Waterfowl Reports

[Stringerless!]

Same place .2 woodies and a BWT. Terrible shooting ! Not many chances either. Did see a flock of lessers migrating south while wrapping it up.Glad for the break in season.Need to work on stuff. Motors,leaky jon boat,dekes that leak......

[Smuts]

A few teal and woodies harvested in the Hutch area. Didn't see nearly as many ducks as last weekend. Some geese flying, but not much interested in working decoys. We need a cold front and some new birds.

[grey ghost]

Took my 10 year old nephew this morning for his first hunting experience. Got 3 BWT right after sunrise and that was about it. Best part was he had a good time.

[dan z]

Had a fairly decent outing yesterday knocked over nine with 3 mallards and 6 b.w.t. seen migration of pintails and some groups of mallards. Really bummed of the break here as next Saturday is going to be a high of 50°…

[icecold]

We had 4 woodducks and a teal for sundays bag, very slow, very few mallards in mn riverbottoms, ya its a bummer with cold front moving in and then season is closed, ,oh well then I can get some projects done and be ready for the Oct hunting

[CANOPY SAM]

Was up north of town last night doing maintenance on deer hunting blinds, just a few miles south of the Agassiz refuge. Take heart guys, the "break" probably couldn't come at a better time.

Was out for a good portion of the day and only saw a few flights of geese working various fields in the area, very scattered out, and in no hurry to move. My guess would be these are still just local birds. Saw a few scattered ducks as well, one large group of teal, a few bunches of wood ducks, and a few small group of larger ducks (too far off to identify).

From what I can tell, there are very, very few, if any birds down from Canada yet. A little break during a cold spell might be just what the doctor ordered to get Minnesota filled back up with a few more birds.

[CodyDawg]

Got 7 mallards on Saturday and if I hadnt decided to set up in the wrong spot, would have easilty got our 18 I think. I flipped a mental coin and guessed wrong. Oh well, we had a good hunt and the boys went to bed real well on Friday night so they got to go!

There seems to be way more hens this year than drakes. I bet we are seeing 80-90% hens. One flock had 14 hens and 1 barely colored drake. No, I dont think they were drakes that you couldnt tell, I think they were hens. We got a really good look at them and they were hens. A guys should never complain about seeing hens, but holy cow!

[Kettle]

Spent last Thursday through Sunday Across Northern Minnesota. There were quite a birds around but you had to search for them their were lakes holding hundreds and some holding less than a dozen. Every place I hunted was tough to get to and had to either drag the canoe or paddle along ways. I ended up able to get my possession limit in four days. Good mixed bag, woodies, mallards, teal, ringers, mergansers and my first three widgeon in this state. Heading up north in a few hours will hunt tuesday through thur then off to Manitoba for 8 days.

Kettle

[Kettle]

North of Grand Rapids today, no woodies seen or teal. Got a ringer and a drake pintail younger one though. Saw quite a bit of birds, got burned a few times had the dog go on a super long retrieve and when she got back i was praising the heck out of her and looked up and had a six pack of ringers in the decoys. If anyone is in the Rapids area the next two days I have an open seat. Pm me

Kettle

[MahtowaDave]

Hunted with my son and a buddy on sunday morning. Took 5 ducks and missed a few, LOL! woodies and B.W.T. were in our bag.

[fishgutz77]

ND report.

We had 5 guys out on this trip, two guys hunted water and 3 of us hunted the fields.

ended up with 57 mallards, the rest was pintails, redheads, gads, ring bills, and teal.

total was 87 birds we where just shy of limits but that's not the point. The highlight of the trip was knocking down a sandhill, that came right into the field set. I'll post of photo of the crane later. was great time only had rain one day and got a late start but still did very well.

[onthefly]

NoDak report:

Hunted near Langdon last wknd. Scouting found thousands of birds. Big water slough was holding 2000 ducks and 500 geese. Another big water spot was the same on ducks but even more geese. Seemed like teal numbers dropped over the wknd.

Shot gadwall, mallards, teal, redheads, a pintail, shoveler (oops!) and geese. Hunted mainly water. Could've shot easy limits but targeted big ducks for the first couple days and tried to pick out only drakes. Saw a couple potholes scouting that held very nicely colored black ducks and pintails. Had pinnies whizzing around our spread but didn't manage many. Birds definitely getting some more color!

[Todd Caswell]

Hunted ND in the Lidgerwood area fri sat sun, very poor numbers as far as I was concerned, yah we found a couple bigger bodies of water that held birds, but I will not hunt a roost. Heavily posted and got turned down more times than I can remember. Put on over 400 miles scouting the area and never did find anything ( field or water) that kept me awake at night. I hunted ND from 1996 to 2002 and then hunted Canada from 2005 to 2010, not sure why I went back to ND this year but Monday when I got home I called up to Manitoba and made reservations for 2014. On a side note in those 400 miles scouting we never ONE pheasant..

[CANOPY SAM]

Birds are still up north. Most of em' anyway.

[Skjefte]

Been hunting Hawley, MN area the last few hunts. We have been doing very well buts its mostly B.W.T and a few woodies and hen mallards. Still Think it is all locals, lots of birds in the morning and they quit flying around 7:30.

[Stringerless!]

Feeling a little optimistic about 2nd opener. Fishing on Green after work saw about 75 geese on water and the first raft of coots I have seen this year. About 200. Saw more geese in the air. Not much for ducks. Single here or a trio there. 1 hammerhandle,5 bass ( biggest 16) and a crappie. Water temp 60.

[websdown]

Also saw my first coot on Centerville and on the South end of White Bear Lake. Its a start they are the first to kinda start besides the teal & woodies.

[onthefly]

Bald eagle had big rafts of coot as well - one with maybe a couple hundred

[booger]

On the way to Stillwater this morning I saw about 8 flocks of geese, mostly small 4-5s but one bigger 8-12 flock also. Most I've seen so far, it is usually about 2-3 flocks.

Should be good hunting this weekend.

[Feathers Rainin]

I have never heard of people getting excited to see coots. Do you use the coot on a plank recipe?

[Stringerless!]

raw

[CANOPY SAM]

I think coots inhabit most of our lakes all year round (well not winter, but you know what I mean). They just start to bunch up real good just before exiting the state.

They sure are goofy little birds.

Don't get too wound up just yet boys. This storm is likely only going to move a few birds around, and perhaps make a few local birds move a little further thru the state. It's only early October. The weather next week is already predicted to be very nice, high 60's even lower 70's with plenty of sunshine.

These colder temps will get em' thinkin' though!

[Stringerless!]

Calendar birds.

[BoxMN]

Calendar birds.

+1

[CANOPY SAM]

What do you mean by Calendar birds? I don't understand.

Sunrise found me sitting along the riverbank not far from our country home. Had fairly steady action, but I was very frugal with my shots and only took two Mallards, and a plump Canadian Goose. Four shots. Clean missed on a fat drake mallard.

Could have bagged many limits of Blue Winged Teal and Wood Ducks, but just enjoyed watching them fly instead. It was really fun watching those groups of Teal bombing in and out of the river bottom. Going with the 30-40 mph wind this morning they were like little missiles.

I'm still not convinced we've got much of any migration into the NW region of Minnesota yet. Way too many teal and woodies still around, and even the two mallards I bagged were on the small side = all local birds.

Gotta love those low heavy clouds, and howling wind though. Just touch the call and the birds come barreling in on a string!