where are the ducks ?

[Gordie]

A buddy of mine went out to Lac Qui Parle and the place he was staying at is run buy a guide service and the guide called off all the hunts for this week because of lack of birds. so my buddy went to the Morris area and still no birds and today he's in the Elbow lake area and still no birds. he did see about 200 geese and thats it. He calls with daily reports that arnt good He also said that he is going to fergus in the morning and if no birds he is going to head home.any body seen any thing?

[BigWadeS]

well I can't speak for Minnesota numbers but talked to my dad in ND last night as well as one of my best friends who lives 60 miles n of Devils Lake and they are still waiting for the push to start coming down, weather holds, should be just a matter of time, usually the first weekend of deer it seems to get the big boys down from Canada

[hhguide]

yup my dad is out in ND right now in Devils Lake and he said its been poor shoot out there all local birds that are smart really smart!

[HunterLee]

Tues-Thursday we did great, had lots of new birds on our swamp. Got two bands in three days, and one was a $100. Lots of big greenheads, don't know where they were coming from but I was happy to shoot them, seeing and hearing quite a few geese flying at night the last couple nights.

[fritz179]

I don't think most of the migration has started yet and all the local birds that do stick around are becoming smarter with each day and are avoiding the hot spots from the last two weeks. I drove today a long ways through the state and I didn't see much flying around either. I think we just gotta be patient and hit it at the right time.

[vexi]

I'm from the Morris area, not many ducks around here either. Some mallards around but most of the woodies seem to have left nothing like opener weekend. There is quite a few geese around.

[ChuckN]

Here in Otter Tail County it seems pretty darn slow from the reports I'm getting from those who have been out. I did sneak out this evening with Gissert and not much for geese either.

We need some cold and it really doesn't look like we will get it anytime soon....looking at Canada's weather forecast.

We finally got our first hard frost a couple mornings ago. Usually we get heavy frost in mid/late September, not mid-October.

How much I love to hunt, I'm passing on the hunt at least for tomorrow. Too much work to do around the house and I'll save my passes for November when things should get much better.

I'm happy from last week's 4 day hunt...that was good...and I don't care to eat another duck for awhile.

[Gissert]

On Tuesday, there were good duck numbers, as well as geese. yesterday morning, I hunted the same spot, and the birds were almost nil.

I decided to go after some geese in the evening on a usually reliable field, but as ChuckN stated, the geese were just not around.

Heading out to a small pothole in a chopped corn field that held some woodies yesterday. If that does not pan out, looks like I might just sleep in tomorrow.

[koonie]

The vast majority of the ducks and geese are still sitting at Oak Hammock.

[norwall]

Lac qui Parle only has 2500 geese,the lowest #ever recorded @this time a yr. All the birds are stil up in Can.boys

[dan z]

thiers a bunch in southern minnesota thier just sitting in the middle of the lakes

[ABreuer]

Ya I Hunted some lakes in the Shakopee chaska area this morning. There was very heavy fog until 11 managed to get 5 mallards a teal and a widgeon but we worked for them.Seen a few flocks of geese to.

[Huntin&Fishin]

Ya we scouted from Gracevile to morris to Herman to elbow lake and even fergus! we barely saw any thing. Out of all that we only got to jump shoot one pond and got one gadwall out of all. Short of birds!!!!!

[icepirate]

seen good numbers of ringbills this morning all headed southeast west ottertail co.

[icepirate]

no honkers not one all day to be seen

[WalleyeJeff]

We hunted just North of Brainerd yesterday evening only saw a few birds (less than 20) while we pulled desoys at 6:30. Hope it improves as this is his first year,

[icecold]

Hunted Sat morning and had 4 mallards and 1 teal .my sons and i have had great shooting the past few weeks in southern minnesota, Lots of the wood ducks and teal moved out thurs and friday, but still enough stuff flying around to keep thr barrels hot

[fritz179]

Pretty lousy hunting this weekend. Saturday saw two ducks and got one wood duck. That's all we saw and this morning we saw a distant flock of mallards and one goose, no birds. Although I haven't been around the last week to scout, so I just had to pick a last of the minute spot.

[Quackaddict9]

shot limits of ducks yesterday and today... mixed bag on water yesterday and then mallards on field this morning, also one band. There are ducks around, some areas that have good #'s of ducks, esp for mallards

[IceHawk]

Our group shot some green winged teal(one very mature drake) and woodys this morning. We saw a decnt amount of birds(woody's) but we definately need a system to bring in some new birds.

[wallter]

Up west of Detroit Lakes last weekend shot 5 ringers, 2 hoods (oops) and one nice mallard. Also got a nice rooster as a bonus. Drove around and scouted (200 miles worth) and saw several flooded fields (very wet up there) and only a couple were holding lots of waterfowl (everything even swans). Couldn't get permission.

It seems to me that everything is bunched up. We even found one slough that was full of birds with all the surrounding sloughs holding just a few birds.

I typed in Oak Hammock Marsh into google and looked at there waterfowl counts. If you look closely, it looks like for geese on Oct. 3rd 155,000, on Oct. 8th 144,000, and on Oct. 16th 87,000. HERE COMES ABOUT 70,000 GEESE !!!!

It looks like the ducks aren't moving at all.

[CANOPY SAM]

Yesterday morning there was a reasonably decent push of geese moving south from extreme Northwestern Minnesota. Probably saw 4-5K birds moving south at high altitudes with a strong Northerly tailwind.

The weather is still pretty mild. Ducks have dwindled in our area. I miss the days when we had a nice consistent flow of waterfowl through the state throughout the entire season. Now they all sit in Canada until the absolute last minute, then blast to Arkansas in two days with the first nasty Canadian storm.

[Corey Bohn]

Ducks are spotty. You'll see a slough full of ducks and the next has nothing. Did see a lot of birds last Wednesday west of Alexandria in certain areas while scouting. New divers and a fair amount of geese. Couldn't get permission on the sloughs where we saw them so we set up a few miles away on a slough with a lof of freshwater shrimp. Shot one goose and one redhead. We were late getting out as we didn't get set up until sunrise. Had we been half hour earlier we would of had 4-5 flocks of divers in the decoys. Spent the final three days of MEA in SW MN and again same story, lots of ducks on one slough and none any where else. Spent the weekend bowhunting with son and youth rifle hunting in South Dakota. We saw nearly as many deer as ducks.

[Gordie]

saturday was tough to say the least we went back to the lake that we hunted on opener and as we set our decoys, birds were getting out of the rice all over and nothing really came back we got a couple of shots at geese (got none) and saw some ducks but they were decoy shy or something. On sunday I took the day off for a b-day party for my son but a buddy went out to a great spot by St. Fransis and jumped a couple dozen mallards and about 200 woodies in a little creek and it was before shooting and they wait for there return and only ended up with 1 hen mallard and the woodies never came back.

this is the first time out with no ducks to bring home but still enjoyed the day out with friends.

[Ray Esboldt]

We had a steady stream of puddlers from 8 to 10:30 (mostly mallards, some pintails and gadwall) on Sunday. We were north of the cities about 50 miles. I was pretty pleased to see some movement when there didn't really seem to be a reason for it.