2017 Waterfowl Reports

I like to start a thread every year for people to post info and pics of their hunts. I know it’s a bit early but I can’t wait for the season the start.
DT

@beachbrian, if you don’t mind can you pin this to the top?
Thanks

Just looking through last year’s thread. I started that one on August 5th. Guess I start getting excited for the season about the same time every year.
DT

I’m pretty excited about waterfowl season. It’s the first thing I hunt each year and I have a 1 1/2 year old Draht raring to go along with a 10 year old vet.

I’m pumped. Getting a hard sided blind custom made for my boat. Can’t wait for some lame vermillion divers

Any early goose reports? I didn’t go, did my last weekend of fishing for the year.

We ended up dove hunting Friday morning had our 2 man limit by noon and ended up scouting hard on Friday night and ended up deciding to head to the field I’d been scouting for 3 weeks.
Saturday morning get a call from a one of the guys hunting saying that there was already headlights in the field. Figured I should go let them know we were planning on hunting the same field turns out couple of boys I knew that had found the field the night before. They ended up with 22 birds, we ended up with 19 and a band. Sunday hunted the same field shot 17 and 2 bands and a possibly quill. Monday ended up in a different field running traffic and shot 5. Adam had a great first time in the blind hunting for geese.

Ended up field hunting last weekend with a decent take. It was my first time field hunting and I’m not yet sold on it. There’s just something about water that I love so much. Not to mention the startup cost of field hunting…

It’s hard to convince the wife that I need 5 or 6 dozen more decoys for fields when I have 12-15 dozen misc. floaters…If I do ever get into it, I may just use my floaters on some style of hanger.

That’s something I’ve been thinking about. How hard could it be to make some type of rest your floaters sit on.

Keep field hunting and wait until you get into a field with 1000+ birds water hunting won’t cross your mind after that.
I did see on Facebook some guy in Minnesota was making conversion stakes for floaters to be used in a field

Ducky.

John Christesnen wrote:

Keep field hunting and wait until you get into a field with 1000+ birds water hunting won’t cross your mind after that.
I did see on Facebook some guy in Minnesota was making conversion stakes for floaters to be used in a field

Ducky.

I think something like this is what you are looking for.

http://www.dcvroutdoors.com/products

John Christesnen wrote:

Keep field hunting and wait until you get into a field with 1000+ birds water hunting won’t cross your mind after that.

The number of birds isn’t necessarily why I love the sport. It’s being out on the water with friends and working towards a common goal of watching birds work over your decoys. The number of birds I shoot does not matter to me. I’ve 2 bird days that trump limit days. It’s about the struggle getting through skinny water and fooling the birds. I guess it’s hard to explain, but it didn’t get me as excited as water hunting.

I equate the differences in preference to people who like to gun hunt vs bow hunt deer. At the end of the day, everyone’s after the same goal of harvesting a deer, but the tactics and strategy differences is what sways peoples preferences to one or the other. I have gun hunted quite a few times, but I definitely prefer bow hunting.

I am just the opposite. I’ve been duck hunting water for over 40 years(started very young). Been field hunting geese/ducks the last 10-12 in Canada and I absolutely love field hunting. I still have great passion for water hunting, but given the choice I’ll take field hunting.

Ended our early season with 71 birds on and the ground and a ton of jerky given away to farmers. As we were finishing up our final batch of jerky we realized we never had an evening hunt. Anybody hunt evenings? This last sunday resulted in our worst bird numbers with only 3 of us hunting and 8 birds down but we hunted a creek running through pasture ground and had birds maple leafing at about 10 yards trying to get in the decoys. Probably one of the best decoy sets I’ve ever had.
Good luck on duck opener folks seems to be a lot of bigger flocks around this year.

Ducky.

John Christesnen wrote:

Anybody hunt evenings?

I usually do not hunt evenings until the last two weekends in October. Those are the best days for me personally.

Matter of fact, last year a Redneck Jr and I hunted an evening in southern MN and there were literally thousands of Mallards bombing in by the hundreds into our decoys and on the slough behind us with about 10 minutes of shooting hours left. Once sunset hit, we started up the boat and retrieved our birds and started packing up the decoys. We had dozens of Mallards about take our heads off trying to land in the decoys we were picking up. Easily the best evening hunt I have ever had.

Pretty slow for us in the Fergus area this weekend. Not many ducks moving and not much shooting at all in our area. We did manage to get a few woodies and teal and one goose, but I have had much better openers. Still great to be out again though

Hunting for us was spectacular this weekend. Saturday, we had 6 people with two groups of 3. One group was limited by 7:15 or so and the other by 8am. The rain was BRUTAL, but there was no heat where we were. Sunday was good, but obviously much slower. Ended Sunday with 20 birds for the 6 of us. Mostly teal, 8 or so Mallards and 2 pintail made it into blind. Not much activity for geese where we were, but they usually don’t really turn on out there until late season.

43 ducks for us on opener with mostly teal, mallards, woodies and 2 pintails.
Sunday slowed but also passed on the teal 17 ducks mostly mallards and woodies.
Also won a free speck hunt down in Arkansas Sunday night so looks like waterfowl season will be extended this year for myself and a couple other people in our group.
Anybody hunt Arkansas?

Ducky.

First hunt of the year. Finally…..
DT

Blue bird skies but getting a few.
DT

How in the H E double hockey sticks did you manage to NOT get any frost on your decoys????

Looks like a great time!!

Hunted the ole Miss’ this weekend near the metro. There’s still plenty of Teal in the area and the Ringers are really coming down heavy. Birds were wary about decoying, but we managed to scratch up a good number. Also shot a VERY cool Mallard.

Not much to report except a few beautiful mornings. Leaving for ND in less than a week.
DT

Lots of woodies hanging around, and this warm week shouldn’t change that. I’ll be back out Saturday morning. Love eating wood ducks!

DT- I’ll be out in ND a week from today. Any reports out that way? This warm weather needs to GO!!!!

Kind of hitting that mid season lull. There are birds being shot in western MN but it has slowed. Need the cold weather in Canada to hit. Beautiful mornings none the less.
DT

Looks like the weather we need might be here in a few days. Hopefully start seeing some fresh birds!

Leave for ND tomorrow. The reports we are getting is the snows are 30 miles north of the border. With highs in the low thirties with twenties over night our timing might be perfect.
DT

deertracker wrote:

Leave for ND tomorrow. The reports we are getting is the snows are 30 miles north of the border. With highs in the low thirties with twenties over night our timing might be perfect.
DT

Good luck, DT.

Waking up in ND this morning to Temps in the high 20s with winds around 20 mph and eventually gusts up to 50 with up to 2 inches of snow.
DT

Good luck dt…. will be in ND in less than 2 weeks…can’t wait