field reports

[superfish2]

Well how did we do? I hunted public land in the south metro and saw some teal, woodies, and geese before shooting hours. Once 9 am arrived saw very few ducks. Ended up with 2 geese for two guys. Should have had a easy limit of geese but a the shooting is still rusty. Heading back out tommrow.

[30 inch eyes]

Hunted about a half mile west of swan lake (near Courtland) saw a few flocks about 8:30 then the morons on swan started to shoot it up at 8:50 and most everything was sky high by 9. ended up with 1 woodie for 4 peolple, I don't think we will get full from that. I will try again tommorrow

[rich4walleyes]

We did not do very well either. 4 of us hunted north of the metro in Carlos Avery. Saw a few ducks before the 9 AM shooting time but after that only had 1 duck come within shooting range. That one is still flying. We actually saw more geese than ducks after 9 AM. We did end up with 2 geese in the bag. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow.

Rich

[superfish2]

How busy was carlos Avery? Most of the places I hunt later in the year I won't even think about on opening weekend (i.e. rice lake). It's been about two years since I've hunted at Carlos Avery though.

[TV BOY]

3 of us shot a mixed bag of 15 Sat, 18 today . Not so sure the 9 A.M opening helped other than less time to wait "holding your spot" (public wpa).

[Roosterslayer05]

Saw very few ducks saturday, only one came in to our spread and I left the blind to jump a pond behind us when it did, my dad missed it and thats the only action we got. Sunday I made a nice shot on a drake wood duck that was about 40 yards high. I also had another wood duck come into my spread that I missed, got one shot off at a duck that snuck me right at shooting time, preaty slow but at least I saw some birds sunday. I was hunting West Of Mille Lacs. So in 2 days I got 1 duck, I jumped 2 different ponds and a creek saturday, and the 2 ponds again sunday and dident see a single bird in them, Thats the first time I have ever jumped both ponds and not seen a duck in a single day, not to mention no ducks in 2 days! Where are all the wood ducks! I was planing to go on a duck/grouse trip next weekend but with such poor hunting I might stay home and hunt the cities, im sure I would see more birds.

[set the drag]

hunted north middle lake by nicollet.
Really good weekend with 9 on sat 2 mallys, 3 woodies and 4 teal today was okay with 2 redheads and 1 ringbill. with only the two of us. saw a lot of groups with one and none so thats a bummer for them and a plus for me. less likly for them to be on the lake next weekend. This openner was one of the best in my books. Hope my aim satys in line shot real well 20 for the weekend and my buddy shot prolly around a dozen.

Hope the crowd goes down. (to many people from the cities in my mind)

[Finfinder]

We hunted close to Ortonville Sat. and Sunday, I was home for the 2nd half of the Vikes. What does that say? Where are all the teal? Were going back the end of October. Hopefully we'll do better.

[30 inch eyes]

went back out today and the same thing, some ***** started shooting 20 min early and most of the rest started about 10 min early. It's really frustrating! we ended up with 2 woodducks and one teal. I'll try next weekend mabey carry the cell phone next weekend to report some of these jerks. Oh yeah there was one highlight one person was playing tunes on the duck call also.

[SEwalleye]

My worst nightmares came true. When I looked at the weather forecast on Friday, I noticed that there was a small cold front that had pushed through thurs - fri. I think that a lot of teal and woodies must have left.
We hunted a WPA in Ottertail county - 0 DUCKS, 0 GEESE! What a bummer of a weekend. Only had 1 good shot at a drake mallard and missed. However, there are BETTER DAYS TO COME! I can't wait for some colder weather!

[Flipnripem]

Dad and I saw enought duck`s to make the effort worth while. We hunted in Freeborn county. There were a lot of shooter`s and not all of them were shooting. Spoke with a
C.O. on saturday, a very nice guy. Hutchins I think was his name. There is so much water in the southern part of the state the duck` s have no reason to go to the lake`s.
We did do well on a flooded cornfield today. Mixed bag, greenheads,widgeon,spoony`s, and a few mach 5 teal that are still flying. Lot`s of geese staying out and flying back to the refuge in the morning`s. TOO DARN HOT FOR DUCKIN! Later season start is a must! Flip

[TV BOY]

We saw a lot of teal- bluewings mainly and a bunch of greenwings. They already had a good fat layer going, which I though was a little odd given the earlier opening date.

We didn't see many woodies, and usually they are thick. We only saw one flock of ringnecks. Years past their numbers were up.

New this year were the widgeon. I think within our group of 3 we shot 6widgeon.

And lastly I didn't even get the oportunity to claim the infamous "SHOVELER AWARD"

[tru-Bowstring]

Had a great weekend. Me and two buddies hunted a breaver pond both days in north central MN.

SAT.- 11 mallards(8 drakes,3 hens), 4 bwt, 1 gwt, 1 woodie, 1 ringneck.

SUN.- 9 mallards(5 hens 4 drakes), 3 woodies(all drakes), 3 bwt, 1 honker.

[superfish2]

Well same spot as yesterday but this time some skybusting yahoos ruined everything for everybody on the slough. There were 6 guys together hunting over 4 decoys. Thats right 6 people 4 decoys. Everybody else out there was doing it right, calling and waiting for the feet down shot in your own decoys. And these clowns shot at everything within 100 yards and unloaded everytime if the trigger was pulled once all 18 shells went. We watched them cripple at least 2 geese and 2 ducks. It was all you could do not make some smart remark back at the parking lot. You know ask them if they found any of the birds they shot. Or ask if they got volume discounts from federal.

You know I usaully hunt public land in and around the metro so i should expect some of this. But I don't think I've ever seen sky busting this blatant before.

Anyhow we got skunked, and really did not see that many birds today. More then yesterday but still very few.

[ATM]

I hunted on public land by norway lake by new london. Got there at 630 to hunt the same pothole as last year. A group of 4 hunters got to the same slough at 5am so we were out of luck. After sitting at the slough we chose for an hour just listening to other people shoot we found a slough with some flooded timber and a good point to sit on. We ended up getting some good action. Overall we saw alot of ducks, hopefully we can get the area we want this week so we can get at them. The weather is terrible, looked like the golfers were enjoying it. Adam.

[Borch]

Well it was pretty slow for us this weekend. Got 3 Saturday for 3 hunters. Highlight was seeing the largest flock of Bluewing Teal I've every seem. There were over 100 birds in that flock. About 40 of them decoyed and we got two(impressive shooting ).

Today my son and I went out alone and got 5(3 mallards, 1 bwt and 1 ringneck). Shooting was better on my part. My son had a tough day hitting what he was shooting at. Still not a lot of birds flying.

Still a good opener though. It's a great time whether the ducks cooperate or not.

Borch

[MNice]

Hunted a WPA near Dora lake in S. MN. got there just in time as 5 others looked like they wanted to hunt where we set up. Said good morning to them, but did'nt hear a reply, they were able to hunt on a pond farther back on the same WPA. Saw very few ducks, couple of hen mallards landed in our dekes so we passed and hoped some drakes would join them-- they didn't. Great day, good company, 0 ducks. Oh well, we have many more weekends!

[duckbill]

32 birds for 4 guys for the 2 days. Mallards, woodies, teal. Sunday morning we knocked down 4 woodies within 5 minutes of being able to shoot. Never fired a shot myself again Sunday. All woodducks buzzing the decoys. Must have had 60 in the decoys in the next two hours. Teal must have got shot up Saturday because we only saw one in the 3 hours that we were out on Sunday. Pretty average opener. Best part was we only lost one gimp all weekend. Dogs were at there best which really makes all the working with them worth it. The crockpot was cooking some ducks during the football game yesterday. I was in Wright County.

[This message has been edited by duckbill (edited 09-27-2004).]

[Riverratpete]

Hunted a rice lake WMA in NC MN, in by 8 out by 11, only thing I hit were musqitoes, never even warmed the barrel.Way way way too nice out, 75 degrees, blue as blue could be sky and no wind, hhmmmm, guess I got grouse hunting, kicked up at least a dozen Woodcock and 6 Grouse..now if I could get a decent shot at them it would be great, starting to watch the clock in "Cubeland" already waiting to head back up this weekend, hope the weather improves

[Little Joe]

We had our best opener in year's. The geese were as thick as the mosquito's. Enough ducks to keep the barrels warm - mostly BWT, GWT, mallards, woodies and ringers. 3 guys hunting and we were a few short from individual limits each day. (Otter Tail/Grant counties).

[Froggy4371]

Hey Stet the Drag! Where were you guys sitting on Sunday on North Middle? Me and 2 other guys were sitting in the first island/bay from the west on the west side facing north. I was just wondering if you saw the 2 yahoo's that tried to steal our geese we shot. I would sure like to give them a peace of my mind. We called in a pair of geese and shot at them I dropped the first one dead and me and the guy I was hunting with shot and the second one and hit it 4 times. It went down behind us and it was dead. While our friend was trying to get out of the blind (because he had a new dog and wanted him to work) these kids came up and were going to take this goose. I could see the goose laying dead behind us and was just waiting for the buddy to push pull to get it and when he got to the goose they finally turned and left but this goose was never even shot at by them.? Sorry to vent but I was just wondering if you saw them!

Froggy

[bigbucks]

Hunted LP river, West of Long Prairie.

Probably the poorest opener we've ever had for seeing birds. I don't think we saw anything but mergansers & geese on Saturday. We shot 8 of the maybe 15 mergansers we saw, found 5. Man are they stupid! We had a group of 4 fly in & land in our decoys while two of us were standing on either side of the dekes wading across to look for the first ones we'd shot. They almost hit my cousin. When they jumped we got all four, not very tough shots.

Got one goose, nocked some feathers off a loner, that we should have had, but he kept going.

We shot 3 woodies yesterday, found 1. The river grass is so thick, it's a crapshoot on finding them depending how they land. We looked hard, just couldn't find them, very frustrating. Recovered someone elses fresh kill that came floating down the river.

[PikeTipper]

We had a tough opener too. Saturday we shot 3 teal,2 mallards and 2 geese, Sunday about the same minus 1 mallard. We saw plenty of birds prior to 9am but very few after.

[Farley]

Sat morning 1 mallard. Went back out in the afternoon and a buddy and I go to jump this little hole tucked back in the reeds which is connected to the same pond we were hunting. So we pull up all stealth-like and this is the conversation that followed:
"Do ya see anything?" I said
"yeah, theyre in there, get ready" he says
He stands and takes aim, and as he stands I hear a splash and he fires, BAM!, and he sits there with his gun still aimed, but nothing gets up.
"Did you get one?" I asked
"Yeah....I got all of them"
"What!"
"yeah, they're dead"
"How many were in there?"
"I got at least 3"
"With one shot?"
I didnt believe him so we paddle in there and sure enough, there are 3 dead birds floating there and one more off to the side.

4 birds, one shot. Probably will never witness that again. 2 woodies and 2 BWT.

[set the drag]

hey frogg,
Don't no who you are but you would reconize my boat if you saw it. I'm in a 16.5 ft boat with welded blind. 25 horse motor that goes thru anything. if you see a boat big and fast more likely to be me than anyone else.
there were two guys in my boat on sunday we were sitting just west of wiwi bay. on a patch in the middle. if it was me you prolly saw me stand up on my blind to look around.

farly, did the same thing on a creek sat 5 birds 3 shots and not a water shot 3 woodies 2 teal
[This message has been edited by set the drag (edited 09-27-2004).]

[This message has been edited by set the drag (edited 09-27-2004).]

[so haaad]

I think the mosquitos had their best weekend in years. They took a gallon or two from me, especially Sunday morning. Hunting in Douglas County was fair, but seemed like there were less ducks flying than the last few years. I got 4 ducks and a goose on Saturday morning, and 5 ducks on Sunday morning. The warm and sunny weather did two things: it prevented the ducks from moving around much, and me from leaving the hammock in the afternoon. I don't know about the rest of you, but it seemed way too early to be hunting ducks.

[Guest]

Hunted NW of Willmar both days.

1 goose Saturday...gotta love Hevi-Shot, droped it dead at 60 yards, and a pair of woodies on Sunday.

Passed up a lot of shots Sunday due to the fact they would have landed in the tall cattails behind us and did not want to risk not finding them.

Overall, it was a good weekend, just good to be out, but felt like I shouldve been chucking a buzzbait instead of sitting in a blind.

Yes, better days are still to come....

[bear204]

sat. me and my brother hunted in douglas county saw some birds not as many as past years, knocked down 2 green heads and a woody the rest are all still flying. Needed to pick one out of the flock. Pretty much the same results sunday, a couple of woodies.

[IceHawk]

Well openers come and gone. As far as numbers taken in wasn't real good, but the time shared with friends made it all worth wild!!! Saturday our group of three shot 1 mallard 1bwt and one woodie. Sunday we got 3 woodies and a mallard. To me it looked like the numbers of birds seen were down but the weather could of been the issue. Things will get better when the migration starts so think positive for some nasty weather come October and us Diehard Waterfowlers will relish in the storms.

[tru-Bowstring]

Didn't have such a hot morning in the blind. Hunted a rice covered river in north central MN. ended up with two woodies and a mallard. the mallard was double banded though, first banded duck we ever got in are group. don't usually hear of any banded ducks in the area that we hunt.