early season field reports

[superfish2]

Well my sister is getting married today so i can't make it out. Lets here about it though.

[Sartell Angler]

we opted to hunt a winter wheat field where we knew some geese had been in / near earlier in the week. we pulled this big flock of about 60 birds in right after daybreak, but the 4 of us kind of choked and only pulled down 3 birds...we ended up pulling in another loner, as well as a flock of 5 birds, of which we dropped 3. The last flock that gave us a look dropped from about 150 yards up but landed just outside the spread. Overall didn't see all that many geese but still one of our better openers. We never did get around to buying layouts this year....just had a spread of about 40 dekes along a pine tree buffer separating two fields. Can't wait til tomorrow when we hit the river for our first water hunt of the year. The 4 of us were happy to get 7 birds-- we talked to others who didn't fare as well, and a couple groups who did about the same. Even though the weather wasn't great, we still had a good time (at least it wasn't raining)...anyways, good luck to anyone going out tomorrow. By the way, we wrapped it up around 9:30am because it was getting too hot for hunting and we weren't seeing any more geese.

later,
S.A.

[beretta]

Well I limited out and my brother got 3 bu 9:00. We left early thinking maybe some birds would come in and feel comfortable there so we can hunt it again later in the week. This was in the Aitkin area.

[Roosterslayer05]

Well I had a decent opener. We got 3 geese saturday, I shot 2. The other 3 guys I was hunting with dident hit anything so we really should have got 5-6. I also cripled one that was already crippled from another hunter and it still dident fall even though I hit it with BB at 35 yards. Then sunday we got 2 geese but we should have easily shot 6 or 7, I cripled another goose that ended up geting shot by someone else, me and my friends couldent hit anything today. We had good hunting for pass shooting. A fun weekend, i will post pics later

[Eric Wettschreck]

I hunt about 5 miles north of the Talcot area.

5 birds on Saturday, skunked on Sunday morning. Shot at one Sunday but missed.

I was talking with the local CO Sunday morning. He said the hunt around Talcot was pretty slim pickins.

[Pooh]

really
i had to work on saturday morning so i did get a chance to go with my buds, but they ended up with 11!! i was [PoorWordUsage]ed. we let the field sit on saturday night and went after them on sunday morn. got 6 more. lot of bird around here, they just never fly from the private land owners water. this was for sure our best opener!

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this is just my 2 cents
Pooh

[huntnfish]

The season couldn't get here fast enough. Five of us went out on Saturday. It's nice when things work out after all the hard work scouting and the money put into new decoys. The last few years have been tough, so it was nice to have a little more success for a change. The first flock came in a group of about 10. We took 6 the first time around. A lot of calling brought them back again with their feet down and we took the other 4. We didn't do as well with the rest of the flocks, but still shot well. We were filled out by 7:30. We were back to town in time to have a good beakfast and do some scouting the rest of the day.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Here's what we did Saturday morning.

[kpj5br]

Sunday morning, 5 hunters, 15 birds, near Belle Plain. Pretty fast action until about 9am, lots of fun, even with the rain.

[Roosterslayer05]

Boilerguy- The hunting at Talcot wasent really that good. I got checked by a CO at 11 saturday and he said the goose I shot was the first one he had seen all day. Only 2 or 3 other groups on the lake shot more geese than us, I probly only saw 20-25 geese shot all weekend.

[Guest]

Well I got 3 Saturday with one banded, no excuse for not having 5. Slept Sunday. Today I got 4 and while waiting for the 5th had a pair come in and they were perfectly staggered together where one shot could of very well meant 2 more. Why didn't that happen when there was only 3 laying there?? Awesome weekend.

[Eric Wettschreck]

roosterslayer, Where we hunt we can always hear guns a blastin at talcot. This weekend we really didn't hear much except the cow that kept mooing. It was really really really loud.

That was probably the same CO that checked us Sunday and said things were slim.

Oh well, there's always the next couple of days.

[ikes71]

Went out Saturday morning and got two. Only had one flock of fifteen birds come in. On Friday morning went scouting the same field and there were at least five groups and about a hundred birds. Don't know why they didn't show up Saturday morning. I saw a couple of bunches in there today, so I may try an evening hunt about Wednesday, by then they should have forgotten about me. Although we were short on geese, we did have bunches of ducks come in. I bet we had a hundred mallards come in to the picked oats. When the geese came in, and we started shooting, the cloud of mallards that came off the field was huge. Might be a good duck opener.

[bklimek]

You can see we had an excellant opening morning!!

Butch

[A5]

Hunted Saturday and Sunday evening near Fergus. Seen a few birds before the storms hit, but nothing to brag about. There is quite a few birds hanging in town, but not near what there has been in years past.

[Finlander]

Totally Awsome!
58 Canada Geese!
I got to the field late after all the decoys were deployed in the field just at legal shooting time, so i'm getting my gear out of the truck when five geese come from the west and head towards the decoys. The trucks that had the decoys and gear had just come off the field when I arrived. Then about a minute later, the hunters who were in the decoys let the five geese have it, and five geese hit the ground!
I'm thinking man, this is going to be a good day!
We were definetley in the "X"!
I ended up shooting my 5 geese and leaving the field around 10:00am!
The rest of the crew of 8 ended up shooting 40 geese by the end of the day and after sunset they still dropped in the "X" by the hundreds!
Sunday morning by the time the rain ended our hunt with 10 geese hitting the ground.
Today, 8 more to the bag!
We put out around 100 decoys each day and they just sucked right in every time!
What a Blast!
We were in the Alexandria area just to clue ya in! SO DER!
Hope ya'll had just as good of luck!

[duckbill]

We had the best early hunt that I have ever had. There were 59 geese shot in the field that we hunted Saturday and Sunday morning. Went back to check the field Monday and another 150+ sitting on our spot. We are letting the field rest until next weekend. So I will be hunting a field tonight after work that I have never hunted. All I can say is wow!

[snowgoose]

It's here again!
We hunted the Milaca area on Saturday morning. Harvested 15 bird by 9 AM for 6 of us. Hunted the evening in a different field. Never saw a bird. Did not hunt on Sunday due to wet fields that have been planted.
Can't wait to get to Canada. I will be there in 2 1/2 weeks.
Glad to hear some good reports from everyone.

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Hunt Snow Geese, Save the tundra

[duckbill]

I forgot to mention the ducks. Saturday morning we must have seen 750 ducks breaking into our decoys too. It seems like everytime that you looked up there was another 15 with the big orange landing gear down. Goose hunting was great but after seeing that I can't wait for duck season.

[paceman]

The hunt was better then I anticpated around the Lake Park area. My buds were all busy this weekend so I ended up going by myself. They were actually flying pretty steady until about 10 am. I wound up with 3 despite the fact another group set up about 200 yards downwind of me. So they shot at quite a few birds I was calling in. Of course they didn't get any. They were sky busters. Monday was even better yet. I went over near frazee and hunted an alfalfa field. With over 6 inches of rain up here the grain fields are a mess. I shot 3 more but should have easily got my limit. The wierd thing is that the wind kept switching. I changed my decoy layout 4 different times. It was fun. I was experimenting. On Sat. the geese did not like my kite flying. But on Monday the really poured in on it. (when I had it facing the right direction)

[bigbucks]

Paceman,

Good job, hey I know one of your buddies wasn't busy...

Just giving you **** , never went Saturday as I didn't have a good place to go & was tied up with family stuff the rest of the weekend.

I got to watch somebody stop & use the binos on my decoys in the field by the house for a few minutes & got a chuckle out of that.

[smalls]

If you guys learned not to constantly hunt the water (roosts), you wouldn't be wondering so often where your birds went. Pressure on the roosts will make the birds leave, plain and simple. Not blasting anyone individually , but hunting water is a surefire way to move birds out of the area.

[riverbasher]

Hunted near Morris. Very few birds to be found. We only ended up with 1 goose for the weekend. The locals told us all the birds that had been around had moved north towards Fergus. I'm thinking I'm finding someplace local next year when I know I'll see birds and can scout better

[Browning83]

Hunted Fergus Area and did pretty good. We ended up with 15 on opener....should have had more but a group was sky busting our geese before they reached our fields....but some guys just dont understand I guess. Every goose that came into our spread, we dropped them all. On Sunday we saw a lot of birds and once again people sky busted our flocks but ended up with 11. We talked to these guys Saturday and told them "what was on our minds" but I guess they didnt get the point. Well I hope this weekend can go a little better.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Went out Wednesday. North side of Talcot. Got 1 flock to come in and shot 2 of em.

Other than that it was pretty slim. I'm not seeing very many geese out there.