Ortonville, new ducks?

[PLfisherman]

anyone been out to ortonville recently, i was out there two weeks ago and did ok, no northern mallards down. with this cold weather on saturday it should finally starts to move some birds hopefully. any reports would help

[Sko]

We hunted there on Thursday last week. There are a few ducks around in the Clinton/South of Graceville area. A few mallards and spotty concentrations of divers. We hunted a large slough NW of Clinton and got nothing. A few lookers, but no takers. Maybe it was because we had thunderstorms and heavy rain most of the time. If you are heading out there, do your scouting and find where the ducks want to be before you go through the work of putting out decoys.

I will say that on Saturday evening, when we were hunting pheasants in South Dakota near Mitchell, there was a migration of snow geese going on. Quite a few high flocks heading south towards Iowa or Nebraska. I have yet to check the Waterfowler.com reports, but I would guess they are seeing some of these to the south of us already. What does that mean for Minnesota? I would have to quess that there are some increase in waterfowl if geese were being pushed out of the north.

[Seabass77]

I was in Wheaton over the weekend. All the birds are in the fields. There is so much standing water, they are roosting and feeding in the same areas. The key is to get access to private land.

[PLfisherman]

SKO i think i might know what slough you are talking about but, there is a couple of bigger ones up there. There wasn't a whole lot up north of clinton last time we were up there as well. we hunt in a smaller one up about 4 miles west of seven i think it is. with most of the corn standing the birds moved around each day finding places to feed. this was two weeks ago. one morning we say maybe 500 ducks total and the next morning the wind switched to the nw and we saw about 4000 ducks, then it switched back to sw and the ducks moved again. they only move 10-20 miles to find food. with all the flooding in the fields now they can just stay in the fields, which might make it tough. I hope to come out the 13th and it should be prime by then. good luck

[Sko]

I can imagine with all the rain they got last Thursday, there are even more places to feed in the fields. It is a good strategy to find a farm that has a picked corn field where the mallards are visiting. Farmers if asked kindly, will let you on their field as long as it is harvested. Since my time is short this year for hunting, I may head back out there right at freeze up or shortly after. Timing for that may be next week as it sounds like the freeze up is on the way.

[PLfisherman]

How much water is there still in the fieldsout in ortonville . I want to go out on saturday thinking there will be a ton of ducks coming down the next couple days, but wondering if it is worth it, if all of the fields are still flooded.how much corn is now gone? I don't have time to scout around for a farmer to let me on his flooded land.I am hunting on publicwater by artichoke lake that usually has a lot of ducks on it. what does every one else think about this weekend?

[Evenflow]

I was out there last weekend and there still is a bit of water in the fields. It appeared to be drying out pretty quickly as the weekend went on. I think you'll be fine.

Before we left I also saw all the reports of birds feeding and roosting in flooded fields. After being there I don't think it's anything to worry about.

Last Friday we put on 140 miles and I never once saw a bird in flooded field. I saw thousands of birds feeding in dry fields, but not one in flooded fields and I was looking pretty hard.

Evenflow

[Duck-o-holic]

PL--

Was out in that area this morning. Did not see much at all for ducks, but the geese were thick! Put on a lot of miles scouting, and am concluding that the ducks were pushed out of the area due to the small sloughs freezing. Did see several areas where geese were keeping the water open. A couple of these spots had mallards mixed in with the geese, but was very disappointed in the lack of greenhead activity!

Hopefully there still up north, and have yet to arrive!

Duck-o-holic