Ducks at Red Wing – What Are They?

I was fishing below the dam at Red Wing yesterday evening, and a little before dark, there were big flocks of ducks flying down stream. I’ve seen flocks of ducks doing this about this time day for several years but I’ve never seen so many as yesterday (Friday, Dec. 20th). I’d guess there were 2000 – 3000 or maybe more. They’re really neat to see and make a cool sound as they fly over.

Does anybody know what kind of ducks they are and where they are coming from and going to? In the morning are they flying up stream? I assume they’re coming back from feeding areas to roost somewhere.

Fishing was slow for me. Just caught a few but I was only out for few hours and couldn’t stay much past dark. Frozen foam was a hassle on the MN side but the light breeze seemed to be keeping the WI side clear. I tried dragging plastics in 7-19 ft on the WI side. With just a few fish, it’s hard to say I found a pattern but for what it’s worth, I did get a couple slowly dragging a 1/4 oz blade off the bottom going down stream. I pretty much had the river to myself… I saw just one other boat and a couple of commercial fishing boats.

Boone

Was the “cool sound” a “whistling” noise? They may have been goldeneye, commonly known as “whistlers”. I used to see them on a river in southern Wisconsin every December.

Quote:

---

Was the “cool sound” a “whistling” noise? They may have been goldeneye, commonly known as “whistlers”. I used to see them on a river in southern Wisconsin every December.

---

That’s what i was going to guess they were

The sound you heard was likely their wings.

I’d guess divers for sure.. Probably a mix of goldeneyes, canvasbacks, and mergansers.

I was fishing the Mississippi River up by Monticello today and heard the same cool sounding ducks you heard; noticed it mostly right at dusk. I didn’t see/hear as many as you did but I’ll bet I heard 300 to 400.

I am pretty sure they were Mallards. The cool sound you heard was their wing beats. They must be coming from the fields and flying back to the river to roost.

Right before dark the mergansers and golden eyes fly. Some mallards but most r mergansers.

there are thousands of common mergansers that winter in red wing, but there are also golden eyes, buffle heads, mallards and other divers. the whistling sounds is more common with a diver duck like mergansers golden eyes and such because they pump there wings much faster than a mallard does.

We always see lots of golden eyes at dusk.

Quote:

---

I was fishing the Mississippi River up by Monticello today and heard the same cool sounding ducks you heard; noticed it mostly right at dusk. I didn’t see/hear as many as you did but I’ll bet I heard 300 to 400.

I am pretty sure they were Mallards. The cool sound you heard was their wing beats. They must be coming from the fields and flying back to the river to roost.

---

Fished that same area this morning and those whistlers are very cool sounding. Open river doesn’t get much prettier than this time of year there with all the trumpeter swans flying back and forth too.

Judging by pics online I would go with mergansers. All the ducks I saw whistling seemed to have a distinct triangular head, partially rounded.

Should be easy to tell. Common mergansers are the biggest duck in the midwest, bigger than a mallard size wise. Goldeneyes are small ducks. Hooded mergansers are tiny ducks, similar to buffleheads.

Here is a size picture for you, a common I shot earlier this year next to a drake mallard.

The ducks I noticed on Sunday looked to be smaller than Mallards and they really cruise. I was running 30mph and they were going faster, the flocks would leave me behind fairly quickly. They had to be going at least 40mph, possibly higher. How fast can they go?

On the fishing side of things:
Went out of Everts after noon and it took me almost 2 hours to find fish that were cooperative. After finding the depth and flow, the action was non-stop for a couple hours. Even had a couple of doubles. Active fish were mostly in the 23-27FOW in the current with a few on the edges of the current. Mostly Saugers in the 14 to 18″ range with 1, 16″ Walleye.

Probably goldeneyes and hooded mergansers.

We call them “scooters” for a reason, they really move!

Thanks for the information. So it seems like they are either golden eyes and/or hooded mergansers. They are definitely smaller than mallards and their wings beat so fast you can barely see them. I was out again on Saturday evening (Dec. 21st) but didn’t see nearly as many. I just wonder where they’re coming from and where they’re going to. At the speed they fly, it doesn’t take them long to cover a lot of ground.

As for fishing, I did better on Saturday than Friday. I saw quite of few other guys catching fish in the late afternoon. I think I ended up with 6 walleye, 1 small sauger,and 1 small northern. I caught the walleyes at dusk or after dark pitching or dragging.

Boone

They follow the ice line to the mussel beds. They were likely flying back to their roost area after feeding on the mussel beds all day. As the river freezes and thaws you will see them come and go.

Kevin, talking about mussel beds and the freezing of ice,,, We fished lock and dam 5 about 12 years ago and the artic swans were on the way south and then east at the end of October.

We stayed a few days and fished at dam 5 and where we camped the artic swans came from the north and flew down to Reicks Marsh right beside where we camped. just outside of Alam Wisc.

This is the very first time we had the chance to see them and what A sight to see, very very cool. These Swans have a 7′ wingspan and are snow white except for their feet and bills and they are black. They come down with the freezing ice just behind them so they can feed on the bottom mollusks, when it gets iced over they can’t feed.

Their a couple days ahead of the ice all the time and their flying destination is Cheasapeak bay out east where they winter over, then make their trip back to the artic for breeding, coming back the same route they flew out on.

Anyone thats got any time should make it a point to see the swans, they are really really cool. One of the things thats really cool about them is the very high flying swans are from long flights and the lower swans are from shorter flights of maybe 200 miles, the longer flights are 3 too 400 miles, coming south. Theres a male and female with eigther 1 or 2 (signets)? or the early of the year hatchlings. Both parents come south with one or both of their young that made it up to that point. They circle Reicks marsh up too 3 too 5 times in a big wide circle at about 2000 feet and gradually drop down to about 1000′ over the marsh. They make big wide circles flying down that are about a mile wide and gradually tapering smaller in size as they fly down.

When they get to that height they then lock their wings and make about a 12 degree angled drop to just over the water and then land.

About the last 750′ too a 1000′ over the water when they start their lowering they never flap their wings and then about the last 100 feet over their landing point they flap their wings maybe 1/2 dozen times to orientate themselves for landing. I don’t remember how many rolls of 35 mm film I shot but it was atleast a half dozen. They are very cool birds to say the least. Anyone thats got the time should see the artic swans at Reicks marsh just a stones throw north of Alma, it really is something to see and is very well worth your time, very very cool birds. They are Americas 3rd largest bird, the condor and wild turkey being the first and second.

Maybe someone from around Alma can chime in here and say something about them too.