Hunting Southwest of the Mpls.

[full force five]

I'm going to take the month of October off (my wife and I are have our first kid). Anyway, my plan is to hunt every other day close to my house, Savage. My wife seems to be willing to go along with this.

I've hunted Swan/Middle a few times but the place is a mad house during the season. I have some great places around Marshall but they are a bit far to drive for the morning. Are there a few spots closer? If you want to e-mail without telling the rest of the world your spots my e-mail address is [email protected]. Or if anyone wants to hunt together give me an e-mail. Thanks.

[Guest]

Swan might not be too bad during the week, at least relatively speaking compared to weekends.
There are quite a few good lakes to the West around Hutch as well to the South near Waterville and Fairbault.
Dont forget the Minnesota River either.

[dkhntr]

Ummm, No. There are NO GOOD LAKES AROUND FAIRBAULT! Stay away from the area.

But do you have a WMA map? look around. You wont limit out (maybe during the week). But it is a nice area.

[big drift]

If you want geese faribault is a ggod bet. My grandmother used to have land just west of town and it was awesome. But you need to put in time and make contacts with the landowners. Ducks are here and there look for state land by Warsaw or morristown. The straight is not bad either best if you float it. Mud lake by Cedar lake used to be good have'nt been there for a while though. If your in savage check out the Ole Miss i qam not certain anymore were the boundarys for hunting are but watch hunting on Swan Lake it can be very dangerous several hunters have died there for various reasons. Also look up towards Mille lacs area. Another trick is to look close home look at a topo map and set a 5 or 10 mile radius around and check any area on the map that is blue. If you find a spot followup and accessibility as there many areas you can hunt that most people do not realize are accesible. And if all else fails there is always pheasants.