reports

[superfish2]

Well how did everyone do? We ended up getting two a spoonie and drake mallard. Between 800 and shooting time we quite a few in the blocks. I guess it really starts Sunday.

[lawdog]

EXCELLENT opener for me. My group had several limit out on a mixed bag of mallards, teal and woodies. In my little boat, I got 3 teal and a real nice greenhead and best of all, my little 13 year old hunting partner shot a dandy drake woodie and two teal, his first ducks ever! I couldn't have been prouder or happier with today!!!

[Borch]

Congrats to the young person!

I myself never fired a shot. Few ducks around but I passed on several marginal shots. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

[hanson]

We did very well also and saw decent numbers of birds.

Took home 6 ringbills for my dad & myself but we passed on many hens. Could have had the limit within the first half hour if we weren't being picky about drakes.

In typical ringbill fashion, we had a flock of 8-10 set down in our decoys while we were still pushing the boat on shore and loading up our guns. Sneaky little suckers. Never did get a shot at that flock.

The slough we're hunting tomorrow morning had some good rafts of birds on it this afternoon with another 30 honkers or so. If things go right, we should make short work of things in the morning.

We didn't see many mallard flocks though. Lots of divers, a few woodies, no teal, and alright numbers of honkers.

Man I hate hot weather.

[Guest]

It was hot outside! I have the sunburn to prove it.

After having my gear linkage broken on my motor by the time I got to the slough(was fine yesterday)? Motor with no gears.. major hold up at the access as we were running late anyhow.. We ended up taking the only place left near by that we felt using a push pole and a broken paddle to get to(right in the middle of everyone).. we still managed to drop 10 birds and should have had twice as many. Everyone would have limited if the skybusters wouldnt have started... We seen way too many high birds dropped today that were not recoverable.

Mixed bag of teal, mallard, and the woodie dissapeared into the rice? .. It was an excellent day considering we got shooting at all. We seen plenty of limits dropped.

Seen TONS of teal flying this morning... the geese are all hiding in someone's yard in Richfield.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Worst opener of my life. But, I was at work and not in the swamp, that's why.

[gethanet]

Lots and lots of birds. My first shot dropped a full color drake woody. And the best part was he had a band. Good way to start the season since my last band was 20 years ago. Other wise me and my cuz ended up with 7 ducks and one honker. Ducks where bwt, gwt, wood ducks, and a gadwall. Should of filled on both but with a few bad shots and the group across from us takeing 80 yard shots we just couldn't get there. The warden even had a few not so kind words about the. I guess all they ere shooting was BBB.

[Dotch]

Ah feel yer pain...fortunately I spent the day hunting the wetland west of the house. Teal came in shortly after 9. We each dropped 1 and nothing came close the rest of the day. Geese were AWOL after having covered the pond 2 days ago. They were back in the area tonite so will check them out in the AM. Was warm & lotsa ladybugs (inhaled one of the blankety-blanks) but still beats working by a mile. Oh yeah, we were working. We were taping an outdoor segment with a TV camera man until 2 PM. Was a scream!

[ironman]

could have been better could have been worse. Saw lots of ducks but they kept flaring...figured I was set up too close to the parked vehicles...even though I wasn't that close. I moved five minutes later..my very first Pintail. I made another move, after seeing duck after duck put down in a certain spot and shot a woodie and a mallard. Shouldve been two mallards but on my easiest shot of the day..my saftey was still on. Oh well..nearly a limit. The morning should be busy at least I hope I'm headed out to the same area but not the same body of water with some guys from work, they claim it's one hell of a spot...we will have to wait and see. Good luck all.

[captkev]

We saw plenty of birds, I shot twice at a mallard and missed, my friend Erick dropped two honkers first thing about 9:15 a.m.

This was my girlfriends first hunting experiance, so I was trying my best at keeping her in the higher percentage shooting lane, Its too early for her this morning, so I'm headed back to set up for geese, they're in a chopped corn feild. Got to go, honk honk!

[JEV]

Excellent opener for my Dad and I. We were done by about 10:30. 7 Drake mallards and one hen. The hen was banded so that was a nice little suprise. We seen hundreds of ducks. It was the best I've seen it in years. They were pouring in when we were setting out the dekes. We also picked up our two geese as an added bonus....

JEV

[hanson]

Oh my lord, can you say WINDY!!! Maybe I should spell it... W-I-N-D-Y!!!

We had to abruptly change plans this morning as that SE wind was not going to let us hunt the pond we wanted to. We would have had to paddle all the way across the pond into the waves & whitecaps to get to the lee side in a canoe loaded with decoys. So we went back to our spot from yesterday morning, it was a lot less windy there and an easier paddle.

Things started out slow with very few birds moving and not a lot of shooting from neighboring hunters. As the sun started creeping up across the sky, we started to get action from the ringbills again. A flock of 4-6 here, a flock of a dozen a few minutes later. These ringbill flocks this morning had good numbers of drakes in them so we were picking & choosing our shots carefully. When all was said and done, 6 drake ringbills came home with the 2 of us. All were 1 shot kills also, no cripples to chase which was nice for a change.

We saw alot of woodies this morning too, but they just weren't cooperating. We had a nice flock of 25 birds or so buzz the edge of the dekes a few times but kept their distance. Saw a small flock of wigeon also and had some mergansers stop by to visit us.

The coolest thing was having 2 trumpeter swans swim out from the cattails very near our blind. I have no idea where they came from but they swam right across the front of our decoys. The 2 big white trumpeters also had 3 smaller fuzzy grey ones following them. Pretty cool!

[captkev]

Windy is right, We shot 6 honkers, 2 woodies and a green wing teal, this morning I added a small flock of dove decoys just off to the side of our canadian bigfoots for a confidance spred, yesterday we noticed pigons with the live honkers in the same feild, I'll tell ya, that Air dove with the spinning wings was about to fly off its post. But when the birds came in, they were putting on one heck of a show, rocking back and forth, allmost looked like they were doing barrel rolls. what a great morning.

Todays photo

[iceman16]

it was slow for us. saw tons of ducks. would have been good today but about 20 minutes before shooting time i heard a boat pull up about 50 yards away from our blind and decoys, flashed our spot light to let them know we were there and they saw us and started setting up. and they were skyblasting anything and everything. screwed our hunt today. but ended up with a GWT yesterday and a woddie today. guess its better then not gettin anything and i shot both birds in our group .

Iceman

[icecold]

Hunted my same spot that Ive hunted the past 25 years on minnesota river bottoms, saw about 3-5 hundred birds come out off of slough first light sat morning, but by nine it was real slow had a few shots at woodies that was about it , Sunday was okay 2 woodies and 1 mallard, didnt see alot of ducks like other years, But Im waiting for the cold nasty weather, thats when it starts to heat up in river bottoms, Happy hunting, Remember waterfowlers always blow their load..,,,

[black max]

I hunted up by pine city and it was slow for me. We saw alot of birds early then not many after shooting time. We got off a few shots and no birds to show for it. There were alot of people around us and most were sky busting on stuff that was 3or 4times out of the furthest range of a shotgun. I need to find some better places to hunt, all you do is scare the birds away for everyone and yourself when you spend all day sky busting on birds, but what can you do. Hopefully we will have better weather and better hunting next weekend.

[East Rush Rules]

"Excellent opener for my Dad and I. We were done by about 10:30. 7 Drake mallards and one hen. The hen was banded so that was a nice little suprise. We seen hundreds of ducks. It was the best I've seen it in years. They were pouring in when we were setting out the dekes. We also picked up our two geese as an added bonus....

JEV "

Hey Jev,

Isn't the woodie limit 2 birds a piece? The duck hunting saturday wasn't too great on opener, with all of the birds flying at sunrise and today 3 of us manajed 7, 6 woodies and 1 mallard. All in all a decent weekend and a good way to start the season. Korey

[Dotch]

Nice finish to the weekend given the short hours available for me to hunt today. Hunted alone & got a Canada around 10 lbs. and a young drake mallard. Must've been a late hatched one because there was very little green on the head to go along with the brown breast. No limits but I was away from telephones in the fresh air & enjoyed myself.

[JEV]

Quote:

---

"Excellent opener for my Dad and I. We were done by about 10:30. 7 Drake mallards and one hen. The hen was banded so that was a nice little suprise. We seen hundreds of ducks. It was the best I've seen it in years. They were pouring in when we were setting out the dekes. We also picked up our two geese as an added bonus....

JEV "

Hey Jev,

Isn't the woodie limit 2 birds a piece? The duck hunting saturday wasn't too great on opener, with all of the birds flying at sunrise and today 3 of us manajed 7, 6 woodies and 1 mallard. All in all a decent weekend and a good way to start the season. Korey

---

Don't know...didn't shoot any woodies. All we got were mallards and geese. It was the same again today. Windy as can be, and not as many birds flying. Dad and I ended up getting 7 drake mallards and one hen mallard and one goose each again today. We had our limit of mallards by 8:30 this morning. Best opening weekend I've had in a while.

JEV

[shae1986]

This opener was great for our groop. It ended up being a long hunt today not getting out of the field until noon but it was worth it. We shot 13 geese and 18 ducks. The birds decoyed real nice and we ended the day when a flock of 15 mallards cupped into the dekes. One of the more memerable openers in my young hunting career.

[Borch]

We had an enjoyable day today. Nothing fantastic but lots of birds and some decent shooting. Only drawback was a guy on shore skybusting ducks as they swung to come into our decoys. Ended up with 2 drake woodies, a drake and a hen mallard and a blue wing teal. Lots of woodies and mallards flying around.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

saw lots of ducks where we were. heard lots and lots of shooting both mornings, saw lots of hunters out too. too many in some spots actually. but i got a few teal and a woodie and my sister got to tag along with her new waders, hat, jacket, and game-boy. she had lots of fun so that made my weekend right there.

[Wayne Sieber]

Gimp - Great job on the banded woodie! I have never even heard of that before - Are you getting him mounted?

[FOOT]

One Mallard, One Woodie & One BW on Saturday. My brother got Two Mallards.

Didn't do anything on Sunday, no ducks flying and heard very few shots.

Went grouse hunting Saturday about 11am. Saw four shot at one missed.

Went fishing early afternoon Saturday. Lots of small Northern and Bass.

Went fishing again on Sunday, pretty much the same outcome.

Still enjoyable to get out and away from work.

[jerk bait]

Took my 11 yr old daughter with me on Sat am. Walked in at 9:05. I shot 2 mallards. The next slough over erupted with ducks. I picked out 2 drakes and then watched the birds circle and come back in for the next half hour. We were back at camp in less than an hour including retrieving and travel time.It was over pretty quick but what do you do. Sunday I let my son and his friend shoot. After alot of shooting they only dropped one. Quite a few birds around but with the buebird weather they quit flying soon after shooting time. I didn't hear much shooting on sunday in our area. It sounds like the weather will be changing should make the hunting better.