Waterfowl Reports

[Huntin&Fishin]

What area are you hiting Shane? I'm headed up in a couple hours! Pumped!

[Stringerless!]

Migration alert,Schmigration alert. Nothin !

[booger]

Seeing some high flyers and a few birds here and there in the north metro, but nothing to get excited about. Was out the last 2 evenings and no shots fired.

[fishersofmen]

Seeing some high flyers and a few birds here and there in the north metro, but nothing to get excited about. Was out the last 2 evenings and no shots fired.

Ditto.

[123fish]

Was out today. Next to nothing for new ducks. Shot one ringbill drake and that was it. Did see eight different flocks of snows heading back to South Dakota so they must have moved last night and for whatever reason were headed back northwest.

[booger]

and a different lake in the north metro today and shot a one man limit 3 mallards, 3 ringbill. Was 300 yards away from another group that didn't fare as well and another guy at the other side that got a couple.

Best hunt I've been on since opener, what a difference a day makes. Migration underway.

[dan z]

GET OUT DER! Filled out this am

[Matt Breuer]

I took the kids for a drive and we jumped a pond this afternoon. 3 big drake mally's dumped out of a nice big pile. All northern green beans. This pond has been vacant since around opener. Must be some birds moving in...

On the other hand, we scouted a pond I was planning to hit tomorrow, and it had one flock of no-color beans and some woodies yet. Can't believe the persistence of these wood ducks this year!

[Stringerless!]

Forest lake area. Saw one pair of mallards on the lake ! Sat from 1:00 till closing. Saw 16 geese at 5:30. Might have had a shot except for silly-me fisherman in decoys !

[Stringerless!]

Geez. Cant even sat the word i diot anymore ?

[fishuhalik]

Mallards definitely starting to move into western NoDak. Ponds are freezing. Should concentrate em real good. I think my scouting early this year might pay off. I've got a couple bigger deeper ponds that I think might be absolutely loaded tomorrow. I have thw day off so it's game on!!!!

[Stringerless!]

Nice woody drake. Only shot of the morning. Saw maybe 20 geese. 8 mallards. One small flock of buffies landed at other end of lake. None of the above responded to calls or dekes.

[dan z]

Same results as yesterday. Just add another guy.

[Waters]

Had a nice mix of ducks today woodies teal bills can ringers and redheads alot of ducks around

[Todd Caswell]

Seen more duck this AM than I have the entire season since opener, this morning 3 buffies, 2 mallards and a Golden Eye, with a few misses as well...

[HNTNBUX]

Congrats. Your dog is amazing it is hard to even focus on the ducks in the picture.

[fishuhalik]

Trust me when I say, the migration of mallards and snows in western NoDak is on overdrive right now!!!! See my full report in the Waterfowl Photos thread.

[BoxMN]

North Metro - Sat morning was beautiful, and sounded like a war zone around us, though we were the only ones on this particular lake. We saw lots of ducks and tons of geese, and ended up with one goose, three mallards, three ringers, one buffie and one nice drake bluebill.

Todd, great picture

[laportian]

Hunted the Red Lake outlet area yesterday afternoon. Birds were flying and we were missing! We passed on alot of divers, but the mallards and bills were getting shot at. We had several groups of mergansers land in our dekes. It wasn't real steady action either, they would come in little flurries, just about the time we'd start arguing about "Who's stupid idea was this?! I'm frickin cold!" A pair of birds would come in. We also were sittin around at one point telling war stories and a dozen mallards locked on our closet decoys and we jumped up unloaded and only one duck fell! We ended up with five mallards and one bill for our effort. I actually only shot 9 shells. On the way out there we were driving on Hwy 1 and as it skirts around the lower west side of the lake we spotted thousands of birds rafted up out on the big lake. None got up and came our way though.

[Stringerless!]

One goose. Had a pair of goldeneyes and a woody hen in the dekes but let em be. Saw about 15 mallards . Never more than 3 in a bunch. Maybe 50 geese seen. Heard 5 shot volleys and that was it. Back out in afternoon.

[Quackaddict9]

Hunted Thief Lake Saturday morning and had to break alot ice on the way and got to open water which became skim of ice later in the morning. Not much flew but many would get up on the refuge and land again for a hour. Moved further east to more open water and it was lights out... All kinds of divers, mallards, pintails, green wing teal. We could've had our 12 if we shot at everything that came in, tried for bluegills but would just stay out of range. Buddy got wet in the waders so called it quits. It was tougher getting back to the access than out there. After last night pretty sure the lake is all frozen up. Many geese have left and flying high south this morning.

Fun last day of the year despite getting wet!

[fishersofmen]

We got a nice mixed bag at a small lake by buffalo Sat morning. Was almost completely froze over except for small area in the middle. We thought the sun would burn off the ice but it didn't before we left at around 11. Decoys were almost immeadiately froze solid in the ice so it made things interesting for the ducks that wanted to land.

[walleyeking19]

We got a nice mixed bag at a small lake by buffalo Sat morning. Was almost completely froze over except for small area in the middle. We thought the sun would burn off the ice but it didn't before we left at around 11. Decoys were almost immeadiately froze solid in the ice so it made things interesting for the ducks that wanted to land.

I was also hunting near Buffalo today (sunday) and I had to break ice to set up my decoys.

[hunter322]

Where around the north metro BoxMN? I hunt around the hugo area.

[fishuhalik]

Saw a handful of birds today. A really, really big handful! All of these are different birds. Not one pic is of the same flock. Sorry for the poor quality. I really need a camera!

Snows

Mallards

Tried getting a couple shots off but they jumped about 100 yards out. No worries, tons of fun watching em!

This was unreal. Watching mallards pour off the small area of open water. They just kept coming and coming.

Dropping in!

Mallards mixed with snows

And all these birds and we only got 1 snow and a pheasant. Hit 2 mallards and 2 snows at less than 60 yards that weren't even phased. Time to switch to a gun that shoots 3" and jump up to BBBs! And I really, really need to get set up for field hunting. All I have are water dekes and they don't work too well on the ground. Still an epic day in NoDak

[BoxMN]

Hunter, yes basically the same area, a hair to the north.

[Musky Buck]

Darn geese lately, no morningflight at all, evening flight they'relanding after shooting hours by the hundreds,guess season done on them, we need that extra 1/2 hour or I do anyway until cold weather maybe gets them there in hunt time.

[Shane Z]

Just getting back from Nodak now. Bird numbers were not impressive around the area we hunted but had enough birds to keep us interested. With three days of hunted we ended up with around 120 ducks and only 4 geese. Most of the ducks were drake green winged teal and mallards. Small bodies of water are all froze up, so hunting in fields fairly close to bigger bodies of open water seemed to be the ticket.

[walleyeking19]

Shane, what part of the state did you go to? I was just up there a few weeks ago and your reports sounded a lot like what I saw up there

[MinnetonkaMan]

Lots of geese and ducks around in NE ND. Shot a three man limit of a nice mixed bag mallards, teal, redheads, bills and widgeon. A few snows and a couple geese were also shot. Freeze up moved a lot of birds around Friday night and had them feeding on different areas. THe snows are heading south but contacts in Canada say the mallards are thick right now. Hope the ponds open up so there isnt a fly by!