South Dakota Ducks

[BLACKJACK]

Just got back from South Dakota, hunting pheasants in the Redfield area. I was amazed at the ducks we saw. Hundreds and thousands of ducks!! Just about every pond with any size to it had ducks on it. Sometimes you'd look at a flock in the distance and wonder if it was blackbirds or ducks! Most times it was ducks. Amazing! Its very tempting to apply for a duck permit for '02'. But how much time does a person have to hunt, especially when you're driving 5 hours?

All those ducks makes me wonder why Minnesota doesn't have very many ducks around. In the Willmar, Spicer, Sunburg area where I live there's lots of water but very few ducks. Went for a drive last night and out of all the water that I passed I saw only 5 ducks. Disgusting. Will be interesting to see how much shooting that I hear tomorrow while I'm deer hunting.

[Rick]

Saskatchewan, North Dakota, & South Dakota are part of the Prairie pothole region and with all the water they've received in the past 8 years it is a major duck producer.

Potholes are the best for puddle ducks and Ontario and Minnesota don't compare with the big three above for the quantity of potholes and duck production. It's sad for us but true. Thank God for those potholes for keeping overall duck numbers up.

When it dries up out there there is some migration towards Minnesota which still leaves MN with at least as good if not a bit better hunting for a while. But it's not a long term thing. We don't have the habitat to support that large of a population.

[GullGuide]

Black Jack,
It all comes down to one thing- Amount of feed. One thing that the Dakota potholes have over the Minnesota potholes is that they are choked with fresh-water shrimp. The potholes in the area in which you speak used to be the same way, but because of the introduction into many of these potholes with the fathead minnow by bait dealers and the stocking of some with fish by the DNR to use as rearing ponds, has almost wiped out the shrimp populations. Many of the area lakes have met the same fate- Ringo, Long and Solomon, just to name a few, are lakes that used to be loaded with shrimp but now that they all have aerators which allow the fish to survive rather than freeze out, thus eating up the shrimp, has basically ruined these lakes. Ducks will not stick around very long if there is no food, and they will not nest in waters void of food either. I think the DNR has overlooked this and are looking at other reasons which are significant, but not as important as the loss of the shrimp.
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