Waterfowl Reports

[MattL]

Lots of woodies where we were in Southern MN. The 3 of us got our 9 woodies along with a few teal, a mallard, and a goose. There wasn't a lot of shooting going on anywhere nearby. We probably had the most action of the 4 groups on the lake. Not many flocks over 3-4 birds. A lot of singles and doubles.

[Kettle]

East of Kato and got just three today had a buddy on swan got one, last weekend during scouting there were a lot more teal around. Three bag limit of woodies, back out in the morning, was suppose to hunt down here Thursday and Friday but heading north might be the better option.

Kettle

[icecold]

Saturday my 2 sons and I had 14 birds 6 mallards 4 woodies and 3 teal and goose, Sunday was slower 1 mallard and 5 woodies and 1 goose, overall a good weekend, weather was to warm and nice for my liking ,but otherwise a fun time.

[RuddyDuck]

I was one of the millions out on Pelican. Actually wasn't any more people than a normal opener out there. Even heard a muskrat pass some gas in the morning . I thought overall it was a fair to slow opener. I ended up with 4 ducks, so I guess I've done worse. Not alot of shooting considering all the groups out. A few groups did alot of shooting and some groups didn't do much shooting.

Went the smart route on Sunday, slept in and did a little bass fishing late morning! Even the dogs were happy to sleep in.

[Proskier2038]

Western mn was full of Teal! Sat morning was crazy and our group put 24 teal and 2 mallards in the bag! Sunday was a lot slower and we finished with 2 mallard and 8 teal- tons of people out hunting! Strange part was we had a total of 32 Blue Wing Teal and not a

Single Green

[booger]

Hunted the north metro Saturday, it wasn't as good as I expected or as good as last year. Last year heard a ton of shooting, not even close to as much this year. A good day still and shot 5 between 4 of us but a bit of a letdown.

[Riverratpete]

Hunted up by Longville Sat and Sunday..while scoutting lake on Friday, loads of ducks...Mallards, Teal, Woodies, Redheads, Ringers and Geese..Sat AM..crickets..some shooting but nothing to get excited about...heard from the duck counter over on Big Rice...10 parties..12 ducks after the morning shoot....went and jumped beaver ponds after that....low,dry. Thankfully the shooting gets better later in the fall usually up there. Think the ducks have gotten smarter and hang around the city. hahahaha

[CodyDawg]

3 of us shot 13 on saturday. mostly mallards. A good hunt. My buddy went with 6 other guys and they limited out (42 ducks!).

A painful lesson was learned on Saturday morning. No, not by me. My twin 5 year old boys were told on Friday night if they went to bed good they would get to go duck hunting in the morning. They didnt, so I took my daughter instead. They were not very happy! But I bet next time they go to bed well!

[Smuts]

Opening Weekend, Hutchinson MN

Good numbers of ducks and geese around. Geese seemed pretty educated for opening weekend, but they have been hunted for a while already. Good variety of species of ducks around for September. We saw mallards, woodies, bluewing and greenwing teal, shovelers, pintails, wigeon, redheads, and hooded mergansers. Late ice-out north of us may have caused some species to nest here this spring that normally nest farther north. Some ducks cooperated well, and some didn't. We harvested mallards, wood ducks, wigeon, bluewing and greenwing teal, and a pintail. Good luck and be safe out there.

[Stringerless!]

Carlos Avery opening morning. Non stop shooting for at least the first 45 minutes. Not many made it out to us.6 of us ended up with 10 birds. Woodies and teal. Did not see many mallards at all there. Same old ,same old as someone decides to come out at 7:30 and set up between two of us. Done with that place unless I get rained out during week or the tornado sirens are going off. Hugo area Sunday. Gadwall drake and a woodie drake. Only chances we had to shoot. Unless we were like party on other side. Then we could have shot boxes into the air like they did. Sharpen up boys !! Be patient ! There are 57 days left.

[dan z]

Hunted today, made 2 geese splash seen 1 flock of boot lips. Not toany duck on this lake headed somewhere else in the a.m

[Finlander]

The 4 of us got four teal Saturday and 1 Canada goose.

Sunday we got 1 redhead, 1 woodduck, 1 teal, 4 Canada geese.

Slower than most opener weekends, but good time overall!

[fishgutz77]

Headed to NoDak tomorrow give a report when I get back tuesday.

[Scott M]

Hunted south of Hutchinson, found a fair number of birds, shot a fair number too. Ran into people problems to say the least, fell back to private water on Sunday, got one flock of mallards to commit but the rest of them settled into the middle of the lake. So it goes. Beats sitting on the couch.

Went out this morning by Mankato and found a bunch of wood ducks. Took my two and went into work just not too terribly late.

Good start. Gotta be realistic as the Dakotas aren't in the cards for me this year.

[depopn44]

5 of us got our 30 (mostly teal) on Saturday and 16 on Sunday on some small public land in Southwestern part of the state. There were a few mallards in the area but people were busting at 60+ yards so couldn't get much to commit. Wasn't as many ducks as 2 years ago but at least there was water in the pond this year.

--Nate

[skee0025]

We were hunting near Fergus Falls Sat-Mon. Good numbers of Woodies and lots of Mallards. Teal and Geese were scarce. Over the three days we took 2 woodies, 4 teal, 1 Goose and 13 Mallards.

[Slimdart]

Saturday two of us got three ducks hunting south of grand rapids. Talked with the waterfowl guy at the access. He said that we did better than most. With our ducks included he recorded 9 ducks for 12 hunters. We had three of the 9 and one other guy had 5. This was at noon and I don't think the rest of the hunters on the lake were fairing much better. really tough.

[grey ghost]

Southwest MN on Saturday 3 of us got our limit; 17 teal and 1 wood duck,Sunday we got 9 teal and 1 wood duck. Action Saturday was fast. Sunday was slower but we saw more mallards just couldn't get any to commit.

[Lunker]

Very slow down on Pool 8 this morning. Some birds moving early but not much action...didn't help that the dog decided to chase a muskrat when I had the only group committing to the dekes all morning...o well. Bring on colder weather!

[Proskier2038]

Went out to my favorite wood duck hole last night to scout for

Saturday.... Not a drop of water in it needing rain in the west metro!

[Stringerless!]

2 woodies and a goose.Chisago area. Not much flying after first light flurry.

[booger]

North metro. Birds not decoying, saw quite a few, pretty sure I crippled one. The local birds are still around, they just aren't stupid anymore. Quite a few groups flying 70 yards out on the water or above me. Water level where I was, was even lower than last year by a pretty good amount.

Could've got a nice limit of pelicans, there were about 500 where I was hunting along with a ton of gulls.

There was a good amount of shooting around me, group next to me probably shot 4-5 birds.

[tracker x-2]

was out in the south metro this a.m saw several flocks of geese (12 plus) and only had one flock and a single come in. must be getting smarts about us.

[icecold]

very quite this morning in southern mn river bottoms compared to last weekend a couple mallards flying and a few woodies around that was it, managed 2 woodies and a teal.

[grey ghost]

SW Mn this morning was better than expected. Our group of 3 got 14... 7 woodies, 6 BWT and 1 mallard. Wasn't a lot of birds moving but a couple of flurries that added up.