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Waterfowl Reports


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Poor. 6 birds in 2 days for 2 guys. No ducks around anywhere while scouting. Talked to a lot of guys that didn't fire their guns. Hutchinson/Glencoe/Winthrop triangle.

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I got one blue wing teal and two mallards. My hunting buddies shot one wooduck and one coot. We were out for 2 days.

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12 ringnecks and a goose for 2 of us with 1 gun...did not see the mallards that were out there yesterday, so majority of the birds we saw were ringnecks. I did not get out yesterday.

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30 birds total for 3 guys,limit of mallards each day with teal,woodies,and widgeon filling the rest.Let tons of teal and woodies go if mallards were in the air.

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A slow start to the morning for our fog was heavy in the area we hunted , but other hunters in the immediate area had excellant shooting. Never heard anything like it in my life ! multiple shots heard every 30-40 seconds for about two hours straight most probally 1/4 mile away. yet we had one woody before 8 am today took till noon to shoot a 3 man limit of woodies. after the fog lifted. birds where kinda decoy shy . We pulled all but 9 decoys and replaced them out of shooting range up wind and killed every bird over the lake after wards.

still cant wrapp my head Around it,

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Shot limit this morning in 30 minutes. Should have taken half that time but shooting was a little rusty! Saw tons of birds

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No roost busting and no youth scare away day on the private lake in the Morris area where these were taken.

DSCN1134.jpg

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Saturday 3 geese, saw one flock of mallards and that was it. Sunday moved down the road about 2-3 miles and have never seen so many ducks in my lifetime. We ended up with 13 Sunday just because we were terrible shots. More woodys and teal than we could count, also some really nice flocks of mallards. Prbably saw more than 1000 birds sunday before sunrise. I wish some of you guys who say the woodys and teal move out before opener could have been there to see what I saw.

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Good reports guys, especially those who mention the area of the state where they were hunting.

I was near Alexandria this weekend. Got four ducks (2 woodies, 1 bluewing, 1 redhead) and a goose on Saturday between my father-in-law and myself. We only managed 1 redhead on Sunday. Overall didn't see very many ducks but this rates as an above average opener for us.

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4 ducks for three guys on Saturday near MN lake. Lots of ducks moving but were flying a mile high rather quickly. Seemed like there were more mallards than in previous years.

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Only hunted Sunday morning as we didn't want to move the geese working our field on Saturday with the 09:00 start. This turned out to be a good strategy.

Sunday morning three guns took 5 nice honkers. As always, should have filled, but those darn guns got bent again last winter! The nice weather made birds a little hesitant to totally commit, and they milled around out of range too often.

We've got a few large groups of geese up here in NW MN, but no significant numbers yet. I've heard reports of some nice bunches of ducks up by Thief Lake. We watched several flights of woodies working south along the river Sunday morning. I believe our group only saw one small group of Mallards. A small push of birds moved south out of our area prior to the opener. Now lets pray for the big push!

I'll provide reports as often as possible from NW MN. Going to be an unseasonably warm week coming up, so I don't anticipate any migrational movement for a little while. Beans are coming off the fields fast now. Our Sunday geese came from a harvested bean field.

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48 ducks for 4 hunters! Hunted a flooded bean field that held hundreds of duck and a dozen or two of geese. Well, they all took off when we set up at 8:45 and buzzed all around until 9:00am shooting time and then they were gone! All of them never to return! We thought we were gonna slaghter them! full-983-1761-pa020461.jpg

Should of waited until 9:00am! Hindsight 20/20!

So we went to our backup spot on a lake that held a few ducks and ended up with our limit of teal, mallards, redheads, ringbills, and spoonbills! We were done by 2:30 with our limits! Sunday, 9:30am had our limit of woodies, redheads and teal.

What a weekend. We hunted western Mn.

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Six ducks on opener for 3 guys. Limited out on Sunday with 3 guys took until noon. Nice mixed bag of Woodies, Mallards, Teal, Gadwall, and Wigeon. Saw a few ringbills also. Saw a ton of birds just couldnt get them to work. Hunting in the south metro.

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Im pretty sure that that was his weekend bag limit. cause it did say "not a bad weekend"

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Poor. 6 birds in 2 days for 2 guys. No ducks around anywhere while scouting. Talked to a lot of guys that didn't fire their guns. Hutchinson/Glencoe/Winthrop triangle.

Strange, I know of 2 groups that shot 3 and 4 man limits by 9:30am on Saturday and by 8am Sunday. They were in that area.

I hunted near Svea and did Ok 14 for 4 guys on Saturday.

Hunted alone in Isanti County on Sunday and got 3.

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sunday was the day for us. We got eight with two guns. Very excited about the bull can that came out of nowhere, im surprised he didnt hear us announce his presence haha. It was a fun morning, made up for saturday. We got one drake mallard, bull can, redhead and the rest teal.

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Never thought about this but the last 2 nights on the farm with a river running through it and ponds around etc. I saw 0 ducks, roughly 300 honkers, but 0 ducks and I even yes waited until that wood duck time, heard no wings, saw no ducks. Tonight I'll walk the bank of that river full of flooded timber/logs etc. but I'm not optimistic, then again this area of the state likely isn't well known for ducks, but with zero hunting pressure near my farm I'd expect to see a few, maybe tonight's the night. I know, night hunt is this Sunday, but I will be holding the heater as the skunks, oppossums, raccoons, and coyotes are plenty thick in the area, maybe that has a bit to do with few if any ducks around, I don't know.

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Hunted alone in Isanti County on Sunday and got 3.

Where bouts in Isanti? I was hunting around here both saturday and sunday. You can email if you dont wanna say on here. I didnt do to well around here. They were flyin but wouldnt come in.

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I hunted North of Appleton and saw lots of ducks. We only shot 5, which was more due to poor shooting than anything else. We did take 5 canadas, 4 blues as well. Sunday was a honker smack down with 8 guys and 24 honkers down.

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Tuesday Morning Hunt in a Flooded Corn Field in the Winsted/Howard Lake Area

5 man limit of Mallards and GWT with a Pintail, Woodie and Widgeon. A few of the ducks are not in the picture apparently.

jen20097.jpg

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NW MN: Still not huge numbers of birds moving yet. Weather is beautiful, and wind has primarily been out of the south in our area, so waterfowl are pretty content to bask in the sun, and enjoy abundant water and food.

Observed roughly 2000 geese milling around TRF this morning. Also saw a flock of probably 500-700 ducks of mixed species. Seeing more birds zipping south on the river - likely teal and woodies.

If your in the right field, this weekend could be a decent shoot.

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Shot 9 geese for 3 guys in a pasture field that was holding good #'s in the past week and shot 6 ducks as well. Lots of geese, had a flock of snows/blues come over when we went and park our vehicles. Pics will be in the Photo thread sometime later.

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4 guys hunting in the north central part of the state. Best opener in a decade or more! Hunted Sun-Wed. Easily could have taken limits every day, but showed a bit of restraint so we didn't have to eat duck morning, noon and night to keep under our possession limit. smile

The variety was the most amazing part for us. Our normal fare of mostly ringers was present, along with our standard smattering of mallards, woodies and widgeon, but in addition we took redheads, cans, bluebills, green wings, blue wings and honkers. Even saw a few snows (rare on our waters). Add to that 3 rounds of golf and 4 trips out bass fishing (lots of fish too), it was a GREAT opener!

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Hunted Itasca county the last sun-thurs with my brother. Hit or miss.

Sun- 4-1 woody,1 ringer,2 mergansers.

Mon- 2 Mergansers

Tues- Nothing

Wed- 2 woodies, 1 ringer, 1 merganser

Thurs- 9 Ringers

Hunting mostly lakes with wild rice and a couple of ponds. The ponds usually hold a lot of ducks but aren't producing. Doing better in the rice. Headed back up sunday for another few days at it.

Not seeing many mallards, though we did wiff on a couple flocks.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • Kettle
      Walked today and yesterday, flushed 9, shot at two and got two. Hopefully next year I'll have a dog to hunt with. Still warm up here, skim of ice on ponds. Weather has been nice. Hopefully walk a bit more the next few weeks. Been pretty cautious walking for birds to not interfere with deer hunters. There sure are not the deer hunters there used to be 
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the South Shore...  The focus for many this week is the ongoing deer hunting season which is a big tradition in these parts, even for avid walleye anglers.  There were some that either already harvested their deer or are more into catching fall walleyes than hunting.     Those that are fishing are taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and excellent walleye and sauger bite that is happening across the lake.  Cold weather is in the forecast in the upcoming days and weeks so that is also getting many excited. The best depths on the south end of LOW are 22-28 feet of water.     Vertical jigging with frozen emerald shiners is catching most of the walleyes, saugers and jumbo perch.  Depending upon where on the lake you are fishing, some slots and big trophies are in the mix as well, but most reports are talking about good numbers of eaters.    Jumbo perch are coming in good numbers this fall which will serve ice anglers well.  Watch out for an occasional pike or even lake sturgeon mixed in with the walleyes.      There are good numbers of walleyes and saugers across the south shore which is setting up nicely for early ice.   On the Rainy River...  There continues to be good numbers of shiners in the river, and consequently, there are good walleyes in the river as well.     Walleyes along with saugers, pike and some sturgeon are coming in up and down the river.  Most walleyes are being caught in 10-25 feet of water in various stretches of the river.   Jigging with live or frozen emerald shiners is the key. Some anglers are also still slow trolling crankbaits upstream to cover more ground and find fish. Both methods are producing solid results. Sturgeon fishing remains strong.  The catch-and-release sturgeon fishing is open into the spring when it changes to the "keep season" on April 24th. Up at the NW Angle...  As temps are getting colder, most are in the woods hunting and not fall fishing, however, for those who bundle up, fishing continues to be excellent.     A nice mixed bag with walleyes, saugers, perch, pike and crappies being caught. Very good muskie fishing with the colder water temps and shorter days.  Some big fish and some good numbers are being caught amongst the islands.  Both casting and trolling is getting it done.  
    • gimruis
      I hunt in the rifle zone so I don't have a need to use a shotgun to hunt deer, but I would be looking at this if there was ever a need to.   There could be state legislation introduced next summer that eliminates the shotgun zone completely.  It has bipartisan support.  Wisconsin removed theirs years ago and MN is usually later to follow.  They've tried to pass it more than once and it came up just short both times.  Probably just a matter of time.
    • Wanderer
      Oh, h e l l no! 
    • leech~~
      Screw that, here's whatch need!  😆   Power-Shok Rifled Slug 10 Gauge 766 Grain Grain Weight: 766 Shotshell Length: 3-1/2in / 89mm Muzzle Velocity: 1280
    • Wanderer
      20 ga has become a real popular deer round in the last 5 or so years.  The rifled barrels are zinging those sabot slugs with rifle like accuracy out to 100 yards easily.  Some go so far as dialing in for a 200 yard shot but really, by 150 they’re falling off pretty low.   I have a single shot Ultraslug in 20 ga that shoots really well at 100 yards.  Most everyone I know that has bought a slug gun lately has gotten the Savage 220 in 20ga.  Problem can be finding the shells you want.
    • leech~~
      My son always bugs me about getting a nice light over-under 20ga for grouse hunting.  I say Heck no, I'm getting a 3 1/2" 10ga so I can put as much lead in the air that I can!!     So, I'm keeping my 12ga.  
    • 11-87
      That’s almost exactly what I was thinking.  Have slug barrels for both   One for turkey and one for deer.      I have a 20ga mosseberg as well. (Combo came with the scope but never used.   I always liked the 12 better
    • leech~~
      Wanderer is right on the money and covered it well.  I was wondering too if you had a slug barrel for one of your guns?  If so you could make that your slug gun with a scope, and the other your turkey gun with the Red dot.  As you can afford it. 
    • Wanderer
      Kinda depends on if you want magnification or quick target acquisition.   More magnification options and better accuracy with a scope.  You get what you pay for too so get comfortable with a budget for one.  Tasco and Bushnell work but I find they lose their zero easier, have low contrast and don’t gather light well in low light conditions.  That said, I’m still using one I haven’t replaced yet.  Vortex has been the hot brand for the past several years for bang for the buck.  Good products.  Nothing beats Swarovski though.  Huge dough for those.  Burris is another decent option.   There are some specific models for shotgun/slug hunting in the economy brands and bullet drop compensation (BDC) reticles.  Based on experience I’d recommend not falling for that marketing ploy.   Red dots are usually lower magnification and easier to get on target.  Reasonably accurate but don’t do well with definition, like searching the brush for your target.  I put a HAWKE red dot on a .22 for squirrels and it’s been good.  For turkey, that’s probably the route I’d go.     If your slug shots are normally not too far and too brushy, I’d think a red dot could work there too if you’re only buying 1 scope.  You’ll be better off dimming the reticle to the lowest setting you can easily use to not over shine the target and get a finer aim point.   If you don’t have a slug barrel, you might appreciate one of those.  I had a browning with a smoothbore slug barrel that shot Brenneke 2-3/4 inch well.  The 11-87 would well fitted with a cantelever rifled barrel. 
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