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Waterfowl Reports


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Black ducks.  They appear to be hen mallards, look incredibly similar, even the males look like susies.  Use to get a few in a local slough in the Duluth area back in the 90"s.

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  • 11 months later...

Was out scouting a couple smaller ponds in the Zimmerman area. Not much moving today kicked up 3 wood ducks but they would have been too far of a shot. Walked a small river a bit too see if anything was back there nothing. The ducks are sure loaded in all the metro ponds I drove by on the way up though :mad:

 

Need some cold weather to get some birds moving

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

The woodies are in little ponds in the woods :)

You might even get a bonus grouse

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  • 2 weeks later...

This site has really tanked, and I haven't been on here for about a year, but I felt compelled to fill some of my old duck blind buddies in on the latest happenings in NW Minnesota.

From what I can see we've really hit that Late October lull time.  The vast majority of our local birds pulled out with that big full moon, and the cool clear nights last week.  I've been back and forth across the countryside quite a bit, and I'm seeing very few migratory waterfowl in the area.

With temps being what they are, and now that everything has dried out quite a bit up here, the majority of our farm fields have been cultivated and turned up black.  Pretty balmy now for this time of year.  I wouldn't expect any kind of big migration over the next week or so, but I'd imagine a few will start trickling down out of Canada here and there.

I hear things are going pretty well out in the Dakotas.  Prolly smart to head over there if you really wanna get into birds.  Just not much to speak of at all right now in Northwest Minnesota.

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Canopy Sam glad to have you back we missed you. Keep the reports coming. We were all waiting for you to start getting the band back together again.

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Got out for the first time this year last weekend. Opening morning got my two roosters and then started scouting. I didnt see much for birds all day until in the evening when I saw about 40-50 redheads on one pond. Set up there the next morning with my old man and we got 3 reds, 3 gwt, and a woodie and mallard drake. Next day saw more ducks on that pond as well and ended up setting up there as well the next morning. We shot 5 bluebills and 2 bonus geese that morning. Then shot a nice fat rooster that day and headed home. Im off the next 6 days after today so we'll see what kind of trouble I can get myself into. I will post pics on the other thread when i get a chance.

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  • 6 months later...

About the the biggest news I can come up with on this years bird info is that significantly more hooded mergs than usual have been seen in central - western MN.

 

Id like to get a nice one.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

I have been seeing gadwalls my dads pond has a pair and 3 other ponds have them to 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

 Lots of mallards, geese, and swans around

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  • 9 months later...
  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

The swans are thick. Geese are showing up in numbers and same with the cranes!

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  • Official Fishing Report Team - MN

Seeing a bunch of full plumage divers, swans and geese on the sauk river near Rockville. Spring is always excitieing for a waterfowler. Put a few wood duck houses out last week and checked on the ones already in place!

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  • 1 year later...

March 21 - saw my first goldeneyes of the spring migration tonight.  They were cruising south so I imagine they were scouting further north but didn’t find the water they were looking for.

 

There are spots open on the river but not much around Little Falls yet.  Judging by the looks of the ice though I’ll be seeing open water by Sunday.  

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March 26 I got a text from a neighbor that he saw a half dozen woodies.  Gotta take his word for it since he knows ducks but I still wanna see em with my own eyes.

 

March 27 and they’re at my place along with some hoodeds.  And we’ve only seen a few goldeneyes so far I’m calling them early birds and won’t doubt my sanity next year when the early ones show up again.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

Time to fire this baby up again...any early goose pics and/or reports?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

Well I seen a few groups of mallards this morning and two big flicks of teal. The geese are flying high and early or late in the day

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Just settling in for a 4 hour nap before launching the boat on LOW - provided we’re not in the middle of a T-storm.  South winds so that helps.  Rain doesn’t bother me but the chance of lightning does.

 

Good luck tomorrow.

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No doubt @papadarv!  They’re really good at it too.  The small family flocks have joined together where I’ve been seeing geese and now number 50+ typically.

 

We saw some geese and a few ducks today but didn’t shoot any.  We didn’t find anything worth setting up on.  Pretty amazing how slim the duck population is up here.  The biggest flock I’ve seen, including the drive up, numbered 5 birds.  It’s been mostly random singles and pairs.

 

The flooding up here has been amazing too.  Something like 10 inches in 25 hours.  Roads are flooded and the ditches are raging rivers.  The downstream sides of the bigger culverts look like power plant discharges.

 

We’re considering other options for tomorrow.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

Well I did not get up this morning had a good time at the wedding!! I sneaked down to my dads pond at noon and bingo. A triple yep this bad shot sniped one off a log and knocked the other two out of the air. Finn was on them ducks like flies on poop. One hen woodie dove on Finn and he tried to find her. I waited an hour and half for that hen woodie to pop up but it never happened.

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Those hen woodies can be some tough customers!

 

Since I had half the state to cover on the way home I swung through a spot I wanted to hunt last year but was shut out by a storm - go figure.  I had just the last 2 hours to paddle it and see what was up.  Started pushing up birds right away; mallards and ringers.  Didn't try shooting anything till I got back in it a bit.  Found a nice 40 yard wide hole in cover and a lone mallard came by.  One shot, one dead bird.  Stuck around for the last 45 minutes, got buzzed by some teal, then time was up.  More birds showed up while I picked up.  Good chance I'll be back.

Edited by Wanderer
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I told myself I was done hunting Minnesota..... 57$ later out of the budget I'll be living off if ham sandwiches the next two weeks and one pintail and one goose..... I'm a sucker ?

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • leech~~
      Nope not me.  May want to go nextdoor and ask around?  
    • smurfy
      Looks to me like Leech brought his chair home!!😅😆
    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
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