Waterfowl Reports

[dan z]

Hunted today, made 2 geese splash seen 1 flock of boot lips. Not toany duck on this lake headed somewhere else in the a.m

[Finlander]

The 4 of us got four teal Saturday and 1 Canada goose.

Sunday we got 1 redhead, 1 woodduck, 1 teal, 4 Canada geese.

Slower than most opener weekends, but good time overall!

[fishgutz77]

Headed to NoDak tomorrow give a report when I get back tuesday.

[Scott M]

Hunted south of Hutchinson, found a fair number of birds, shot a fair number too. Ran into people problems to say the least, fell back to private water on Sunday, got one flock of mallards to commit but the rest of them settled into the middle of the lake. So it goes. Beats sitting on the couch.

Went out this morning by Mankato and found a bunch of wood ducks. Took my two and went into work just not too terribly late.

Good start. Gotta be realistic as the Dakotas aren't in the cards for me this year.

[depopn44]

5 of us got our 30 (mostly teal) on Saturday and 16 on Sunday on some small public land in Southwestern part of the state. There were a few mallards in the area but people were busting at 60+ yards so couldn't get much to commit. Wasn't as many ducks as 2 years ago but at least there was water in the pond this year.

--Nate

[skee0025]

We were hunting near Fergus Falls Sat-Mon. Good numbers of Woodies and lots of Mallards. Teal and Geese were scarce. Over the three days we took 2 woodies, 4 teal, 1 Goose and 13 Mallards.

[Slimdart]

Saturday two of us got three ducks hunting south of grand rapids. Talked with the waterfowl guy at the access. He said that we did better than most. With our ducks included he recorded 9 ducks for 12 hunters. We had three of the 9 and one other guy had 5. This was at noon and I don't think the rest of the hunters on the lake were fairing much better. really tough.

[grey ghost]

Southwest MN on Saturday 3 of us got our limit; 17 teal and 1 wood duck,Sunday we got 9 teal and 1 wood duck. Action Saturday was fast. Sunday was slower but we saw more mallards just couldn't get any to commit.

[Lunker]

Very slow down on Pool 8 this morning. Some birds moving early but not much action...didn't help that the dog decided to chase a muskrat when I had the only group committing to the dekes all morning...o well. Bring on colder weather!

[Proskier2038]

Went out to my favorite wood duck hole last night to scout for

Saturday.... Not a drop of water in it needing rain in the west metro!

[Stringerless!]

2 woodies and a goose.Chisago area. Not much flying after first light flurry.

[booger]

North metro. Birds not decoying, saw quite a few, pretty sure I crippled one. The local birds are still around, they just aren't stupid anymore. Quite a few groups flying 70 yards out on the water or above me. Water level where I was, was even lower than last year by a pretty good amount.

Could've got a nice limit of pelicans, there were about 500 where I was hunting along with a ton of gulls.

There was a good amount of shooting around me, group next to me probably shot 4-5 birds.

[tracker x-2]

was out in the south metro this a.m saw several flocks of geese (12 plus) and only had one flock and a single come in. must be getting smarts about us.

[icecold]

very quite this morning in southern mn river bottoms compared to last weekend a couple mallards flying and a few woodies around that was it, managed 2 woodies and a teal.

[grey ghost]

SW Mn this morning was better than expected. Our group of 3 got 14... 7 woodies, 6 BWT and 1 mallard. Wasn't a lot of birds moving but a couple of flurries that added up.

[Stringerless!]

Same place .2 woodies and a BWT. Terrible shooting ! Not many chances either. Did see a flock of lessers migrating south while wrapping it up.Glad for the break in season.Need to work on stuff. Motors,leaky jon boat,dekes that leak......

[Troy Smutka]

A few teal and woodies harvested in the Hutch area. Didn't see nearly as many ducks as last weekend. Some geese flying, but not much interested in working decoys. We need a cold front and some new birds.

[grey ghost]

Took my 10 year old nephew this morning for his first hunting experience. Got 3 BWT right after sunrise and that was about it. Best part was he had a good time.

[dan z]

Had a fairly decent outing yesterday knocked over nine with 3 mallards and 6 b.w.t. seen migration of pintails and some groups of mallards. Really bummed of the break here as next Saturday is going to be a high of 50°…

[icecold]

We had 4 woodducks and a teal for sundays bag, very slow, very few mallards in mn riverbottoms, ya its a bummer with cold front moving in and then season is closed, ,oh well then I can get some projects done and be ready for the Oct hunting

[CANOPY SAM]

Was up north of town last night doing maintenance on deer hunting blinds, just a few miles south of the Agassiz refuge. Take heart guys, the "break" probably couldn't come at a better time.

Was out for a good portion of the day and only saw a few flights of geese working various fields in the area, very scattered out, and in no hurry to move. My guess would be these are still just local birds. Saw a few scattered ducks as well, one large group of teal, a few bunches of wood ducks, and a few small group of larger ducks (too far off to identify).

From what I can tell, there are very, very few, if any birds down from Canada yet. A little break during a cold spell might be just what the doctor ordered to get Minnesota filled back up with a few more birds.

[CodyDawg]

Got 7 mallards on Saturday and if I hadnt decided to set up in the wrong spot, would have easilty got our 18 I think. I flipped a mental coin and guessed wrong. Oh well, we had a good hunt and the boys went to bed real well on Friday night so they got to go!

There seems to be way more hens this year than drakes. I bet we are seeing 80-90% hens. One flock had 14 hens and 1 barely colored drake. No, I dont think they were drakes that you couldnt tell, I think they were hens. We got a really good look at them and they were hens. A guys should never complain about seeing hens, but holy cow!

[Kettle]

Spent last Thursday through Sunday Across Northern Minnesota. There were quite a birds around but you had to search for them their were lakes holding hundreds and some holding less than a dozen. Every place I hunted was tough to get to and had to either drag the canoe or paddle along ways. I ended up able to get my possession limit in four days. Good mixed bag, woodies, mallards, teal, ringers, mergansers and my first three widgeon in this state. Heading up north in a few hours will hunt tuesday through thur then off to Manitoba for 8 days.

Kettle

[Kettle]

North of Grand Rapids today, no woodies seen or teal. Got a ringer and a drake pintail younger one though. Saw quite a bit of birds, got burned a few times had the dog go on a super long retrieve and when she got back i was praising the heck out of her and looked up and had a six pack of ringers in the decoys. If anyone is in the Rapids area the next two days I have an open seat. Pm me

Kettle

[MahtowaDave]

Hunted with my son and a buddy on sunday morning. Took 5 ducks and missed a few, LOL! woodies and B.W.T. were in our bag.

[fishgutz77]

ND report.

We had 5 guys out on this trip, two guys hunted water and 3 of us hunted the fields.

ended up with 57 mallards, the rest was pintails, redheads, gads, ring bills, and teal.

total was 87 birds we where just shy of limits but that's not the point. The highlight of the trip was knocking down a sandhill, that came right into the field set. I'll post of photo of the crane later. was great time only had rain one day and got a late start but still did very well.

[onthefly]

NoDak report:

Hunted near Langdon last wknd. Scouting found thousands of birds. Big water slough was holding 2000 ducks and 500 geese. Another big water spot was the same on ducks but even more geese. Seemed like teal numbers dropped over the wknd.

Shot gadwall, mallards, teal, redheads, a pintail, shoveler (oops!) and geese. Hunted mainly water. Could've shot easy limits but targeted big ducks for the first couple days and tried to pick out only drakes. Saw a couple potholes scouting that held very nicely colored black ducks and pintails. Had pinnies whizzing around our spread but didn't manage many. Birds definitely getting some more color!

[Todd Caswell]

Hunted ND in the Lidgerwood area fri sat sun, very poor numbers as far as I was concerned, yah we found a couple bigger bodies of water that held birds, but I will not hunt a roost. Heavily posted and got turned down more times than I can remember. Put on over 400 miles scouting the area and never did find anything ( field or water) that kept me awake at night. I hunted ND from 1996 to 2002 and then hunted Canada from 2005 to 2010, not sure why I went back to ND this year but Monday when I got home I called up to Manitoba and made reservations for 2014. On a side note in those 400 miles scouting we never ONE pheasant..

[CANOPY SAM]

Birds are still up north. Most of em' anyway.

[Skjefte]

Been hunting Hawley, MN area the last few hunts. We have been doing very well buts its mostly B.W.T and a few woodies and hen mallards. Still Think it is all locals, lots of birds in the morning and they quit flying around 7:30.