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Waterfowl Reports


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I guess I will do the honor of starting the annual thread, even if the MN hunters can't contribute for another week grin

Hunted the WI opener today. My original central WI plans fell through so I ended up doing some last minute scouting yesterday close to home. Wound up on a WI river backwater in northern WI.

It was a very weird day. Saw 2 woodies from about 9-11:45 and that was it. Just before noon when I was going to pick up it got really crazy. A huge flock of mallards got broken up by another hunting party and all of a sudden there were groups all over the place working. About this time good numbers of woodies and a few ringers showed up as well. Should have probably done more shooting but was fun to watch. Wound up with 3 mallards down(1 lost, ran into the woods while I was reloading). While I was attempting to recover the cripple, birds continued to work my decoys and had about 12 woodies land in my spread...It was an action packed 20 minutes or so in an otherwise slow day.

Saw quite a few other hunters out. Not a ton of shooting but a fair amount. Gonna try again in the morning.

River was really high. A lot of flooded vegetation. Birds were staying off the main bays and sticking to smaller backwaters.

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Went out in South Dakota for a couple of hours on Saturday morning. Could not get to the spot I originally wanted to hunt due to the flooding. Hunted some public land and got 3 Gadwal and 1 Goose. Saw a ton of birds.

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Sounds like there is plenty of birds out in the Dakotas. A co-workers was out scouting a week ago and said he saw a ton. I was looking at the "marsh cam" where we are headed on Wednesday and there is a ton of birds just north of Winnipeg. Check this out

http://www.oakhammockmarsh.ca/nature/live-video/index.html

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Sodak Opener: WATER EVERYWHERE. the area i wanted to hunt was impossible to get to from any direction due to water over the roads. didn't have plat books for the 2 counties i found good fields in so i sat around all weekend watching football.

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For all the birds I saw during early goose season, I can't begin to wonder where they are now.

Went to our usual resident opening spot in North Dakota and didn't see half of what we usually see. By Sunday, there were even less. I'm going to hit it hard this weekend and see where they all went. I was literally covered in ducks in August, but now they're nowhere to be found. I think all the water really has them spread out.

So in conclusion: yes, you will find ducks in Nodak, but be prepared to log some hours behind the wheel!

Oh yeah, and good luck to all you non-residents this weekend!

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It's the same in MN I was seeing piles of ducks up to about a week ago and they seem to have left or are spread out by all the water we got last week. Gonna be warm and sunny up to opener maybe that will dry up the fields and push the birds back to the big water. If not it will be a lackluster opener in western MN

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Hello, we had a brief cool down a couple of weeks ago and a Youth

Hunting Day.

A few teal and woodies left around here but not many.

tweed

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Tweed I was down your way today and saw tons of ducks most in flooded fields east of you and a bunch off of the over flow on the Minnsota river. I was really suprised to see that many ducks most of them in the fields were mallys.

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As I was cleaning the garden yesterday evening I watched several large flights of Honkers lined up in V's, flying pretty darn high in a beeline south. If I didn't know any better, I'd say some of these birds are migrating already.

Could we be in for an early freeze up?

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As I was cleaning the garden yesterday evening I watched several large flights of Honkers lined up in V's, flying pretty darn high in a beeline south. If I didn't know any better, I'd say some of these birds are migrating already.

Could we be in for an early freeze up?

Funny you say that. I was talking to a friend last night, and he goes "you know, they are forecasting a nice fall, but those hairs sticking up on the back of my neck tell me we're going to get two feet of snow by mid-October."

I hope he's right!!!

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Scouting report: NW MN: 09/30/10 - this morning the fields that held thousands of geese last week are now empty. There are still decent numbers of birds around, very few ducks from what I've noted, but the remaining geese are scattered out. The weather is beautiful, and the fields are still pretty sloppy from last weeks rain, so if you're coming up I'd plan to bring insect repellent. With weather so cooperative, and such an abundance of food available, it's going to be a tricky opener up here. Even fields with decent numbers of birds have them scattered out over much of the field - no real concentrations of birds. I'm pretty sure we've seen some birds moving south already.

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Definetly some birds on the move already.Been watching pods of birds on the river and rice around here for a couple months with comparable numbers as last year.Leech is loaded as usual along with several remote local spots.Keep the barrel warm and the dog wet!!

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beast, i love that camera! i find myself watching it more and more every year, just wanting to get back up there. it's been 5 years now and it's driving me crazy

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Worst opener I've had since moving here 5 years ago. We had 3 mallards buzz our slough and that was it. On the way out I ran into the landowner that asked me if I had seen all the ducks funneling into the corn field to the south of his property line on the other side of his timber....uh no, so off I went to get permission from that landowner who has let me bowhunt in years past so I thought it would be a lock...denied. Since it rained heavy 10 days ago he has a low spot in the middle of his field that has about 2 feet of water in it and in his estimate there are a couple hundred mallards on it. Aaaagh. Denied because his son bowhunts the adjacent timber. Frustrated.

Hopefully sunrise tomorrow will be better.

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The slough we hunt we had no luck on,really about as slow as I remember.We then went and jumped four little ponds including some flooded corn, finally on the last pond woodies. We came out of it with four all drakes hopefully sunday a.m. will show some better results.

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3 guys 4 doz. decoys 1 slough and 18 ducks in 1.5 hours flat, and we were picky for our last 10 birds( 9 mallards, 2 pintails, 4 blue winged teal, 1 green winged teal, 1 gadwall, 1 spooner) of all 9 were drakes not sure on the B.W.T!? Lots of ducks around!!!!

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pretty slow morning...ended up w/ 2 ducks and a goose. highlight was seein my 6 month lab try to retrieve the goose...she tried the foot, the wing, the neck and still couldnt get it off the ground. she did do a good job on the duck tho, defanitly got excited and wanted more birds!

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Was a slow start until we started jumping ponds. Ended up with 1 goose, 4 teal, 1 shoveler, 1 widgen, and 13 woodies. Great day to be outdoors.

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Slow, not many local ducks around. Talked to friends that were hunting other lakes in the county and the same results for them.

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First time in a few years Iv'e hunted the MN opener, should have had a limit of woodys and Mallards but.......... laugh Nice morning to be out and accually seen enough birds to make it interesting.

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Hunted Carlos Avery both days. Saturday saw a fair amount of birds. All before the wonderful 9:00 start of course. Never fired a shot ! Were pretty pumped up about this morning but when the shooting started ( a FULL 13 minutes early !) Nothing survived. It was a non-stop firework grand finale that did not die down till 3 minutes after legal time. We never saw a duck. For the first time I left my calls home ! If you wanted to hear pathetic calling you should have heard us trying to call ducks and geese by mouth ! Finally got a shot at a Suzie and we got her. Missed 2 teal. That is all the oppurtunities we had. What is with the new stealth mode these hunters have now ? They do not turn on a light and stay quiet so u don't know they are there. Light comes and we were surrounded. Bad scene ! If you are gonna be close enough to hunt my spread at least flash a light so I can move !!!!

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hunted out west. 3 guys 17 birds the first day. 6 mallards, 1 redhead, 3 bluebills, 5 gwt 2 bwt. and missed a decent number also.

the next day 2 guys same spot and shot 3 bwt and 1 can

wasn't really that great even on the first day.

In our area, it started about 15 mins before legal shooting hours on both days.

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Lots of birds around. Teal, mallards, ring bills, woodies, geese in that order.

19 for 5 sat had a great time. Quite a few guys out but little sky busting so it was manageable. Everybody had a few birds.

12 for 4 sun but saw a lot of birds even 930& later. Most guys we've had or seen on opener for awhile. The most ducks too.

They r planning 2011 already

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Great opening weekend...the best i can remember in quite some time. 10 birds for 2 of us on Saturday and a limit today. Woodies, ringnecks, and teal. no mallards but we saw a bunch today.

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We did ok this a.m. eight for four of us, 3 teal, 1 widgeon,1 shoveler, 3 woodies. Still had trouble finding many birds,we jump shot 3 of the eight. i have to say every opener is great just being with the family my wife and both boys hunt with me it's a great thing. Looking forward to next wknd. when we can try the rotos out again hopefully the weather turns a little crappy.

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this is the best weather you can get for duck hunting! but mojo's would be nice!

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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.
      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
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