Waterfowl Report 10/1

[GullGuide]

What an opener! I can honestly say that I have never heard so much shooting on an opening weekend. Sunday Morning all around us in every direction and from all distances it sounded like a constant volley of gunfire. This was constant from shooting time until about 8 am. Then quiet.
We had fantastic success, both on opener and on Sunday morning, with teal- blue and greenwings, woodies and mallards to make up our bag.
Where were we hunting? On Solomon Lake near Willmar. I had a hunch that we would get some good shooting in because of the duck movements over the last few weeks. From reports that I received from friends around the state, the teal and woodies moved through the Bemidji area about 3 weekends ago, they were really thick around Brainerd the following week and last week they were all around the Willmar area. I would guess that the hunting for these species, especially for teal should be good around Willmar for the next few days until we get some weather to push them to the south.
What was your opener like?
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[Duck-o-holic]

We also had an excellent opener! We hunted a private slough, just off of Marsh lake, and also heard a "War" around us!! Hunted with my Dad, brother, and brother's dog. Ended up filling out with 12 mallards, 3 gadwall, 2 widgeon, and a pintail on Saturday. A lot of the birds were decoy, and call-shy. This has been the first time that I've seen it this way on an opener. I firmly believe that the Youth and Early Goose (over water) hunts really educated the birds a lot.

Talked to a lot of hunters coming off Marsh that did very poorly. Many had bags of teal or shovelers. Only heard of one group limiting out. One party only saw one flock of mallards all day, which sounds hard to believe! This also supports my theory that the early season activity does not push birds out of a region, but only pushes them to new locations in the vacinity-- which is why I think we saw a lot of birds on smaller water nearby! The DNR was checking hunters coming off Marsh, and just doing bird counts. They also commented that the opener was down compared to the number of birds harvested last year.

Sunday, just myself and brother (plus dog) hunted. We ended up filling with 8 mallards, 2 woodies, a widgeon... and a spoonbill that my brother proudly added to the bag We didn't have much of a morning shoot, although there were guns barking all around us. Again, the birds were a bit decoy and call-shy. Took us a while to fill out, and missed the first quarter of the Vikes game. Sure got a nice tan though!

Some sidenotes regarding the species noted: Had lots of teal landing in the decoys, but didn't see a lot of woodies. The only two shot were from the same flock. Saw a LOT of nicely plummaged widgeon on Saturday. Less pintails than last year, but a few around. Mallards were VERY immature (and ugly). Saw a lot of divers for an opener!!! Had a lone bufflehead buzzing us on both days. Had a flock of 8 land in the slough on Sunday. Saw a few high flocks that were probably ringbills. Heard one goldeneye (VERY surprising). Saw a triple of cans. Saw MANY lesser canadas migrating! Watched one flock of mallards flying with a greater canada in the middle...COOL! LOL!!!

Hope everyone enjoyed their openers!!!

Good Gunnin'

Duck-o-holic

[This message has been edited by Duck-o-holic (edited 10-01-2001).]

[Guest]

By far the best opener I have ever experienced. I hunted the Bemidji area and there were a lot of ducks. My wife and I bagged 6 ringbills and 1 redhead on Sat. and passed up many, many birds in hope for some Mallards or teal to show up, but they didn't. Sunday a goose and no ducks. With my group we bagged around 25 ducks on opener between 6 people, and another 9 birds between three of us on Sunday. Mixed bag of bills, bluebills, redheads and a hooded merganser. Hardly saw any puddle ducks that would decoy, but I did see quite a few blue-winged teal.
All the birds on Sat. loved our decoys and I have never seen so many webbed feet in one day!! Wow, was it a blast. Sunday the birds were much more decoy shy (I wonder why) and I picked a bad spot for a blind. Never lost one bird the entire weekend, thanks to good shooting and a good retriever.

[Guest]

Opener for us this year was the same as last year, fantastic. There were 5 of us hunting and we ended up with 38 mallards, 12 woodies, 4 wigeon, 4 bluewings, and 2 pintails for the weekend. We had our best shooting on sat. between 2 and 4 when the shooting slowed down, the ducks would then decoy fairly well. At shooting time on Sun. there were ducks everywhere but they wouldn't decoy well until the shooting in the area slowed down. We had great shooting between 9 and 11 and picked out mostly drakes with a few mistake hens.

A few observations this weekend after watching several other groups of hunters this weekend. Tone down the calling, most of the ducks we bagged only needed a few soft contented calls. Many times we saw birds start to circle an area then leave as soon as the loud calling started. This was the first year that we used robo duck, from what we saw so far it didn't help or hurt. We had several different sets out and the ones without it actually drew in more birds, probably because of location. Even the one with robo duck the birds tried to land on the other side of the set. Also when the ducks start to circle the area let them keep circling until they get well within range otherwise usually you miss and you also screw it up for everyone else that are trying to take close shots as the ducks just keep getting higher and smarter. Good Luck the rest of the season.

[Borch]

For the third opening weekend in a row we saw snow geese near St. Cloud. Nothing in range but flocks of 40 - 75 birds. Weird seeing snows this far eaast and this early in the season.

[BLACKJACK]

Best opener in a decade!!!! I was hunting south of Grove City. Myself and three others limited out by 2:30, 11 mallards, 12 teal, a shoveler, and two geese. I blew thru two boxes of shells, but a few of those were used as 'rocks' for my dog. Sunday morning was not as good, the ducks really wised up fast, got only 5 ducks and two more geese .

The other hunters back at duck camp didn't do as well, 4 ducks between 7 hunters, so your location was important even it the ducks were around.

Was really surprised that Sun was so poor, usually its the other way around, with the best shoot on Sunday, no matter what the weather was. Was also surprised that we didn't see many wood ducks, usually we shoot two each and then its sit around and shoot at teal and hope that a few 'big ducks' come in.

Overall a great opener!!

[Guest]

Sounds like everyone had pretty good openers. Ours was what I would consider average. We hunted the SE part of the state and there seemed to be good numbers of birds around but less than the last few years. We did manage to bag a few mallard and quite a few woodies on Both Saturday and Sunday, but this was definetly down from the mallard shooting we have enjoyed the last few years. Still a lot of Blue & Green wing around, but we tryed to avoid taking any. Good to hear that the hunting was good in the Northern part of the state, I will be looking forward to seeing your ducks this weeked when it gets cold!!ScottS

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ScottS
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[Sartell Angler]

Sounds like everyone for the most part had a great opener -- for me, it was the best one i have ever experienced. The weather was beautiful, we saw lots of ducks, and we even got 2 bands-- 1 drake woodie and 1 drake mallard. Saturday afternoon we got 18 ducks, and sunday morning we got 24 ducks and 1 goose, giving us a grand weekend total of 42 ducks and 1 goose between 9 hunters and a few kids with BB guns. Most of the ducks we bagged were woodies and mallards, but we also got 2 ringbills, 2 blue wings and 1 greenwing. Can't wait til this weekend!!

[mwktrapper]

Had a pretty decent opener this year. We shot 70 ducks and 12 geese between 11 guys over the weekend. Had a few new hunters shoot their first birds. Shot mallards, teal: blue and green, widgeon, pintail, wood ducks, redheads, big and little geese, and even a few snipe. Saw lots of canvasbacks that would of added well to our limit. I've never seen so many cans and we can't shoot em. Hopefully it'll turn out for the better, though. Can't wait for this weekend. It'll be cold but it'll be nice. Good huntin.

[Wobbler]

Last weekend was the best duck shoot I was ever a part of. I hunted near First Crow Wing south of Park Rapids and have never seen so many Wood Ducks. 5 of us shot our 10 woodies on Sunday right away. I was also suprised by the number of Bills we saw and shot. 5 of us on Sunday shot our limit of ducks by 7:03 am. When shooting is that good Duck hunting can get addicting. Although it is nothing like ICE FISHING!!!