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Waterfowl Reports


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VERY and I do mean very slim pickens in the lakes area, saw 3 legit ducks this morning on North Long. From shooting time to 8:30 I heard 5 different volley's of shots and no more.. This evening I didn't hunt but got home from training right at closing time and did not see a duck on the lake from 6:45 to 7:15.

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South metro area Sat morn.

Ducks where slow but steady. didnt shoot till about 30 minn after shooting time. Ended up with 8 mallards and one teal i shot as we where packing up. The geese didnt fly till around 11. we packed up early to chase some roosters. seen 3 roosters and 4 hens.

I saw a lot a lot a lot of geese flying today only problem was i was in my deer stand confused

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BRD lakes area, same as T.C. had some malards friday that landed on other side of spot, Sat, very thin a couple divers in to decoys. Thought better to hold off, but that was all! Today not a darn thing. Headed to river tomorrow evening as I have seen reports of bills heading down. Son has had better luck than me, rubbing it in. Time to step the game up!

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Heavy honkers wow, seem to be dispersing more now that more corn is coming off and getting disced, MB PS. Time to haul it in and get jerky made.

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Lots of woodies to be had in the chisago county area do some scouting and youll get on em. Hunted a lake saturday night was just swarmed by them. That morning seen a few divers a balls of teal everywhere nothing decoyed though. lots of birds in bean feilds though instead of corn in the area it seems like. Still a lot of geese in the area still just been hard getting into the right feilds.

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How about Cranes ? Will they open it in other parts of the state, I have several farmers in my area that are telling me to please thin them out and I'm like not yet, his field averages 200-300 per day and it's only 40 acres in size. They will soon hit the migration button and be gone, the farmers say in the spring after planting they do crop damage, quite a bit when so many are around, any DNR talk on this expansion possibility of hunting opportunity ?

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Was fishing up on Rush yesterday AM..no real flocks or ducks to speak of except the one small flock of local dock ducks that have been hanging around all fall and a confused White Pelican hanging out with them nasty Cormorants.

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Geese are vary decoy wary lol, when you have 500+ birds using a field why do people still want to put out decoys, especially in a 40 acre field ? Neighbor boys put out like 150 dekes, hid well,flagged and called, took em a good hour to set up, got 2 birds for 4 guys and the birds just kept circling and skirting these guys then started landing heavy about 200 yards from these guys, they shot a pair busted the gang off the field and said they'd never come back tonight, that night I go out with just a good concealed blind on a sled and had 3 immediately right where they were set up, I just don't get it sometimes, too many smart birds that get roasted year after year from goose chairs and dekes, if they aint watching other birds land they are freaked out plus you just grab your limit when you're done and no field cleanup to do and the rest coming can eat in peace for the next hunt. If you have lots of singles,pairs,etc. small batches yes but these are 20-40 in a batch for the most part, I don't know.

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North metro. Never shouldered the gun. Couple flocks far and high. A few small flocks of geese after shooting closed. That was it. Saturday morning we were tearing down blind and getting ready to wrap it. Guns unloaded and cased. Just about to step out of the boat and something catches my eye. Huge flock of ducks already locked up and making first swing. CANS !!!!!!! 60-80 of em ! Never seen that many in my life. Mad scramble to get in bottom of now blindless boat. Fumbling with gun cases and feeling for ammo boxes. They kept circling the whole time getting closer and lower with each pass. Last time they went right over the boat at about 20 yards. My son was asking " Should we shoot ?" I told him no next circle they will land. Over the trees they went never to be seen again ! Was it a mirage ? Dream ? Man, we cursed ourselves for not shooting. I know I will see that scene again . If no where else at least on my death bed.

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Mallards are definitely starting to come into nw NoDak. Found a marsh with about 50,000? mallards tonight. Pretty incredible sight....

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North metro. Never shouldered the gun. Couple flocks far and high. A few small flocks of geese after shooting closed. That was it. Saturday morning we were tearing down blind and getting ready to wrap it. Guns unloaded and cased. Just about to step out of the boat and something catches my eye. Huge flock of ducks already locked up and making first swing. CANS !!!!!!! 60-80 of em ! Never seen that many in my life. Mad scramble to get in bottom of now blindless boat. Fumbling with gun cases and feeling for ammo boxes. They kept circling the whole time getting closer and lower with each pass. Last time they went right over the boat at about 20 yards. My son was asking " Should we shoot ?" I told him no next circle they will land. Over the trees they went never to be seen again ! Was it a mirage ? Dream ? Man, we cursed ourselves for not shooting. I know I will see that scene again . If no where else at least on my death bed.

Sweet, some of my best memmories have been when we didn't shoot but sat and watched them...

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Stringerless, I feel for ya bud! I feel like I was right there with you. If you had shot and only dropped one you would have been kicking yourself that you didn't wait for them to to come back around. Either way you second guess yourself. You better get back out there and get after them again. It's getting to be that time of year for the cans to be coming through.

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NE NoDak was pretty good to us from last Thursday to Monday morn. Lots of ducks, some geese, but did I say lots of ducks?... smile Some widgeon, some GWT, some spoonies, some redheads, couple ringers, but lots of gadwall and lots of mallards.

Buddy got a three curl greenhead and nice blue he is going to mount. Had some good field hunting for mallards, but most was small slough taking them a couple at a time. Lots of small dry sloughs, and the bigger water was down, but still more water than I expected to see. There were ducks in every body of water - not tons of ducks, but ducks in just about every hole.

Now back to MN hunting this weekend, but from the number of birds seen on the way home on 94, I might be grouse hunting...

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Heard shots in Carlos Avery at 6:52. Can hear it from my house. Quitting time was 6:25. Heard shots at 641 and 646 too. Unbelievable ! And they wonder why no ducks come till after sunset.

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Local slough, less busy than anticipated with MEA weekend more ducks than yesterday went out late pulled the trigger right away so that was nice. Came home with 3

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Been very slow on the Miss down here lately. My buddies did awesome when the split season opened back up last weekend, but Monday we went 5 ducks(3 BWT 1 woodie 1 ringneck) between 7 guys, Wednesday I went solo and only shot one(gad), today again I only shot one(widgeon). Most of the teal and woodies seem to have pushed out for the most part this week, still seeing birds coming in and out of the refuges but hunting has been slow. We need some cold weather to bring some more birds!

Side-note- thanks to the guys who finished off my crippled bird this morning and allowed my dog to finish his 200 meter retrieve, I owe you a shell!

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Carlos Avery. From noon till 6:20. Saw 5 ducks only. Only heard one shot towards refuge. Never heard or saw any geese.

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One goose. More geese in the area. Never saw a single duck ! First time this season.Super thick fog

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Hunted state land last night, saw 20-30 ducks in the last 15 min of legal time but none came within range. As we were packing up and it got darker I would estimate between 200-300 ducks of which more than half were woodies came and landed in the pond. One mallard landed 15 feet from me when I was picking up the last of the decoys.

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Its funny how that works, seems like it happens to me almost every time out. Nothing flying until I decide to leave and then they are everywhere.

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Had another incredible day in western NoDak. Saw another 10,000+ mallards. A lot more geese this time though. If I had a couple days off in a row i'd love to find the field they're munching in. At dusk at least half of the mallards come in one big wave, all from the same direction. fired one shot today, killed a nice greenhead & figured that was a good way to end the shooting. After that i hunkered down and just watched em pile in. Man is that cool, having a mallard tornado land within shooting range!!!

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Hunted the "sensitive" area in the metro, doing good on the geese, but mallards numbers are very low compared to years past. Need rain or snow and colder weather. But still a having a blast.

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Was out Saturday and Sunday. Shot a honker Saturday and two honkers and two wood ducks this morning. One of the honkers was 14 lbs. weighed on two different scales. Virtually nothing for ducks here in the far southwest corner. Got the two woodies on a sneak. Every lake has geese though.

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Missed a goose this morning on the lake. Saw about 20 ducks. None in range. Evening in a bean field. Never saw or heard a duck,goose or dove.

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Two of us went on a short afternoon diver hunt for about 3 1/2 hours before scouting the last 1 1/2 hours of light on Saturday, saw ducks flying all afternoon. Mostly ringnecks with a few others. We ended up with 10 although could have shot 12, passed up on a few hens and shovelers. Our bag was 8 ringnecks, redhead and a canvasback.

Did not go goose hunting, the fog was a killer this morning and birds did not fly til later in the morning when fog had cleared up. Numbers did seem a little down but still plentiful and more snows/blues than last weekend.

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I don't enjoy Internet hot spotting, but I will say this: if you're planning a North Dakota trip, go soon.

We saw a lot of migrators moving through Sunday. I think they're beginning to stage in spots. They are roosting in large numbers, so finding transition sloughs or fields is a great way to have multi-day shoots. Weather hasn't been bad, so I wouldn't worry about them leaving the state in a hurry. But there are fresh birds down, which is always a good thing.

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What are duck numbers like out west of morris? Alberta, Chokio area. Any mallards push through? Havn't been out there yet this year, but I don't want to drive 3 hrs if it's a bust.

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I just returned from my dream hunt. Spent 5 days chasing fowl in western MN and then off to Manitoba for 6 days.

Western MN trip was our worst ever for numbers. Our group of 5 mustered up a couple geese and just over a dozen ducks. We had enough for a nice kabob feed and that was about it.

Manitoba: Best hunting trip for our group of 4 in the past 10 years they have hunted there. This was my first trip, but not my last. There are so many ducks in Canada right now, it is absolutely mind boggling. LOTS of blue wing teal living the high life up there if it tells you how the migration is going. Lots and lots of puddle ducks, and not many migrant divers we hoped to hammer on. Our group limited out every day. Highest number of snow geese ever observed by our group up there too. We saw the several flocks of leading edge snows migrate into Nodak on our trip home yesterday.

Local reports while I was gone indicates low population of ducks here in western/west central MN. Hopefully some cold air will push some ducks down fast!

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Headed to Nodak right now. Can't wait to get in the blind tomorrow morning! Looks like things might be a little sloppy from all the precipitation lately. A few guys haven't gotten to experience a good field hunt yet, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Reports to come soon!

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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.
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    • 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
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    • CigarGuy
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    • PSU
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    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
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    • SkunkedAgain
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