From BIGDRIFT

[WalleyeWeasel]

Word just received from Winnipeg area and points north of us.

Low fog and rain changing to Low cloud and ceiling cover winds changing to 30 + mph out of the NORTH.

reports from LOTW and Winipeg suggest rafts up and moving as of 9:15 this am going south. large numbers of ringnecks were seen on Lower Red Lake this am appearing to have increased.

please up date this thread over the weekend with your observations or reports. Also if any one knows how to move this around please put it on the Waterfowl Forum thanks gotta go get the boat ready

thanx BIGDRIFT....

[Willy]

Down here in southern Minn.

On the way to work this morning I drive by where I hunt and saw numerous flocks of big mally working the lake. Will be out either this eve after work or tommorow am.

Now's when the real hunting starts!!!

[walleyefey]

Just curious what part of the area you are from. I am from Edgerton Mn, and am anxious to really get on some nice mallards. Give me a reply if you dont mind.

[Willy]

Mankato area is where I am talking about. There were some working the lake I hunt, but didn't see much anywhere else. I would guess this is the start of a trickle from the north. A guy needs to get out there and scout this time of year.

It can either be hammer time, or you see 20 ducks??

[set the drag]

its hammer time had a blast this morning in the mankato area

this morn me and my bro limited out with a mixed bag of ringbills, greater scaup(green headed bluebill),gadwalls and a few nice little green wing teal. let all the ducks decoy and took our time getting our limits by taking one or two ducks out of each flock. Oct 29 is still the day to be in the boat b4 anyone else. its beens this way 4 the last 4 years for me. day before halloween rocks can't waite to get out tommorow and bang em again!!!

[Roosterslayer05]

Hunted SW MN all weekend. Definatly not as many birds around as last holloween weekend. Saturday Morning was good, I shot 4 ducks and missed some easy shots as well, I got 4 ducks by 10:30 then only fired 6 shells from 10:30 till evning! The rest of the day sucked. I shot a GWT, 2 widgoen, and a gadwall. Not many mallards around at all, The only ducks I shot at were teal, gadwall and widgoen. All the ducks were preaty [commercial-or-naughty-word] wary so they sure werent new migrants. This morning a few mallerds moved in and we got one greenhead, should have had 3-4 but had some poor shooting. Watch out! There are still Pintails around, I saw 1 flock and a few times a single Pintail tagging along with a flock of gadwall/widgoen. There were some idiots shooting geese saturday when it was closed(West zone closed friday after shooting time) So when i saw a DNR officer i pointed him in there direction. I also saw two guys shoot at geese this morning, they were so high theres no way they could have got hit but i yelled over at them anyway, told them the season was closed and had a few more choice words. How can people go hunting in an area and not know the regs, I wonder how many geese get shot in the west zone out of season. Not really any migrants around yet in the SW portion of the state but soon there should be, I also saw a flock of snows and a pair of snows.

[loosegoose]

West Central Mn area is very quiet as of yet. The first two weekend of the season were great but the ducks have been very scarce since? Much different from the past few years. Hopefully we see some migrating ducks soon.