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Opener reports


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Pretty slow in SW Minnesota.

Talked to local DNR and he said everyone was doing below average.

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Elwood the flowage is a zoo isn't it. We own land on the north flowage on the west side. Has a couple good points on it. Usually I avoid the flowage on opener but got a tip from my G-pa who hunted one of our points sat and ended up getting 8 back deep in a bay on sun. Hit me with an e-mail if you have an interest in chating. [email protected] Would be happy to let you know when our points will be open for hunting.

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I had a decent opener, but nowhere near as good as the last two years. Shot 14 ducks and 4 geese saturday. 7 bwt, 4 mallards, 1 gwt, 1 shoveler, and 1 woodie. All 4 geese were migrants also, either lessers or EPP's. Sunday we got 18 ducks, 1 mallard, 5 woodies, 1 shoveler, 2 gwt, and 9 bwt. Monday we got 5, 2 woodies, 1 mallard, 2 bwt. 5 guys.

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hunted ortonville area till mon afternoon. Worst opener I have ever had out there. Most teal and wood ducks are gone, not many other ducks in area either, Mallards are sitting in the flooded fields impossable to get to. Most of the geese in the area are sitting in the area closed by our wonderfull dnr till mid month. Ended up with three ducks for two guys.

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I was in the same area as delta dude, 9 birds 9 guys 2 days very sad, woodies, teal, gadwall, megansers. delta dude where abouts do you hunt out there?????

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Do you know if the lake used to have fresh water shrimp? Lots of lakes that used to be great in MN had shrimp that the ducks loved but for some reason the shrimp have been dying off.

Actually yes there was shrimp in the lake. I just could not believe that there were no birds around this area and years past was a different story -- I have only hunted duck for the last 7 years but can say that this was the worst opener/hunting I ever had as far as seeing ducks and ducks moving around.

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put in over 300 miles friday scouting public WMA and WPA areas. found lots of bird and sat on the X on saturday morning. Shot limits for four guys on saturday, with lots of ducks falling in all over the decoys. Sunday was a rough day after celebrating too much saturday night with not as many birds. Monday we were a few short of a two man limit and had one XL honker. mainly a teal shoot all weekend with a few eclipse mallards.

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To J Swanson--- We hunt mostly NE of Clinton. Sometimes we go West of Graceville. Most of our hunting is on wpa's. Have hunted the area for a long time, Was tempted to go to Marsh on Monday but with the rain we stayed on a smaller wpa. Had a top past spot all alone on Sat. and we only fired three shots. Two years ago we were done at 11:00 in same spot. Saw mostly teal and ringbills, a few Mallards high. Only big amount of shooting on Sat we could hear was up by Thelkie lake. All private lakes. We usually stay at the Valley View motel. Have a tan dodge pu and pull a 12' boat on a trailer. If you see us there say hi.

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To J Swanson--- We hunt mostly NE of Clinton. Sometimes we go West of Graceville. Most of our hunting is on wpa's. Have hunted the area for a long time, Was tempted to go to Marsh on Monday but with the rain we stayed on a smaller wpa. Had a top past spot all alone on Sat. and we only fired three shots. Two years ago we were done at 11:00 in same spot. Saw mostly teal and ringbills, a few Mallards high. Only big amount of shooting on Sat we could hear was up by Thelkie lake. All private lakes. We usually stay at the Valley View motel. Have a tan dodge pu and pull a 12' boat on a trailer. If you see us there say hi.

I was out in that area as well over the past weekend and on Monday there were hardly any ducks in that area -- 500 sq miles and hardly a duck on the water or sky.

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Elwood the flowage is a zoo isn't it. We own land on the north flowage on the west side. Has a couple good points on it. Usually I avoid the flowage on opener but got a tip from my G-pa who hunted one of our points sat and ended up getting 8 back deep in a bay on sun. Hit me with an e-mail if you have an interest in chating. [email protected] Would be happy to let you know when our points will be open for hunting.

sorry I goofed up on my post I guess it would be rainingfeathers that I would take up on the tip blush sorry roosterslayer my bad

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I didnt have the time to get out of town, so I hunted near the metro area. I scouted quite a bit so I would have different options to get to in the early morning. We hunted on tues morning with the rain. Two of us had plenty of shooting, but we could not hit anything. We had 3 nice flocks with over a dozen birds come right in. Coulda shoulda woulda. I was dropping early season geese like crazy, but could not hit a duck to save my life. Oh well, fun either way!!!!!

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

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