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just got home from a morning hunt and can you say windy. it sure is a pain in the a$$ to paddle with that wind. ended up with three teals. i ended up gettin my first double. one shot two birds, and a buddy got the third teal out of the bunch. did see some bigger flocks of birds. cold weather much be bunching them up. windy and cold, other then the paddle a great day in the blind. think i will be lookin for a 10 horse for my boat after today.

Iceman

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Quote:

2 guys Greenheads, Widgeon, Gadwall and pheasant limits plus they had 3 meals - 2 duck one pheasant.


Where were they hunting pheasants FOOT... a game farm? Pheasants don't open up until Saturday in ND...

marine_man

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Marine Man, you are right. Egg on my face. I should have known better coming from my brother, he just wanted to make me feel bad since I had to back out of the trip due to work commitments.

I just called him back and asked him. I think he and his buddy had to pull over and stop the vehicle with all the laughing on their part, especially since I told them I posted their report.

I guess, and don't take this as gospel cause now I don't trust them, but he said they did have a good duck shoot and did eat 2 meals (one roast dusk & one duck fajitas) while they were there.

Now I've got to think of something to get even when we go over the end of the month.

Last year I put 2 pink flamingos in their decoy spread one morning so I guess he was getting back at me.

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Three mallards, one spoony, one goose this morning.One guy. Windy conditions sure made them want to get in the decoys. Shot two an hour. All singles except the goose came in with twenty buds. Saw some big flocks of mallards flying around after 8:00. Lots of geese in the air at 9:30 when I was headed to work.

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Professor cancelled class for today, so I decided to get out and do a little hunting given the ducky weather. Didn't want to mess with the big boat/blind, so I just threw a bag of dekes in the canoe, grabbed the dog and my gun, and headed for water. At the landing I saw I had company with one other rig, and I knew they would be in the spot I was planning on hunting. Paddled over and saw that there were just two guys and asked if it would be alright if I joined them. Surprisingly I got a "sure!". Ended up with a woodie and a drake shoveler and those two teamed up on a blue winger. My ol' dog is gonna be 11 yrs old in a week but he still made nice retrieves on all 3 birds. Best part of the hunt was coming across some guys who had a good attitude in the field and who were willing to be accomodative rather than overly competitive. Very refreshing to see and as far as weekday hunts go it was a pretty darn good one. The paddle back to the landing against the wind did get a little hairy, however, but that is just part of the game. Can't wait for the weekend!

SA/wdw

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Well three of us hunted a public stop in the south metro. Lots of birds. Ended up with a few, and should have had a few more. First time I've been wet and cold in a long time. Now I really have patch my waders.

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Hunted in the metro tuesday and wensday morning. Lots of woodies around, i shot my limit of woodies in the first hour tuesday then watched while woodies flew over me the rest of the morning. Wensday i shot a woodie, 1 gwt, and a hooded merganser. I was pass shooting between a lake and a flooded bean field.

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I was out today west of the cities and we got 4 woodies, 3 bwt and a goose. We could have shot woodies all day long. We must have had 30 or so come into the dekes. Fun!

LovenLifeGuy

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Made it out north of the cities this morning.. some ducks flying early... nothing flying by 9:30.

We ended up with a Drake Mallard, Nice drake woody, and 2 hen ringbills... quite a few woodies flying.. the one I shot had a lot of fat, probably a northern bird, the same with one of the ringers.

A few more birds we should have had.. nothing fast and furious, but steady shooting for a couple hours.

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Yo, set the drag

it is guys like you who give us waterfowlers who follow the law a bad name. A really bad name. If you do something like this again keep it to yourself.

and these guys kicked JerknperchSD out, at least he followed the laws.

sorry for being so mean but, just don't post about something like that again

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We have kind of switched gears and been hunting Geese lately. We did fine with ducks as well. In fact while we were cleaning up decoys after dropping a Woodie and a Mallard, I was also in a canoe fighting against the wind and luckily the wind blew me directly into the path of three geese. I stayed down but they knew something was fishy and veered to their left and I did drop 1. I think all would agree...These are some really tough birds. That Goose just refused to die. Dug a pit the later that day and got one hell of a blind. Geese flying everywhere!! Sometimes it seemed a little tough to get them to commit to the Dekes. Quick advice...Do you have better luck with more dekes or less?? We probably have a dozen and a half. Thanks in advance!!!

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Just pitiful set the drag. Hope you have the nads to brag about the fine. Surprising amount of shooting this morn in south shakopee while walking the hounds. Bunch of cut silage around and geese working it. Wish I had time to knock on doors and find out if it's huntable. Get at em boys.

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Studer-

We add more dekes as the season progresses because that is usually what is evident with real flocks of ducks and geese that we see. However, doing something out of the ordinary can sometimes pay off-- just think of how many 2 doz. duck decoy, half dozen goose deke spread birds have seen by mid-season. I've heard of guys going out with a half dozen decoys, placing them well, covering up real well and having success.

REPORT: Action was slow for us today. Saw just a few woodies but still managed to get a 2-man limit. Mallards were flying very high and showing no interest in decoys. No other species of ducks around. Did see one flock of about 40 or so cackling geese which I would have loved to have had decoy but they failed to do so. Need some migrant birds to move in to replace locals already gone. Hunting near Mille Lacs tomorrow most likely. How'd everyone else do?

SA/wdw

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It was terrible for us north of the metro this morning.. very few birds and shots where it has been consistent until now.. A few large flocks started coming in late.. appeared to be migrants.. I sure hope so... but they didnt want to come in where we were sitting either.. packed it up early.

Tomorrow is another day.. a WELL RESTED DAY!

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From what I saw around New Ulm this morning is that a lot birds took off already. Well someone kicked up about 30 ducks on the lake I was on, but couldn't shoot yet with 5 min. till shooting time!! That was pretty much it for the morning, a couple of loners flying, but that's it!

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Went out friday morning, me and a friend each got a wood duck. Alot of ducks seemed to have left. Went out goose hunting this morning and shot my limit. Got a really small cackler, seriously same size as a mallard maybe half a pound heavier. I got 2 shots and dropped 2 geese, some new geese seemed to have moved into the area.

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Been out 5 times in the last seven days, lots of wood ducks and hardley any mallards, ,been hunting the minnesota river bottoms, ducks seem to be getting less and less every morning that i go out, Hopefully things start improving..

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

Last two morning the sloug I hunt has had 200+ mallards and wood ducks on it when we got there. Both mornings they filtered out without giving the slouogh a second look and didn't return the rest of the morning. They must be roosting there and feeding elsewhere.

We did manage two beautiful canvasback drakes this morning out of a flock of 12+ birds. Also a couple of geese.

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wow Borch, that is awesome. I have yet to get a Can but it is my ultimate goal duck hunting (actually, a $100 reward banded drake can).

We opted to sleep in this morning as my cold can't get much worse- have a funeral to attend this afternoon and then we're gonna give it a shot this evening for some woodies and maybe the geese if they decide to fly.

SA/wdw

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Hunted this morning on a private slough, the guy I hunted with said they have been doing really good and the birds have been all over the place, so he convinces me to get up early after a late night at work and walk a mile into this slough, long story short, saw one hen mallard and one loner goose, neither of them wanted anything to do with the spread. And I managed to fall over 2 times in the mud and get stuck up to my knees in mud in my waders. Still a good day.

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Delta where did you hunt at on saterday? I was on Clear lake that morning and got one woody, another group down the lake got 4 geese. Saw lots of ducks, nothing commited though.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

Quote:


wow Borch, that is awesome. I have yet to get a Can but it is my ultimate goal duck hunting (actually, a $100 reward banded drake can).

SA/wdw


We really checked them over as they gave us a couple of passes before committing. Didn't see any bands though. Over the years we've shot several cans. Although it's usually a bit later in the season when we've gotten them in the past. I really thought over heading out this evening with all the birds on the slough when we get there. But my wife has other plans for me. wink.gif

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Hunted in my back yard this morning and had some good mallard hunting. Saw a couple hundred ducks and managed to take nine. My son Taylor (8) got a drake with a double band, $100 reward, he was really excited! It was really difficult to pick the drakes and that saved a lot of ducks. We were really happy to get three ducks each, and were equally happy that we didn't rake the hens. Now if I can just get my cousin to leave his duck chewing dog at home! Good luck hunting to all, Fisherking01

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After a great opener I got out today and was mightily disappointed. The same spot I limited out on last weekend and three of us managed one honker and one duck. Bumped about 10 honkers and 50-70 ducks off their in the morning boating in and almost none came back. REALLY poor where we were and didn't hear much for shooting in the other sloughs around either.

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slow for me this evening too.. hunted the north metro at a different location I havent hunted for years.. seen nothing until around 6 pm.. then we saw a few flocks flying around.. 2 good flocks over our heads.. partner got a little anxios(oops) on the 1st flock and we lost good shooting opportunity, the 2nd flock came in about a million miles per hour and buzzed directly over our head in good shooting range.. appeared to be making the circle to commit to land(or try) in the spread... oops.. they didnt come back. That last flock was divers way too big to be ringers.. pretty sure they were blue's.

It was fun to get out!

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took friday off and went home to benson for the weekend....got two drake mallards on friday morning, then a drake gadwall and a blue wing teal jumping some drainages in the early afternoon while out scouting for the weekend hunts. found an awesome spot on public land that had filled up nicely with the recent rains and saturday morning i teamed up with two others who stumbled upon the spot as well to nail the mallards. 3 guys 12 mallards no hens. that was awesome. best decoying ive ever seen for a cloudless bright morning. today i slept in and went out late to a little stock pond surrounded by a few trees and 180 acres of corn. two shots two awesomely colored drake woodies and i was done for the weekend. weather of last week definetly pushed birds through and by sunday there wasnt many sitting on the visible waters i normally drive by. but with the rains there is lots of hidden wet spots full of waste grain that i can imagine are holding birds all day long. going home again next weekend to take relatives pheasant hunting. not sure what that leaves me for duck hunting time. probably will need at least 13 minutes to shoot my two pheasants and get back into the waders! pheasants everywhere!!!!!!

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riverrat,

I was hunting on the east shore around the point. All saw was the group of woodies that got up and a couple little groups. I was straight across the lake for the guys that got those 4 geese. I really couldn't see anything to the south of me. cattails are pretty high in that area.

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Went back to Bovey and saw lots of ducks but none of them wanted to commit to my Dekes. Not sure why but I have an idea. I did manage to get a woodie....duck that is.

I think it will help when I get my dock out and a better hidding place.

The guys down the shore from me were doing some serious skybusting. I could see the ducks they were shooting at and they were above the tree line. They called in some flocks that I was working. All in all it was a blast for only my second time out.

Mike

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Hunted Friday and Saturday in the same area where we limited out last weekend. Very different situation. Friday I saw very few birds. Saturday, my dad and I managed to get our limit of ducks, but it took much longer. It was nothing like the week before. Very few birds flying. We kicked a lot of ducks and geese off of the water paddling back into our hole, but none returned.

JEV

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Went back up to Battle Lake area this weekend. Not much happening. Saw some high flying ducks but could have only shot at 2, has I not been day dreaming. Another party that I know of 6 hunters got 3 ducks for Sat & Sun.

Tried the woods for grouse but there was already people hunting there.

Tried fishing again. Small northern and a couple small bass. Got a few nice grappie but you'd catch 1 or 2 and the rest would scatter. Got them in about 20' of water just above the weeds in 16 '.

Still nice weekend to be out.

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