Waterfowl Reports

[dan z]

My location is south central Minnesota and thats were I shot them...

[FowlSki]

Ours were shot near the great lakes. I probably saw 20 scoters last year in three different flocks on two different pieces of water. They also shoot longtails on Lake Michigan and occasionally on the eastern side of Lake Superior. Last year I saw a picture of a harlequin that was in a pond in MN. Apparently they get off track from time to time.

I have heard even the sea duck hunters think they taste like garbage. Cool to shoot either way. You can always feed em to the dog.

[mwal]

At our cabin in NW WI 25 air miles from Lake Superior I have shot Old squaw and scoter's. The old Squaw were edible scoter not so much.

Mwal

[Kettle]

North central MN, find the rice and you will find birds. Noticing more and more mallards are becoming call and decoy shy finally took the mojo yesterday and got a few mallards in. My bag has been mainly ringers this week fun to shoot just don't taste like the mallards. Have been passing on the mergansers but have been seeing a lot.

Kettle

[Stringerless!]

Had to work late. Kid was out and saw 2 ducks. That is it ! Not even any while wrapping up he said. Big water in north metro.

[jparrucci]

Shot a black duck in western mn. Saw cinnamon teal just south of the cities. Both are not within their normal flight but there they were. Still haven't shot a cinnamon teal or barrows goldeneye.

[fishuhalik]

Still lots of teal in nw NoDak. Shot 4 bwt yesterday, passed on several. Shot my first gwt drake. Actually, it was my first drake teal of any kind. To be honest I wasn't 100% sure what it was when I pulled the trigger, just saw a red head. They're definitely a good looking bird.

[Ufatz]

Wow! A cinnamon teal near MSP!? Now that little guy really WAS off course. They are nifty and speedly little birds. We used to see and shoot a lot of them in SE Alaska. Nothing like trying to catch up with a teal riding a 40 mile an hour southeast wind! LOL

[jparrucci]

They were sitting on a small cattle pond next to a WMA. No chance to shoot them

[Stringerless!]

Pair of buffies and a woodie drake. Hen woodies in dekes about 3 times. Loon attacking and trying to scare my new blue bill dekes. Would get right next to them and slap its wings and dive. Finally bold enough to give one a jab with beak. Then started hammering on em ! After a while I had had enough and tried to scare her away. Nothin doing.

[fishuhalik]

  Stringerless! said:

Pair of buffies and a woodie drake. Hen woodies in dekes about 3 times. Loon attacking and trying to scare my new blue bill dekes. Would get right next to them and slap its wings and dive. Finally bold enough to give one a jab with beak. Then started hammering on em ! After a while I had had enough and tried to scare her away. Nothin doing.

That's pretty cool stringerless!! Sometimes the best part of the day doesn't involve shooting

[nobody05]

I've shot some in sw minnesota... took em to a taxi place and he said it was a white wing scooter.

[Todd Caswell]

Hunted Fri. morning, Friday evening, and Saturday Morning. BIG Goose egg haven't fired a shot, very little for birds in the Brainerd area, not that that suprises me normally we shoot a few ducks. The dogs are getting bored...

[shamalex72]

Hunted north of Garrison this morning, I never fired a shot. Wife missed one. There were a few birds flying, but none wanted to decoy.

[Todd Caswell]

  shamalex72 said:

Hunted north of Garrison this morning, I never fired a shot. Wife missed one. There were a few birds flying, but none wanted to decoy.

Just keep tellin yourself it's all about the dog's and the sunrise and you'll be OK. MN duck hunting has alot to be desired..........

[walleyeking19]

Went out this morning by myself..very slow morning. Saw more deer than I did ducks. And I only saw 4 deer. I think the ducks that were here migrated south and the new ones havent quite got here yet. Fingers crossed thats the reason!

[luckycrank]

Ive shot them in southern mn see them through the glass alot more than one would think unfortunatly never seen a drake.. also shot oldsqauw hen last fall and have glassed them here too

[Smuts]

10/20/13 Hutchinson Area

Slow morning Saturday. A couple periods of drizzle with light WSW winds, and not much flying. We got one mallard out of a pair that decoyed nicely. Started talking about the cold moving many of the ducks that arrived last weekend out and not replacing them. Then the rain stopped, it cleared, and the wind began to gust from the NW. With a forecast of rain on Sunday, we decided to stay out all day and see if the dropping temps and NW wind would bring some ducks in as the day went on. It did. We bagged three mallards, a gadwall, and a pintail. Two wounded mallards dove on us, and a flock of bills, a flock of ringers, and a small bunch of spoonies decoyed while we were pushing the boat back into the weeds from retrieving ducks. Called it quits at 5:30, and as we were pushing the boat out to get dekes, about twenty mallards floated through the dekes. Had some bad luck/timing, but some new ducks definitely moved in and were fun to watch even if we didn't shoot at all of them. Didn't go out in the rain on Sunday morning.

[dan z]

Shot 5 redheads and 1 ring bill this am 3 guys. Had an early flock of mallards short us. Seen 2 flocks of migrating ducks. Didn't see much for ducks. Did see the 1st bufflehead of the year. Hoping for a little push the next couple days as I will be waiting for them while most of you guys are at work.

[Stringerless!]

Missed a flock of buffies and a lone ringie drake this morning. 3 of us ?!?!?! Really struggling with getting birds to decoy this year it seems. Can not figure it out.No migration seen. Tried for geese in evening but they were in a chopped cornfield to the north of where I have permission. Set up in new rye. Spent most of the time looking up for migrating birds. Nothing. Robins and bluebirds bunching up but that was it. Both hunts-Northern Washington County.

[Walleye Guy]

A buddy and his son and I hunted Thursday through Sunday morning in western WI. Ended up with 35 ducks a goose. Saw many new birds in the area on Friday morning. We would have hard more but had spans where our shooting was less than stellar. We never fired a shot at a mallard but we ended up with 3 canvasbacks, 12 redheads, 8 teal and the rest were a mix of ringbills, bluebills, gadwalls etc. When we had a north wind the action was awesome. Had less decoying ducks on the days we had a south wind.

[Riverratpete]

Hunted north of the cities on Saturday AM. Only thing left were birds that were extremely decoy and call shy..better off using 2 dekes and no call. I'm sure with the current weather pattern things should only get better for awhile. Still some woodrows around..BWT were history..did have a couple GE's buzzing around though.

[CANOPY SAM]

Northwest Minnesota. Did see a few flocks of birds definitely moving south this weekend, but the numbers are still quite low. There's a cold strong NW wind blowing today which should be pushing some birds, but reports out of southern Manitoba and Sask are still showing the push hasn't really ramped up yet.

Steady cold temps this week, with most every night being below freezing should really get the birds jumping. I expect to start hearing lots of geese migrating over night over the next week. The big puddles from this weekend's rain/snow are frozen over pretty good this morning.

Really hoping that our local farmers are able to catch a break this week. Pretty much all the corn is still standing, and many bean fields have yet to be harvested as well. If the farmers could get most of the corn and beans off I think we'd see a lot more of the migrators stick around over the coming weeks.

[Lunker]

Hunted Fri-Sun with some friends down here on Pool 7 and 8. Lots of birds down, and tons of hunters. We did alright, taking Mallards, GWT, Pintails, Gadwalls, BWT, and Ringneck.

[Bdog]

Hunted western MN Saturday, just me and the dog. 4 mallards, 1 redhead,1 widgeon. Saw lots of ducks. With this cold NW flow, now is the time to get out there. More surely to come later. Hoping to try again tomorrow AM.