Waterfowl Reports

[jparrucci]

Shot a black duck in western mn. Saw cinnamon teal just south of the cities. Both are not within their normal flight but there they were. Still haven't shot a cinnamon teal or barrows goldeneye.

[fishuhalik]

Still lots of teal in nw NoDak. Shot 4 bwt yesterday, passed on several. Shot my first gwt drake. Actually, it was my first drake teal of any kind. To be honest I wasn't 100% sure what it was when I pulled the trigger, just saw a red head. They're definitely a good looking bird.

[Ufatz]

Wow! A cinnamon teal near MSP!? Now that little guy really WAS off course. They are nifty and speedly little birds. We used to see and shoot a lot of them in SE Alaska. Nothing like trying to catch up with a teal riding a 40 mile an hour southeast wind! LOL

[jparrucci]

They were sitting on a small cattle pond next to a WMA. No chance to shoot them

[Stringerless!]

Pair of buffies and a woodie drake. Hen woodies in dekes about 3 times. Loon attacking and trying to scare my new blue bill dekes. Would get right next to them and slap its wings and dive. Finally bold enough to give one a jab with beak. Then started hammering on em ! After a while I had had enough and tried to scare her away. Nothin doing.

[fishuhalik]

Pair of buffies and a woodie drake. Hen woodies in dekes about 3 times. Loon attacking and trying to scare my new blue bill dekes. Would get right next to them and slap its wings and dive. Finally bold enough to give one a jab with beak. Then started hammering on em ! After a while I had had enough and tried to scare her away. Nothin doing.

That's pretty cool stringerless!! Sometimes the best part of the day doesn't involve shooting

[nobody05]

I've shot some in sw minnesota... took em to a taxi place and he said it was a white wing scooter.

[Todd Caswell]

Hunted Fri. morning, Friday evening, and Saturday Morning. BIG Goose egg haven't fired a shot, very little for birds in the Brainerd area, not that that suprises me normally we shoot a few ducks. The dogs are getting bored...

[shamalex72]

Hunted north of Garrison this morning, I never fired a shot. Wife missed one. There were a few birds flying, but none wanted to decoy.

[Todd Caswell]

Hunted north of Garrison this morning, I never fired a shot. Wife missed one. There were a few birds flying, but none wanted to decoy.

Just keep tellin yourself it's all about the dog's and the sunrise and you'll be OK. MN duck hunting has alot to be desired..........

[walleyeking19]

Went out this morning by myself..very slow morning. Saw more deer than I did ducks. And I only saw 4 deer. I think the ducks that were here migrated south and the new ones havent quite got here yet. Fingers crossed thats the reason!

[luckycrank]

Ive shot them in southern mn see them through the glass alot more than one would think unfortunatly never seen a drake.. also shot oldsqauw hen last fall and have glassed them here too

[Troy Smutka]

10/20/13 Hutchinson Area

Slow morning Saturday. A couple periods of drizzle with light WSW winds, and not much flying. We got one mallard out of a pair that decoyed nicely. Started talking about the cold moving many of the ducks that arrived last weekend out and not replacing them. Then the rain stopped, it cleared, and the wind began to gust from the NW. With a forecast of rain on Sunday, we decided to stay out all day and see if the dropping temps and NW wind would bring some ducks in as the day went on. It did. We bagged three mallards, a gadwall, and a pintail. Two wounded mallards dove on us, and a flock of bills, a flock of ringers, and a small bunch of spoonies decoyed while we were pushing the boat back into the weeds from retrieving ducks. Called it quits at 5:30, and as we were pushing the boat out to get dekes, about twenty mallards floated through the dekes. Had some bad luck/timing, but some new ducks definitely moved in and were fun to watch even if we didn't shoot at all of them. Didn't go out in the rain on Sunday morning.

[dan z]

Shot 5 redheads and 1 ring bill this am 3 guys. Had an early flock of mallards short us. Seen 2 flocks of migrating ducks. Didn't see much for ducks. Did see the 1st bufflehead of the year. Hoping for a little push the next couple days as I will be waiting for them while most of you guys are at work.

[Stringerless!]

Missed a flock of buffies and a lone ringie drake this morning. 3 of us ?!?!?! Really struggling with getting birds to decoy this year it seems. Can not figure it out.No migration seen. Tried for geese in evening but they were in a chopped cornfield to the north of where I have permission. Set up in new rye. Spent most of the time looking up for migrating birds. Nothing. Robins and bluebirds bunching up but that was it. Both hunts-Northern Washington County.

[Walleye Guy]

A buddy and his son and I hunted Thursday through Sunday morning in western WI. Ended up with 35 ducks a goose. Saw many new birds in the area on Friday morning. We would have hard more but had spans where our shooting was less than stellar. We never fired a shot at a mallard but we ended up with 3 canvasbacks, 12 redheads, 8 teal and the rest were a mix of ringbills, bluebills, gadwalls etc. When we had a north wind the action was awesome. Had less decoying ducks on the days we had a south wind.

[Riverratpete]

Hunted north of the cities on Saturday AM. Only thing left were birds that were extremely decoy and call shy..better off using 2 dekes and no call. I'm sure with the current weather pattern things should only get better for awhile. Still some woodrows around..BWT were history..did have a couple GE's buzzing around though.

[CANOPY SAM]

Northwest Minnesota. Did see a few flocks of birds definitely moving south this weekend, but the numbers are still quite low. There's a cold strong NW wind blowing today which should be pushing some birds, but reports out of southern Manitoba and Sask are still showing the push hasn't really ramped up yet.

Steady cold temps this week, with most every night being below freezing should really get the birds jumping. I expect to start hearing lots of geese migrating over night over the next week. The big puddles from this weekend's rain/snow are frozen over pretty good this morning.

Really hoping that our local farmers are able to catch a break this week. Pretty much all the corn is still standing, and many bean fields have yet to be harvested as well. If the farmers could get most of the corn and beans off I think we'd see a lot more of the migrators stick around over the coming weeks.

[Lunker]

Hunted Fri-Sun with some friends down here on Pool 7 and 8. Lots of birds down, and tons of hunters. We did alright, taking Mallards, GWT, Pintails, Gadwalls, BWT, and Ringneck.

[Bdog]

Hunted western MN Saturday, just me and the dog. 4 mallards, 1 redhead,1 widgeon. Saw lots of ducks. With this cold NW flow, now is the time to get out there. More surely to come later. Hoping to try again tomorrow AM.

[H0LE HOPPER]

Hunted around Bemidji area over the weekend for a day shot 26 ducks for 5 people all of them being divers. Shot mostly goldeneyes and buffleheads. Bluebills were there but not in big numbers yet biggest flock was prolly 150. Maybe next two weeks it should be peak numbers.

[dan z]

Sat all day today seen ring bills migrating. A flock of pintails. And some other big ducks V'd up. I ended up shooting my 3 geese and a healthy greenhead.

[BrdHunter01]

Saturday - Monday

Saturday was ok, enough birds to keep us interested. Four of us ended up with a mixed bag of mallards, cans, pintails, widgeon.

Sunday we never fired our guns. Saw some ducks but had a bad setup and the rain pushed us out by 9am

Monday the cans were gone, lots of divers. Ended with 5 including 2 buffleheads and a blackduck which were the highlight of the weekend!

[BoxMN]

Got back from Thursday to Monday NoDak trip yesterday. Had a great time, but not as good of hunting as we would have liked. Just not as many birds around (NE ND). Still shot 60+ birds, but average to the number of hunters, and we each had fun and shot some, but no limits... which is fine.

Had great time with our farmer friends, the kids had fun running around in the farmer Gators, and we had a nice mixed bag of mallards, redheads, still lots of BWT and some GWT (two nicely colored drakes), ringbill, ever present gadwall, a couple pintail, a single goose, and we also weren't afraid to say hi to a few spoonbill

Just really there were not that many birds in our area. Missed out on one good field when my buddy didn't get there early enough. Oh well. Pretty wet out there, and the old half ton Silverado had to pull out another new SuperDuty 1 ton, haha!

Good trip, good fun, fun hunts, no so many birds... sums it up Thank you once again North Dakota folks! (Fatheads in Lankin made it hard to get up a couple mornings for some of our guys, haha!)

[onthefly]

Box... How far north? Was thinking about Langdon area Nov 1-6, but concerned about freeze up. Anything frozen up that way?

[BoxMN]

onthefly, yep, that general area, about 25 miles south of the border. I was going to go back up that same weekend, but not sure now. Friends are going to give me the heads up if something starts coming through. He said it was supposed to get a bit warmer for a week or so, and then who knows. Once that area freezes up, birds can go through in a day without stopping. But if it doesn't I bet that time could be great, there is lots of feed out there for them!

The edges and small sloughs were frozen Monday morning, but we just broke through fairly easy, and the dog could break getting birds. But a calm night of 13 lows could be an issue. Good luck if you go!

[onthefly]

Thanks, Box. We hunted it for nonresident opener and found really good numbers of ducks and geese. But, there isn't any really big water to stay open when the weather turns cold. We figured the migrants would just keep moving.

Oh well - I'm sure Devil's Lake won't freeze up too early! So, that's plan B.

[Stringerless!]

Northern Washington County in afternoon yesterday. Field that had 150 geese in it on Sunday. Set up at 3pm, Never saw or heard a single goose the whole time. Heard one single shot in the distance. No high flying migrators seen. One small flock of about 12 ducks spotted far away.

[Gordie]

Box we had the same results out on Devils lake last week Fun times, got birds but not the bird numbers on the big water. We shot more birds in the potholes than the big water.

Wed decided to fish Saturday after noon and did really well on perch eyes and crappie.

So it was a good cast and blast week.

[BoxMN]

Gordie - Ha - my farmer buddy just texted me and told me we left too early, that new and lots of birds have been moving in the past two days. I hear it all the time, fishing and hunting - "shoulda been here last week"