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Waterfowl Reports


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Very good wkd hunt. Our best ever. We shot 20 ducks total. 12 woodies, 5 blue wing teal and 3 mallards. Shot most of them jump shooting. Lots of shooting in the area, so i'm assuming others faired well.

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Hunted up in north central MN. Worst opener in years for me, possibly the worst ever. Not many ducks around, and reports for others on the same lake and another lake near by were that most were coming off the water with 1-2 ducks. I only had 1 or 2 ducks that even flew over the decoys, none in the decoys. Only fired 4 shots on Saturday, with the 3 other groups on the same area shooting very similar. Just did not have many ducks around. A old-timer that has hunted this body of water every year for the last who knows how many years said it was thw worst he has seen.

Plenty of water up north.

I have to believe it was a combination of woodies/teal being pushed south already, not a ton of local ducks around, and not many northern ducks being pushed south yet.

Anyone else hunt up north this weekend?

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Plenty of water up north = north central MN. Here in Northwestern MN we're dry as a bone. Even our major drainage ditches are dry!

Few big flocks of geese around. Seeing some nice bunches of woodies and teal winging up and down the river each morning.

Pretty quiet yet. Highly doubt anything has started moving out of Canada yet, and long term forecasts indicate pretty warm weather for several more weeks.

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Nothing doing this year, so far, never saw a duck and never heard a shot, east central MN must be awfully bad to not hear a shot someplace, but I did locate the first flock of Lesser Canada birds last night in the area, hoping they'll hang in there until Saturday. Friends did very well in western OT. county.

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I won't say it was the worst or the best opener ever as we saw alot of birds in the winni area we just were not on the X and could not get the ducks to decoy this year.

We also had snow on Friday night up this way.

Success isn't always numbers for us as we had a great time the kids learned alot and paitence was one of them. This will help for them when it comes to the deer stand too.

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I hunted near Deer River this weekend. Saturday we limited out with woodducks, mallards, green wing teal and one ring neck. Sunday we had one wood duck come into the dekes at sunrise and then nothing else. After three hours I went and jumped a pothole where I saw a few ducks land and got three blue wings. My partner guarded the decoys with no ducks seen.

Tuesday Central MN was pretty sad. Not much flying but nothing got away that was in range. Ended up with five ring necks, a gadwall and one goose for five and a half hours. Very few teal around in the two places I hunted. Sure makes it hard to get up or more accurately stay up after work, hunt, sleep two hours and repeat. If I didn't love it so much I would stay home and sleep.

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Hunted @ the sanctuary (through MWA drawing) Saturday on Carlos Avery and it was nuts. Birds absolutely everywhere. My semi auto became a 1 shot and we must have shot 10 birds with 2 other guys. All woodies and teal. Best water hunt I've ever been on.

Hunted the North metro Monday and Tuesday. Monday I got there late forgot the decoys and then my gun so I hunted from the launch w/ 3 decoys. Local teal and woodies all over the place but none of them flying all just swimming. Coulda shot my limit on the water. Tuesday different spot in the North metro and shot a woody and 2 teal.

I'm thinking for the most part these were local birds. Geese are starting to arrive, hardly any mallards. Lake levels are low, but the bigger waters haven't dried up. Great hunting so far.

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Lots of BWT and Woodducks shot on Lake Geneva north of Albert Lea.

Water is really low.

Heard a report of a group of 6 guys that split up into pairs.

They shot 72 ducks in 2 days.

34 wood ducks, 30 BWT and 8 Mallards made up their bag.

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Went out this morning pass shooting on the MN river. Only saw about 30 woddies, got one...should have had my limit tho. Saturday Morning we must have seen a couple hundred woodies but they aren't around anymore I guess, or just aren't flying the river anymore.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

Duck season off to good start; split season closures in Central and South duck zones start Oct. 1

Unseasonably cold temperatures and warm memories were hallmarks of last weekend’s Minnesota duck hunting opener, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Steve Cordts, DNR waterfowl specialist, said hunting was good across most of the state, with blue-winged teal, wood duck and mallard comprising most of the harvest.

“Duck numbers were good,” Cordts said. “Hunter numbers were similar to last year, which was the first upturn in duck hunters in Minnesota in several years. The only downs were the temperature, which was nippier than many hunters expected, and water levels at certain locations.”

With three duck hunting zones in effect in Minnesota this year, Cordts reminded hunters in the Central and South duck zones to be aware of closed dates in those zones, splitting the season into two parts to provide more opportunity later in the fall in those parts of the state.

The waterfowl season in the Central Duck Zone (south of Highway 210) will be closed from Monday, Oct. 1, through Friday, Oct. 5, and then reopen Saturday, Oct. 6. In the South Duck Zone (south of Highway 212), the waterfowl season will be closed from Monday, Oct. 1, through Friday, Oct. 12, and then reopen Saturday, Oct. 13. The goose season is also closed in the Central and South duck zones when the duck season is closed.

“These temporary closures translate into additional hunting opportunity later this fall when late season migrants are passing through the state,” said Cordts. “This is just the second year we’ve managed the hunt by using zones and the first-ever time we’ve used three zones,” Cordts said the concept of multiple hunting zones is still relatively new for Minnesota duck hunters, but seems to be appreciated.

“We’re getting good feedback,” said Cordts. “Those who enjoy hunting for wood duck and teal seem to like it because most of the birds have yet to migrate south. Those who like late season diver hunting seem to like it too because they will still have opportunities deep into November.”

South Zone hunters will have opportunities for hunting major rivers and field hunting mallards into early December, he added.

So far the 2012 season is going very well, Cordts said. Duck hunters in north-central Minnesota averaged about 2.7 ducks per hunter on opening day, up from 2.2 ducks per hunter in 2011. One of the better locations was the Mud-Goose Wildlife Management Area (WMA), where hunters averaged 3.6 ducks on opening day.

“Any harvest above three ducks per hunter on a WMA is excellent hunting,” said Cordts. “I consider two fair and three good.”

In northwestern Minnesota, hunter success at Roseau River WMA was about two ducks per hunter, but goose hunter success was very good. At Thief Lake WMA, hunter numbers were down from last year, but those who hunted averaged 3.3 ducks on opening day with dabbling ducks (blue-winged teal, mallard, pintail and widgeon) the most commonly harvested species and ring-necked ducks the number five bird in the bag.

In central Minnesota, hunters averaged two to three ducks per hunter on opening day and by most accounts had a good opener. At Pelican Lake in Wright County, hunter numbers were extremely high. At Carlos Avery WMA in the Twin Cities north metro area, success was 1.3 ducks per hunter on opening day, mainly wood ducks and blue-winged teal.

“As always, results varied throughout the state,” said Cordts. “Harvest was down in some places. We heard best hunting in 20 years from other places. In north-central Minnesota, hunters had fair, good and excellent hunting on lakes all relatively close to each other, the differences being a function of the quality of the rice crop on each lake.”

Cordts said the outlook for the rest of the season remains good, though there will be the typical lull until new birds migrate into the state. He said migrant ring-necked ducks will soon begin to move in to northern Minnesota. Teal and wood ducks will still be fairly common in southern Minnesota this weekend.

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Wow what a day!!! Let me share with you the best day of duck hunting that I've had since I started in '96.

I was hoping to get off early since I was gonna be heading to my parents place by Grand Rapids to hunt the next morning. We met at the shop at 5 am and didn't get back til 6:30 pm, so I just ran back to my apartment, grabbed my gear and a stack of 5 hr energy drinks and ran out the door. As I'm driving right past Devils Lake at about 11:30 I'm thinking, "This is crazy. Im in the duck capital of the world and I'm driving to northern MN to go duck hunting." lol!!

I got to their house at 4:07 am, threw my gear in my dads' pickup and off we go. At this point my dad told me about a little rice pond that he'd been saving for me. It's about 20 acres, packed with thick rice and no pressure. The night before he'd seen around 200 woodies and about the same amount of mallards drop into the pond, all coming from the nw. We found a nice opening to set our dekes in, pulled into the thick rice and got low in the canoe.

At first light we hear wings. LOTS of wings. We look up to see flock after flock of mallards, 100+ strong each, flying just out of range over the lake. They were following a dry creek bed out of the lake. Hmmm...

And we waited. Just when we were starting to wonder "where are the woodies?" they started piling in. Now, I've been hunting woodies & mallards my whole life and have had some darn good shoots, but this was different. Usually they'll come by 2s, 4s, maybe the occasional group of 10. These were coming in flocks, 10-50 at a time and coming in faster than we could reload. I was a little rusty at first but managed to secure my limit of nice drakes in about 15 mins, 20 rds later. Dad was done shooting in maybe 3 mins, tops. We continued sitting there, watching flock after flock pour in and just thanking God for this incredible show. I don't know how many woodies we had fly into range, being conservative I'd say over 1000.

We continued to wait for more mallards to show but none came. I did drop one real while we wee waiting. This whole time there were woodies flying all around us, circling the lake and dropping back down. At about 9:00 we packed up our dekes. We were gonna find where those mallards went!

We paddled the canoe to the dry creek bed, grabbed the rest of our shells, threw 4 dekes in a duluth pack and started walking. After 2 miles of fighting tag elders and brush we found em. Around 2000 mallards, all in a space maybe 100'x100. Since we have hunted numerous beaver ponds, we knew what to do. We made just enough notice to get them to clear out, went into the pond to check depth to make sure we could retrieve any ducks, and threw out our 4 dekes. Not 5 mins later they started coming back.

Talk about committed. These mallards were dropping in from 100 yds up. No circling, no flaring. We were picky, only dropping ducks in a small area we could retrieve em. It only took maybe 45 mins to get our 5 drakes. And it was only 10:30. Sadly none of the mallards had very good color, but that didn't really matter. I had just had an incredible day of duck hunting, a great time with my old man, and made some memories that I will never forget.

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Went out yesterday evening and this evening on the Miss. Saw a lot more birds yesterday, but only had a few pass shots at teal which i missed. Today I set up better and had 1s,2s,and 3s working my spread all afternoon. Ended up with my limit with about 40 minutes of shooting time left(that's a first for an afternoon hunt). 1 greenhead, 1 gadwall, 4 BW Teal. Whiffed on a nice drake woodie and another mallard before I had my limit, but most of what was moving was Teal.

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My dad and I went out this morning and had a great shoot. One pintail, 3 mallards, and 5 teal. Should have limited for sure but oh well. Was a great time!

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The corn and beans are coming out fast in this area and the geese and ducks are starting to show up on those picked fields.

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Much slower action this saturday than last. We only saw a few flocks of ducks. We shot 3 drake woodies, which was cool though.

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Pretty slow this AM three mallards about 10min after shooting time and seen a few right after but other wise not a darn thing! South metro area

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Talked to a couple groups of hunters when I stopped by the access at Pickerel Lake on my way to a different lake to fish.

1 group of 3 guys had 8 Woodies and 3 Ringnecks and a Mallard

the other group of 2 had 6 Mallards and 4 Green Wing Teal.

They saw a lot of ducks in the first 45 minutes and then it was empty skies.

Lots of rice in the lake this year after being none last year because of the high water.

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Not a bad day today for watching ducks, too bad I wanted to do some shooting. Got 2 woodies between me and my brother. We saw probably 150 ducks within the first 30 minutes. Only shot 4 times between the two of us though. They were all staying way to high to shoot, so that kinda sucked. That was in the west metro

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RRR, did we chat today? We had the red Dakota and didn't shoot anything. It was pretty sparse for us out there this morning. But that lake is hard to get good cover and good decoy location.

Good luck everyone!

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Late start this am ( dead battery) at landing. Lots of shooting for 1st hour. So there must be ducks around. After the dead battery incident we got set up just short of 8am sat till 11 and finally made a mallard fall and that was it. .

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Cold nights the last week definately put a bite on the fair weather ducks near Grove City. Still some woodies around, but significantly less than last weekend. Plumage is filling out nicely with the early cold. Got 2 trophy grade drakes between my cousin and I. BW Teal and Widgeon completely absent from last weekend. I picked the wrong pinch point on the beaver pond yesterday morning, managed a couple woodducks and lost a big drake mallard. My cousin across the creek had better shooting.

Lost 6" of water since last weekend. Beaver pond is the only small water around now except for a couple springfed potholes. Poor prospects for the rest of the season in this area if we don't get some significant rain. Puddlers seem to be bypassing this area now as there were no signs of fresh migrants. Didn't hunt any big water to see if any divers were around. Lots of geese hitting harvested beans and corn this weekend. All the ducks seemed to be still local as they really knew their way around our guns.

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Pond and feild hunted ducks out in Buffalo this morn 4 people we managed 19. First time feild hunted in minnesota managed 10 out of the feild mainly mallards and 6 wooducks. I couldnt beleive that i saw prolly a flock of 50 snows come by us today too, thought it was a little odd but i know there is a ton of picked corn and soybeans around so they got the food. Have been scouting a place in the chisago county area turned out to be only 2 min from my house took 2 boats out limited out for 6 people in 25 min best goose hunt ive done! Passed at shooting ducks for the first 25 in order to get the geese but still managed 4 woodies. Havent seen any teal around and i know my buddies up north havent seen much either only few flocks. Just wish this streak wont end for me, opener didnt treat me to well.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • monstermoose78
      Flushed 3 pheasants today with Hazel but they were flushing 50 yards a head of her. Then we went by some little berries that looked black and hazels tail started going a brown bird gets up I thought hen then the bird banked and it was a grouse. It was good to get her out in the woods. I seen a few pheasants in picked corn fields. 
    • 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. 
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