Seasons End

[Gordie]

Another Mnnesota waterfowl season comes to a close.

We had a season of new regs and unseasonable weather.

I'm sure that there were ups and downs to everyones season but lets focus on the ups instead of the downs and hopefully the things that we would call down dont seem to be so Bad.

I had a great season spent most of it with my to sons in the blind and a few with just me and my pooch. We shot a lot of ducks in minnesota this year and a few geese which I dont really even try for any more. I only had three hunts that didnt produce a duck or even a shot fired but It was just good to be able to be out in the blind.

I liked the early opener and hope that they do something simalar next season.

I had a great time in NoDak ducks galore for us..

I met a bunch of Great guys on the water this year and a few were from the HSO family

I had some great conversations with the DNR CO's in Minnesota and Nodak

All in all was a great season and sad thats its closing but it time to get started on whats gonna happen for the next years season.

Have a Good one guys See Ya on the swamp next year

[Powerstroke]

This was my most successful season by far, but most of that has come on the coattails of others.

I thank RumRiverRat for inviting me out and for teaching me a few things. Also Phil Schmidt as my great guide for taking me on my first field hunt.

I have really come to enjoy waterfowling and hopefully I can keep getting better next year.

[the man]

Overall it was a good season for me added some new species to the list. I wish I would have gotten a chance to go out the for the last half of november but I couldn't. I really wish next year they extend the season into december I could care less about early season teal.

[icecold]

My sons and I had a pretty decent season ,we got in alot of shooting up until the last 3 weekends, lost some time in da blind because of deer hunting and the boys had a great youth waterfowl hunt, between my 2 boys and the nieghbor kid ,they shot up 4-5 boxes on youth day had there limit of woodies and teal and a mallard I didnt do well with the green heads, normally I have a couple days on the river of good shooting the last few days of season, but this year they never showed their orange feet. I have hunted old school for the last 38 years and this year i added a spinning wing dove to the decoy spread, pulled in just about every spiecies of birds to take a closer look and also brought in a bunch of ducks .I guess it was worth the 25 bucks i paid for it. Looking foward to next year, Now its time to concentrate on snowmobiling

[HugoBox]

This was my most fun year in the past several. Not because of huge straps of ducks but because of good times in the blind with old and new friends. I'm also happy because I turned a friend who hasn't hunted in almost 20 years back into a waterfowler. In the past few years I hunted more than fished in the fall but pretty much packed in the musky gear and realized how much I enjoy everything about duck hunting.

[KrabbyPatties]

Tough year for me. Got out six times--I was a loner all six times. I would have gotten out more, but I was out of state during two weeks of October. Ran into a bunch of gear/ice/competition problems two of those times and never even got set up one of them. Of the remaining four outings, only had ducks in range during one of them. Lots of birds came through that day, but they were all scaup, so I had to call it a day after shooting two birds. Last year was a much better year for me than this one...but, I learned some valuable lessons to take into next year and had a lot of quiet time drinking coffee in the boat, so it wasn't a waste at all.

[Stringerless!]

I would consider my season average. Got out 37 times. Short of my annual goal of 40.Saw more ducks and geese in the last 2 weeks than rest of season combined. Whole list of new things to be added to the arsenal! Never did actually see any migrating ducks as I have in years past. I also wish we had a couple more weeks. Sure I will get out after geese a few times. Looking forward to not setting alarm clock. Never heard one pheasant all year.

[nige]

It was my first season of duck hunting and cant wait for nxt year. Didnt shoot much but hopefully that will change next year. Now I just got to buy some more gear for next year.

[sdsufowler]

Overall it was a fun season got out 14 times. Shot at birds every time except the first and last day of the season, had a lot of opportunities. Experienced hunting the backwaters with a mud motor (totally worth going the extra mile) and enjoyed the sunrise all those mornings over perfectly placed deeks! 20 birds for the season next year I plan on practicing shooting before the season so I can eliminate some of my poor shots.

[dan z]

Hmmmm were to start, well the early season hunting wasnt all that bad killed more geese than ducks the first to weekends, meet a new friend on the lake and actully became duck chasers together. got skunked 5-6 times but when you go as much as I did 30-40 days its expected. Has a great middle of the season with lots of greenheads. Didnt shoot as many geese as we normally do. Had a terrible close to the season as no ducks came home the last two days.

90 ducks bagged

14 honkers

9 Wantons

[carpshooterdeluxe]

Didn't get to hunt much early in the season this fall with other stuff going on, but I can't complain about bird numbers at all. Only days I didn't shoot birds were direct correlation to bad decoy spreads or not being in the field at the right time. I got to enjoy a few weekends back home in MN shooting ducks out of our slough...always nice to see birds using a property after you put so much work into it.

Still some good hunting to be had here in SD, we are starting to wind down the scouting though and utilize some of our spots close to town to shoot some ducks and geese. I'd like to get into one more field greenhead shoot before they move on down the line but I have 4 deer tags to fill yet too.

[TylerS]

As far as Nodak went, it was probably one of my best seasons in the past three years. Most of that was due to having my own hunting dog, who at 18 months was a pure pleasure to hunt behind. He already had a season of hunting under his belt, but I can tell a full summer of training truly paid dividends.

As far as numbers, the huge amount of rain we got early this year really increased the ponds and sloughs. You can tell that correlated to more birds. I quit hunting after Halloween. I just didn't feel like shooting any more birds. I have a full freezer and many great memories. It was great leaving them on a high note.

Pheasant hunting Sunday I did see one last, large flock of high-flying snows on their way south. Other than that, all the water was froze up save for a creek here or there. Birds are gone for the year. But man, what a good year it was!

[fishuhalik]

Great year for me! Only got out 3 days, which was 3 days more than the last 6 years put together. Good to be back in the blind. Got skunked one day and shooting wasn't too great the other 2 (hunter error, ducks were there!) but it was fantastic getting back into it. Next year it's game on, hope to get out alot more.

[SledNeck]

worst season for seeing numbers of ducks in my life in Northern MN. But the goose numbers were some of the best Ive seen. Its pretty depressing being a duck hunter around here.

[magnum mike]

You must have been hunting near us Sled. This is without question the worst year we have EVER had for ducks. We hunted every weekend from opener to the last weekend of deer season when we were frozen out. The second worst year we had was the last time the DNR said it was going to be a good year (like they did this year).

The last 2 seasons have been very good for us. The DNR also said the numbers were down and not to expect much. Reverse psychology?

[SledNeck]

You must have been hunting near us Sled. This is without question the worst year we have EVER had for ducks. We hunted every weekend from opener to the last weekend of deer season when we were frozen out. The second worst year we had was the last time the DNR said it was going to be a good year (like they did this year).

The last 2 seasons have been very good for us. The DNR also said the numbers were down and not to expect much. Reverse psychology?

heh. Im not too far from hibbing.....

Last year was the most local ducks Ive seen around here and this year was the worst. Go figure.

[morefishplease]

Worst season of my life for south central MN. It just is not the same anymore. Just now did some mallards show up on the refuge...very few though. Even the goose numbers were lower than other years. It sucks boys but I call a spade a spade, duck hunting in MN is done!! Time to head out of state I guess.

[SledNeck]

Worst season of my life for south central MN. It just is not the same anymore. Just now did some mallards show up on the refuge...very few though. Even the goose numbers were lower than other years. It sucks boys but I call a spade a spade, duck hunting in MN is done!!

Time to head out of state I guess.

THATS the plan.....

one more month....

[HNTNBUX]

I had a great season. I started with youth waterfowl day and the early opener for a long weekend trip. I then hunted three to four days a week up until MEA. After that it was all deer hunting except one day in the middle of Novemeber. I have come to realize for me hunting the prime times for ducks and then deer works better than going back and forth. It was a fun year and the new boat helped make it much more enjoyable and easier.

[BoxMN]

Had good hunts in MN, and great hunts in NoDak. Had fun all the time. Only regret is a brother backing out on two NoDak trips and one MN trip he will learn, haha! I actually skipped two Oct. weekends of ducking to spend with wifey at cabin, but that was mixed in between the NoDak trips, and I got out bow hunting then, so all in all hunted lots of days this year.

This winter a new friend and true champion caller is going to teach me to talk better duck/goose speak looking forward to that.

[BrdHunter01]

This was our best year we had in a few years. One of our hunting buddies said it was the best year he has ever had but he hasn't been hunting all that long. I also could care less about sweating my arse off in the duck blind and shooting teal. I would like a week or 2 in December. We had multiple hunts with or near our limit. Did get skunked a few times and the last few days of the season were horrible. Can't except much to come through when it's near 60 degrees on thanksgiving! We made it out prob 25-30 days. Some of the best days we had were with east winds. One day there was nearly no wind and we banged them. Go figure. A lot of cans came through this year and they stuck around in our area for a long time which is a bit unusual. But they provided a lot of action in October!

Kinda an unconventional year in many ways but a good one at that!

[HugoBox]

I just came in from the garage where I was repairing and repainting a bunch of decoys. I realized how much they faded when I was out with RRR and saw his shiney new dekes. I'm also working on some homemade spreaders so I can drop 6 blocks at a time between the longlines. If it works as well as expected i'll post pix. I also have my gun in about a hundred pieces and am re-doing my camo paint job on it.

As far as important changes for next year I will go out and pattern all my guns a bit more seriously than in the past and only shoot one load. I'm sick of stacking shells and second guessing myself. I also need to spend a bit of time working on some landowner relations to try to secure a field or two- June or July is a better time for that than October.

I'll also save any vacation time for November instead of wasting days early in October.

[Gordie]

I have a couple of spreader riggs that I had gotten from a friend and all I can say about them is never again to mach problems with them and to much tangleing with everything and I mean everything they come in contact with.

maybe wouldnt be so bad if you could set them durinig the full day light hours but in darkness its a PITA

[Musky Buck]

Sledneck come down to my counties and the duck hunt is no better unfortunately, something major has changed things for the ducks in our areas, tough to pin down, it's likely a combination of things but drakeless/duckless for 10th straight year. Yes I could belly crawl a pond with a hen mallard in it and get 1 at times yes. We used to be a major duck hunting town/area and people filled the hotels in town and camo and boats/canoe's etc. were everywhere, not anymore, it's sad really as a whole slug of kids are missing out on waterfowling.

[Gordie]

Musky Buck care to share what countie so I do not do home work in the wrong place