Duck Reports?

[brdhunter]

Horrible opener overall! A few drakes, couple woodies, and few teal. Lasted about 25 min. Pretty dead! Also heard some sub-par reports from ND as well. Could be in for a long season if Canada didn't have a hatch...

[IceHawk]

Pretty slow opening weekend but we did manage a few woodducks. Looking forward to the later season as this is when we usally put the smack down on the mallards!

[icecold]

Did reall well this morning again, kids slept in so I went myself, 2 mallards and 2 wooducks, the shooting in my area started at 6.50 and went to about 8 none stop, alot ofpeople out this morning, birds everywhere first hour and a half,

[Gordie]

opener was awsome to say the least. we got 1 woodie,1spoonbill,1 bw tealand 10 mallards

sunday was just as good with 1 goose, 3 mallards 5 woodies and 3 gw teal

[jeepguy]

Awesome opener!!! 5 guys, 20 mallards, done by 10:30. SUnday was a little slower, we picked up 2 woodies, 1 green wing teal, 2 blue wings, 1 drake mallard, and a canada goose. We also saw a good size flock of snows. We were just south about 30 miles of the Alexandria area.

[USDA3]

I worked the Sunrise section of Carols Avery Sat sampling hunter harvested birds for AI, and overall it was preatty poor. Only had one group of hunters have more than a few ducks. mostly BWteal but a few woodies and mallard.

[grey ghost]

Good numbers of ducks and geese were seen near St. James on Saturday. Shooting was pretty good until noon. But because of poor shooting our group managed to educate a lot of birds and only take 2 mallards and 1 gw teal.

[Scott M]

Decent opener in SouthCentral MN. 2 guys with 2 limits consisting of 3 mallards, 4 blue-wings, and 5 green-wings. Not sure where the woodies went. We heard a few in the morning and then they were gone.

Today was much slower as the birds were pretty educated from all that shooting. 3 guys with a goose, a teal, a mallard, and a shoveler.

Lots of fun, better than last year's opener. Good to get back on track as far as getting a limit as last year was a break from a run of a few years of tallying limits.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

well i slept in and missed out this morning. yesterday afternoons scouting produced a wpa that nobody had hunted opening morning. needless to say it was loaded last night and this morning my friends put the smack down on em. 7 man limit mallards and teal. man did i get greased about not getting up. scouted tonight and found 2 different silage fields holding mallards and honks. going to take friday off so i can hunt the birds without worrying about a roost bust.

[schr0563]

Not only my best opener but the best duck hunt of my life came on Saturday. My father in law and myself were in the Alexandria area. We finished by 11:00 with 4 mallards, 4 teal, 3 drake woodies, and 1 drake pintail. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to get a pintail. Guess we were in the right place at the right time.

[HNTNBUX]

I headed to northern MN for the opener this year for the first time. Scouted all day on Friday and only saw about fifteen ducks. We stopped at a local establishment and mentioned to guy that we were having no luck finding ducks. Ten minutes later he had drawn a map and gave us detailed directions to a small lake. We drove there about 9pm and it looked good.

Saturday morning we got our limit of wood ducks, widgeon, and ringnecks. Sunday we got our limt including wood ducks, mallards and ringnecks. The best part of the deal we were the only ones on the lake and the ducks decoyed pretty well. All in all the most enjoyable opener I have had.

[BoxMN]

We had a really good opener, not limits, but considering we have a bunch of people hunting together we still see the same amount of duck as if we only had 2 or 3 guys. We shot 26 ducks Sat and Sunday combined. My Grandson shot his first duck (though he says he got all of them ha!) and that was great.

We also got a variety - greenwing, bluewing, gadwall, mallard, ringbill, woodies, bufflehead. The redheads came thrrough a bit early and sat in the dekes before 9 but didn't come back. Also had cans fly bay, so we saw a good variety, and that was cool.

We built another blind at my buddies farm on Saturday after we quick at noon, and it got used on sunday morning. The boys shot 22's, even a pistol for the first time, and rode atvs and had a blast. My Grandson asked when he could go up again, he said he had a blast, so mission accomplished

[AF-1984]

Saturday, pre 9 AM was great. No kidding, probably saw 300 wood ducks but very few of anything else. It was really fun calling them into the decoys. Once 9 AM hit though, things were much slower. 6 guys managed limits of wood ducks and one gw teal. Sunday morning was slower yet, same 6 guys, 7 wood ducks and one mallard. Also it was my 8 month old labs first hunt, she did a great job.

[Farley]

Saturday was a bust. Went out to Clearwater in Annandale. I was suprised we were the first ones at any of the landings @ 7:30 a.m. We should have gone out to the main lake and grabbed a spot but we figured it would be better in Otter, we were way off. Didnt fire a shot.

Sunday morning me and a buddy hunted a private farm pond which had 200 Woodies sitting in it. So we shot our 4 about an hour into shooting time (once we fired the first shot, the sky turned black and it took about 2 minutes to shoot our woodie limit) but the few mallards we saw flying didnt want to come down. Ended up with 3 drakes, 1 hen and a teal. Then the rest of the boys got up out of bed around 10:00 (drunks ) and jump shot another drake woodie and 2 geese.

[slabchaser]

I headed down south of mankato saturday I was on the lake by 5. Saw lots of ducks heard a ton of geese. ducks moved slow biffed the first and easiest shot of the day. But made up for it by changing the mind of a pair of honkers that were headed towards another guy. called them over only dropped one. we ended up with 2 mallards 2 teal 1 woodduck, and 1 goose the ducks decoyed really well. slow hunt but we stayed all day both days. sunday we saw 98% woodies shot 4. called in my largest flock of geese ever on water. not a ton but there was 20 or so of them. I dropped two of them. had lots of ducks in the decoys at shooting time but couldnt tell what they were so I let them go. ducks didnt decoy well today until I moved one of our pods closer then everything went fine.

[jhanks50]

Got out sunday too and did a lot better than i did on opener 2 guys got ten ducks 2 mallard, 3 woodducks, the rest teal and 1 goose (we did not have any goose decoys out I just hit the call a couple times and the pair came right over us and we dropped one) It was a great day to be one the water even got an hour nap during the slow time!

[dan z]

jhanks, were you on public water?

[WEBS]

Hunted west of Cold Spring in a pond that usally holds lots of ducks. Sat. never fired a shot. Sunday ended up with 3 mallards and 1 woodie. I brought my nephew with and man did he have a blast!! The time spent with him was priceless!!

[Dean Schellinger]

Went up north for the weekend and did pretty well. Saturday was really slow but the four of us managed 7 Wood Ducks, a hoodie, and a tiny Cackler.

Sunday was awesome. We split up our two boats to separate lakes and saw alot of ducks. The other group took the dog or we would have had our limit in under an hour, because everytime we got the boat to go and retrieve down birds ducks would land in the dekes. It paid off though because after the flurry of teal early the mallards and pintails started working us. We ended up with our limit of 3 Ringbills, 3 BWT, 2 GWT, 3 Mallards, and a Pintail. Lots of shooting and birds in the air all morning. Several large flocks of mallards and teal cruising the lake. We had a group of 80-90 teal buzz the dekes, very cool to watch.

The other group managed 3 mallards, a GWT, and a Pintail.

[jhanks50]

dan z...yes I was on a public hunting area

[Ryan Becklund]

Opener was the absolute worst that I have had. Water is real low near Redwood Falls and the ducks were non-existant. Like normal had 2 honkers land in the dekes 10 mins too early. They hung around till shooting time but were a long ways out and didn't get either. Jumped some woodies on a beaver dam by the river and ended the day with just one woodie. Was going to rain on Sunday so we slept in on Sunday. I know....that was lazy....but was not alot of ducks flyin anyways I hear. Good luck the rest of the season!

[Sergeant Slabber]

Complete opposite of Slayer73. This was the best opener I think I've ever had over the past 25 years of duck hunting. Our group of 4 could have easily limited out Saturday if we would have stayed out another hour longer, but there was fishing to be done. Sunday morning took all of 2 hours to limit. Mostly ringers buzzing around, but got some woodies and mallards in the mix as well. My shoulder is killing me!!

[tearin' lips]

Opener was pretty slow for us. A couple guys in the bay got some good pass shooting. Mosly Ringnecks around and no Wild Rice to speak of. Oh, well thats hunting for ya.

On an angrier note. I had to make a call in to the local C.O for a group on Sunday morning that was driving around in the bay we were hunting Rallying the Ducks for the reamining two people in their blind. They had the audacity to drive withing twenty yards of our decoys. They had no business to be anywhere close to where we were hunting!!

These guys also let ducks float for a couple hours before making an effort of retriving them. We watched one of their cripples(drake Ringneck) swim for an hour before he came close enough for us to finish him off. I watched them call their lab back from making a retrive on a couple occasions so they could work another flock that was coming towards them. The problem is that they then seemed to forget about the duck that they called the dog off of. As a result they lost 5 ducks for sure that they did not make a reasonable effort to include in their game bag. We ended up including two of those ducks they lost into our limit so they didn't go to waste. I hope these guys get whats coming to them. There is nothing that makes me angrier than that!

[paceman]

Worst opener I have ever had. 3 of us hunted west of Detroit Lakes. 2 of us never fired a shot. the other guys shot the only 2 ducks within a mile of us. very few geese seen as well.. It can only get better.

[fritz179]

Hey everyone I'm new here, it's about time I know. This opener was about the same as the last few years.

Saturday: 3 b.w. teal, 1 hen mallard

Sunday: 1 drake mallard, 2 b.w. teal and 2 woodies one hen and one drake.

On Saturday morning before shooting time all we saw were wood ducks. Then we didn't see any after 9. But there are lots of them around where the two of us were hunting.

[USPENAMC]

never been duck hunting before i worked saturday until 8 am my father brother, my (5yr) son and I drove around locally only louisville, rapids lake unit, belle plaine, gaylord, areas and didnt find a spot. we could have been a...holes and ruined someones day by forcing our way in but if i have learned something from this forum is to know when to back off and be a respectfull hunter. we ended up driving from 9 am until 2 pm or so not finding a spot so we came home without uncasing our weapons. pretty fun and interesting seeing all the trucks/boats/rigs/people/ and hear the shooting going on. maybe another day.

[SSSTaxidermy]

Very slow opener to say the least...1 Mallard on Saturday, and 2 teal on Sunday. Hunted SE of Pelican Rapids (Erhard). Year in year out, this spot is a Mallard hole. Seen very few birds flying around...And even less geese. Strange...

Oh well, will hit er hard again this weekend.

[Roosterslayer05]

Great opener for my group, 4 of us limited out by 11:25 saturday. We could have been done by 9:30 but we stopped shooting at teal and waited for big ducks. Sunday we got 19. I have never seen so many redheads and Pintails in my life, they were everywhere. As a group we got 18 teal, 10 mallards, 8 Redheads, 5 widgeon, 1 shoveler, and 1 pintail. Was hopeing to get more pintails but they got real wary once the shooting started. I personally limited out on redheads sunday, and got 1 saturday, really suprised we saw so many redheads considering iv shot only 1 my entire life untill this weekend. Scouting paid off and the only competition we had for our spot came in at 8 oclock, three hours too late. Prob saw close to 100 pintails and saw more redheads than that.

[walleyeman1]

This was the best opener in 5 years. Lots of mallards around. Limited Sat, Sun,and Mon. 54 ducks and about half were mallards.

Hopefully the weather stays nice so they stay around.

[Hammer Handle]

Did great!

Very little shooting besides us though. Most people did not do well.