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2009 Waterfowl Reports


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Drove up to Fargo Sat AM, most sloughs were empty, saw very little in the way of ducks or geese, Drove back to the cities on Sunday..same thing...actually saw more birds the closer you got to the cities..anybody says their wacking the heck out of the birds are either delusional or just happen to be at the right place at the right time but as far as any kind of migration theres nothing going on...as of yet.

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RRR, I hate to break it to you, but looking out your windshield at 75 mph off the interstate is not an accurate scouting mission for the whole state assesment.

If you don't want to believe there are ducks in MN, that's fine. More room for me and my buddies. Your loss. I'm guessing your the kind of guy that only talks about going late season duck hunting and complains "it ain't like the old days"

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Just reporting what I saw..sorry if it offended you, didn't mean to mess with your fantasy..your right though, I was flying down the road..actually more whiteknuckling going up 94 Sat AM. And also I was out opening day..been duck hunting probably longer than you've been on this earth.

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you can put on a million miles and not see a duck or you can put on 100 miles a see tons of ducks its were you look and how you look to make the difference. little lakes or big water can make or break your scouting... we seen more ducks over the weekend than we seen all year you just have to be in the right spot at the right time

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Hunted a small slough on Sat in Aitkin County shot 1 green head and 1 ring bill.

Saw 6 geese and aprox. 10 ducks all morning. Picked up at noon and went grouse Hunting. Bagged 3 and 1 woodcock.

Very SLOW for ducks in this area all year.

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Hunted yesterday by myself and shot 4. Hunted a spot in the morning that held very few birds, picked up at 9 am and went scouting. Found a spot at noon that was holding allot of GWT and a few mallards. Hunted from 12:30 till 5:30 and shot 3 gwt and 1 mallard. Could have limited out but I got snuck by as many ducks as I shot at. The cattails in the spot I found were so high you couldent see the ducks until they were right on top of you. Shot all the birds between 12:30 and 3:30 during the snow. After the snow the birds stopped moving.

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Hunted yesterday by myself and shot 4. Hunted a spot in the morning that held very few birds, picked up at 9 am and went scouting. Found a spot at noon that was holding allot of GWT and a few mallards. Hunted from 12:30 till 5:30 and shot 3 gwt and 1 mallard. Could have limited out but I got snuck by as many ducks as I shot at. The cattails in the spot I found were so high you couldent see the ducks until they were right on top of you. Shot all the birds between 12:30 and 3:30 during the snow. After the snow the birds stopped moving.

I hate being the guy accusing one another when I don't know fully.

but what you just said totalled up to 8 ducks if the 4 you shot in the morning were ducks? Its 6 ducks per day, so two limits a day is not legal. But if you shot at least 2 mergansers then you would be legal. I noticed the same thing over the weekend, the birds were moving more when it snowed out, makes it a fun hunt too!

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Originally Posted By: Roosterslayer05
Hunted yesterday by myself and shot 4. Hunted a spot in the morning that held very few birds, picked up at 9 am and went scouting. Found a spot at noon that was holding allot of GWT and a few mallards. Hunted from 12:30 till 5:30 and shot 3 gwt and 1 mallard. Could have limited out but I got snuck by as many ducks as I shot at. The cattails in the spot I found were so high you couldent see the ducks until they were right on top of you. Shot all the birds between 12:30 and 3:30 during the snow. After the snow the birds stopped moving.

I hate being the guy accusing one another when I don't know fully.

but what you just said totalled up to 8 ducks if the 4 you shot in the morning were ducks? Its 6 ducks per day, so two limits a day is not legal. But if you shot at least 2 mergansers then you would be legal. I noticed the same thing over the weekend, the birds were moving more when it snowed out, makes it a fun hunt too!

I'm hoping the 4 he mentioned initially are the same 4 that explained out further in the post. I took it as he shot 4 yesterday, of which 3 were gwt and 1 mallard. You never know I guess, and it's always best to educate as some people are simply unaware.

Still seems like there are a lot of teal in the area, still seeing plenty of woodies too. My prediction is that we'll get out of this small cold/snow snap for a few days of warmth, then be greeted by winter's frontlines and the migration to follow shortly after.

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Sunday Morning the 12th.. shot 30 ducks, 1 goose. 5 guys. Mainly teal with some shovelers, 2 mallards, 1 pintail, and a gadwall. Got set up to late as the mallards were landing as we were setting up decoys. still a very fun hunt.

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went up to my cabin last weekend and got 1 goldeneye and 2 green winged teals.. Pretty weird to get GWT and goldeneyes in the same day at this time of year... Goin up again this weekend to see if we can't get some more ducks and maybe a few grouse... Lots of ducks flying but not many coming in to decoy up.. Although when we were pickin up the dekes, we decided to leave the mojo in until we left, and sure enough 3 or 4 groups of teals about 12-16 in each one cam flying in and then pulled out when they noticed us takin the blind down... Only if they let us shoot an extra 20 minutes at night!!! We actually shot our two teals at 6:34 and sun set was at 6:40...

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Me and a buddy hunted some rice today. The duck gods finally smiled down on me. We limited out with Ruddys, Ringers, Red Heads, Cans, GW & BW Teal, and Mallards in the bag. My four legged friend is exhausted and i'm grinning ear to ear. Many fast crossing shots. Im always amazed how far a duck can skip off the water after it tumbles from the sky.

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Went out after work yesterday after work from 5:30 to sunset. Saw tons of malls and shot a couple blue wing. Should have had more birds but my buddy's beretta auto had a firing pin problem. Had a bunch of geese turn and come over with the call, but didn't have any goose blocks out so they didn't come in close enough. I'll bring them today tho (along with an extra shotgun for my friend).

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heading out tonight in the south metro along the MN river, anyone that has been hunting around there lately have any reports? Weather looks like it should be very cooperative, I'll report back tomorrow on how it goes.

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Hunting the Rice Lake in the Wilkie Unit hart0670? They really need to limit the hunters and regulations down there. I have hunted it once each in the last 2 years during midweek mornings, at it was still an overcrowded skybusting nightmare of a hunt. There were some ducks around and I did manage to bag a few. I was also checked by a CO both times. I also had somebody get behind me in the cattails and shoot my decoys from over my left shoulder. I will never hunt that place again without them installing some type of regulations regarding the number of hunters or methods. Skyblasing for shore and not retrieving anything shot is not even remotely ethical. It has also become too dangerous. I couldn't even imagine what a weekend looks like down there.

I did see hundreds of mallards last night in the metro, working ponds and fields where they are safe. Figures!

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Originally Posted By: Roosterslayer05
Hunted yesterday by myself and shot 4. Hunted a spot in the morning that held very few birds, picked up at 9 am and went scouting. Found a spot at noon that was holding allot of GWT and a few mallards. Hunted from 12:30 till 5:30 and shot 3 gwt and 1 mallard. Could have limited out but I got snuck by as many ducks as I shot at. The cattails in the spot I found were so high you couldent see the ducks until they were right on top of you. Shot all the birds between 12:30 and 3:30 during the snow. After the snow the birds stopped moving.

I hate being the guy accusing one another when I don't know fully.

but what you just said totalled up to 8 ducks if the 4 you shot in the morning were ducks? Its 6 ducks per day, so two limits a day is not legal. But if you shot at least 2 mergansers then you would be legal. I noticed the same thing over the weekend, the birds were moving more when it snowed out, makes it a fun hunt too!

Read it again. I said I shot 4 yesterday. 3GWT and 1 mallard that equals 4. I dident shoot anything in the morning. I dident say I shot 4 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. I said I shot 4 and then I explained how I shot them.

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no i have some private land i go on down that way, good to hear ducks are around, now hopefully they will be on the land I am on! Heading out now, so we'll see

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Just got a phone call from the field that there were like 300 bills, cans, and redheads floating on a public spot.

The Oct 15 Migration Report says lots of divers are moving in.

Hopefully I can find a good diver hunt this weekend.

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We shot 2 cans this morning in the marshall area. We saw 2 others, but no redheads or bills

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If anyone in the north metro has an open seat for tomorrow AM let me know. Kids sick, can't go to the cabin most likely and too warm with wrong wind to sit in any of my trees. Shoot me an e-mail [email protected].

Dave

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15 Ducks and 3 Mergansers for 3 guys this morning.

2 Cans

5 Redheads

4 Scaup

3 Gadwalls

1 Ring Neck

3 Hooded Mergansers 2 were really nice drakes, the other was an immature drake.

Hunted in Isanti county.

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Not much flying this morning - s. metro lake - managed 1 bill and 1 can (first cans I have ever seen in the area), but overall a lot of empty sky.

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had a pretty good day today, 11 mallards and 1 gwt in a slough off of pelican,a lot of ducks in the air till about 8 then there was nothing.

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seen a ton of migrating lessers today ended up shooting ten of the lil guys for five guys... not many ducks around.

did I mention I seen tons of migrating lessers, had a flock 200 plus decoy and you guessed it TEN fell

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Anyone can lay the hurt on them online wink Can we see some pics? ALso wondering what you see in the mergansers? You feed them to the dog or what?

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Slow. Saw some cans, redheads, ringbills. Got a couple ringers and a redhead. Shoulda been there yesterday...

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RRR- nice to see someone else smackin the ducks, wish I could get in more divers, they're so much fun!

Went out yesterday morning and shot 12 for 2 guys.

4 Mallards

3 Gadwall

2 Bluebills

1 Redhead

1 GWT

1 Ringneck

Keep the reports coming guys!

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Anyone can lay the hurt on them online wink Can we see some pics? ALso wondering what you see in the mergansers? You feed them to the dog or what?

Mergansers make good jerky.

The 2 mature drakes will be going on the wall.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • 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
    • leech~~
      As I get older it's really not just about sending bullets down range.  Some of it's just the workmanship of the gun and the wow factor. The other two guns I have really wanted which I'll never have now because of their price, is a 8mm Jap Nambu and 9mm German Luger.   Just thought they always looked cool!  
    • jim curlee
      I had a guy hit me with a lightly used 1969 BAR, he wanted $1650 with an older Leupold scope. More than I think they are worth, I made an offer, he declined end of story.   You know if you look at the old brochures, a grade II BAR sold for $250 in the late 60s, $1650 would be a good return on your investment.    Why would anybody want a 50 year old gun, they are heavy, have wood stocks, and blued metal.  I guess mainly to keep their gun safes glued to the floor. lol   You can probably buy a stainless rifle that you never have to clean, with a synthetic stock you never have to refinish, is as light as a feather, and for half as much money, perfect.   I'm too old for a youth gun, although I've shrunk enough that it would probably fit. lol   No Ruger 10/44s.   Jim      
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