ducks that never came.

My dog found everything, so she's in mid-season form. It was great to get out and have the trigger squeeze adrenaline, blow the calls, and bag some birds. I have a great group to hunt with, never a dull moment.

Hope everybody had a great opening day.

[walleyeking19]

Saw lots of ducks today. Got to shoot too so it was a good day. There was tons of shooting going on all around us. The first shot of the year was about 20 minutes before legal shooting light, I couldnt even see all my decoys! But all in all, it was a good opener!

[K_Josh87]

bagged birds wise, worst opener in years... But, the birds where where we where, but the lake was dried up really bad, in fact walked shore line to spot and set up layout blinds... Birds where consistantly swinging about 40-50 yds out, which was consistant to keeping just inside the water line, so we where not presented much for great shots. But, the 15 mins before shooting we probably had 1500+ birds circling... Unt was short, once they where banged at for a while they left... about a half hour of good duck moment then they left. The group that got there at 3am, and beat us by 5 where in a much better location to play the wind, and appeared to be getting a few birds...

So, Good show, semi miserable conditions, a lot of ducks, And found out army surplus snow shoes make good mud walkers!!!

Good luck out there!

[grey ghost]

South Central MN hunt this weekend was very good for both birds flying and birds in the bag. Both days our group of 3 were a couple shy of our limit and with better shooting it would have been limits both days. Everyone knows how that goes...great opening weekend on the water.

[icecold]

Hunted southern mn river valley, very poor hunting, everthing dryed up, between 4 of us on Sat we had 1 mallard, today 3 of us had 1 woodie no ducks to be seen

[dan z]

Best opening day in a long long time! Filled with 9 bwt , 2 mallards, nd a pintail

Add a goose too....

[Maxxed Out]

My watefowl report. There are a lot of ducks. Get out and enjoy this fall!

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Easy opener. 4 guys, 24 ducks. Sick kid today so our trip was cut short.

[Farley]

A buddy and I hunted both mornings with good sucess. Saturday filled out in 25 minutes, 8 mallards GWT BWT Shovler one Goose. Sunday we sat in a little woodie hole and got 6 drakes. The best opening weekend I've ever had and might possibly be the best I'll ever have.

[Shane Z]

had a great opener weeekend. Only shot 7 birds Saturday but it was a great mixed bag. 2 drake mallards, hen mallard, drake woodie, hen woodie, drake wigeon, and a golden eye!! Sunday morning we shot a drake and hen woodie,2 teal and 5 geese...one of which was banded

[slabchaser]

Southern mn river valley. Tons of woodies around. Fast and really close. Sat-2 limits of woodies, several really pretty drakes. Added a hen mallard and merganser. Sun-2 more limits of woodies along with a couple of drake green wings. Best opener in years. 18month old lab did all the work on Sunday and found everything. Hope the success continues.

[TylerS]

Pretty dry up in Nodak. Something to think about for anyone planning a trip out here...

[fishuhalik]

Man it's good to see all these good reports. Last year was pretty rough. Hopefully we can hold a few til I'm able to get out on Thursday

[Jaspernuts]

Mankato Area - Got a limit on Saturday and me and the neighbor got 7 on Sunday. Mostly teal with some mallarda and few woodies. The area we had been hunting for early goose was holding hundreds of woodies, but they were for the most part gone with that darn front. If you want a good show, check out the back side of eagle. Hundreds if not thousands of birds there today. Too bad its too low to access because my buddy hunted the north side and only got a couple.

[certified jumbo]

Very good wkd hunt. Our best ever. We shot 20 ducks total. 12 woodies, 5 blue wing teal and 3 mallards. Shot most of them jump shooting. Lots of shooting in the area, so i'm assuming others faired well.

[HugoBox]

Took my daughter out for her first hunt! Only four geese but a fun day. Best part was the pix of her that made it into the Pioneer Press.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_21609335?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com

[311Hemi]

Hunted up in north central MN. Worst opener in years for me, possibly the worst ever. Not many ducks around, and reports for others on the same lake and another lake near by were that most were coming off the water with 1-2 ducks. I only had 1 or 2 ducks that even flew over the decoys, none in the decoys. Only fired 4 shots on Saturday, with the 3 other groups on the same area shooting very similar. Just did not have many ducks around. A old-timer that has hunted this body of water every year for the last who knows how many years said it was thw worst he has seen.

Plenty of water up north.

I have to believe it was a combination of woodies/teal being pushed south already, not a ton of local ducks around, and not many northern ducks being pushed south yet.

Anyone else hunt up north this weekend?

[CANOPY SAM]

Plenty of water up north = north central MN. Here in Northwestern MN we're dry as a bone. Even our major drainage ditches are dry!

Few big flocks of geese around. Seeing some nice bunches of woodies and teal winging up and down the river each morning.

Pretty quiet yet. Highly doubt anything has started moving out of Canada yet, and long term forecasts indicate pretty warm weather for several more weeks.

[Musky Buck]

Nothing doing this year, so far, never saw a duck and never heard a shot, east central MN must be awfully bad to not hear a shot someplace, but I did locate the first flock of Lesser Canada birds last night in the area, hoping they'll hang in there until Saturday. Friends did very well in western OT. county.

[Gordie]

I won't say it was the worst or the best opener ever as we saw alot of birds in the winni area we just were not on the X and could not get the ducks to decoy this year.

We also had snow on Friday night up this way.

Success isn't always numbers for us as we had a great time the kids learned alot and paitence was one of them. This will help for them when it comes to the deer stand too.

[HNTNBUX]

I hunted near Deer River this weekend. Saturday we limited out with woodducks, mallards, green wing teal and one ring neck. Sunday we had one wood duck come into the dekes at sunrise and then nothing else. After three hours I went and jumped a pothole where I saw a few ducks land and got three blue wings. My partner guarded the decoys with no ducks seen.

Tuesday Central MN was pretty sad. Not much flying but nothing got away that was in range. Ended up with five ring necks, a gadwall and one goose for five and a half hours. Very few teal around in the two places I hunted. Sure makes it hard to get up or more accurately stay up after work, hunt, sleep two hours and repeat. If I didn't love it so much I would stay home and sleep.

[booger]

Hunted @ the sanctuary (through MWA drawing) Saturday on Carlos Avery and it was nuts. Birds absolutely everywhere. My semi auto became a 1 shot and we must have shot 10 birds with 2 other guys. All woodies and teal. Best water hunt I've ever been on.

Hunted the North metro Monday and Tuesday. Monday I got there late forgot the decoys and then my gun so I hunted from the launch w/ 3 decoys. Local teal and woodies all over the place but none of them flying all just swimming. Coulda shot my limit on the water. Tuesday different spot in the North metro and shot a woody and 2 teal.

I'm thinking for the most part these were local birds. Geese are starting to arrive, hardly any mallards. Lake levels are low, but the bigger waters haven't dried up. Great hunting so far.

[RumRiverRat]

Lots of BWT and Woodducks shot on Lake Geneva north of Albert Lea.

Water is really low.

Heard a report of a group of 6 guys that split up into pairs.

They shot 72 ducks in 2 days.

34 wood ducks, 30 BWT and 8 Mallards made up their bag.

[rbs]

Went out this morning pass shooting on the MN river. Only saw about 30 woddies, got one...should have had my limit tho. Saturday Morning we must have seen a couple hundred woodies but they aren't around anymore I guess, or just aren't flying the river anymore.