2008 Duck & Goose Migration Report

Thanks for the report Jake! Had to miss my trip to ND this year so thanks for the fix. Sounded like a good year to be a sob hunter.

ET

Super quiet in the Upsala area. Not even worth taking the gun out of the case right now.

We shot a couple of Pin’s on a Saturday field hunt. That along with 2 geese, made for a fun morning. One of the Pin’s was full of what I am being told is Rice Worms in the breast meat . Wierd, supposably once you cook them there is no worries. But my buddy ended up throwing it anyway. We hunted a cut bean field just outside of Rochester.

preiser, we shot 18 birds on sat and 9 on sunday, and 3 of the birds had what your are talking about. ive always caled it rice breast. they say you can eat them if you cook them all the way through… but who wants to even try that?
http://www.ducks.org/blogs/1/46/index.html
ours werent this bad, but were very obvious

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One of the Pin’s was full of what I am being told is Rice Worms in the breast meat .

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It’s just more protien!

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One of the Pin’s was full of what I am being told is Rice Worms in the breast meat .

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It’s just more protien!

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No thanks, thank you for the info Kris. I would not have eaten it either.

Wow, the migration stalls out for a while and our conversation has gone to the worms

Now that November is here I should be much more informative.

The few hunts that I have fit into the past couple of weeks have been enjoyable, but not yet bountiful.

The reports since last Friday October 31st, have significantly improved. Unfortunately they did not involve me.

just about everyone saw new birds this past weekend. for some that meant an increase in numbers and for others a decrease. But the divers ar eon the move.

The large water bodies north of hwy 210 are offering just about every conceiveable diver species. One report came of two guys shooting 7 different species in an outing.

As usual, deer hunting has arrived just as the duck shooting should be getting really good.

I’m still feeling lucky though, during several years in the recent past, this is the weekend when things started snapping for good.

More to come, soon

Good luck

cheers

According to the forecast it sounds like the weather should help out a little this weekend……Have not been out in a couple weeks, but with the warm weather it does not sound like I have missed to much.

Bring on the snow!

yes, im excited, we are supposed to have some strong winds from the wnw and the nw on friday and saturday. we murdered them after we had thos winds a few weekends ago

We need this weather moving in bad! Just hopefully the weather brings some new birds with it.

sunday and monday are going to be the hot days this upcoming week. and if you haven’t seen the forecast for the next 10 days….all the small stuff will be freezing. time to lay the smack down on the green on the river.

Quick report. Sat in a field for a few hours this am. Our area has seen a new flight of Geese in the last week. I’m assuming these have moved in from the Stcloud area. There were a few new ducks around but not much too speak of on that side.

Hitting a private slough that hasn;t been hunted in years tommorow. I’m alittle excited to say the least.

I’m skipping deer hunting, expecting a good weekend for ducks! Got some pegged for tomorrow…..cautiously optimistic

Next four weeks should be FUN!!!

Just got in from a Pool 7 excursion. Let’s just say there are ducks in the area and flying. Didn’t see any big flocks, biggest was around 20(mallards). The lake had a HUGE raft of divers on it when I went by after work. Don’t have a clue as to what kind, just that there were way more birds than I have seen in a long time.
I didn’t bag any birds, but that is another topic

What, No weekend reports? Was everybody too busy chasin deer around to be shootin ducks?

There has been a huge push of Swans taking place over the last 48 hrs…..Sounds like they have been moving heavy across most of the state (at least the southern half).

Ducks? Well that has yet to be seen. Because of some extensive scouting this week, we did well this weekend …..although from reports I’ve heard, most faired poorly Fri-Sun around here, even with the ducky weather. I think we’re still hunting stale birds that have been here for a while…..they know the game. We pulled the robos early saturday morning and saw an instant positive reaction.

Small shallow stuff was all frozen as of this morning (Monday).

nice bull sprigs guys, we did pretty good this weekend, better than i thought. the dakotas are frozen and full of snow, i would of thought with the nw winds, we would of been getting some of those birds this weekend? guess not yet, i went out friday morning and shot 2 woodies and 2 greenheads, sat 3 of us had our 12 malards by about 730, and sunday was a little work, but we had 9 birds. today, went and shot 4 greenheads and 2 drake greenwings.
hey, its still better than hunting ditch rats…

Another report from the Sat. The private land I was supposed to hunt fell through. So I pulled up my boots and hit the water anyways. The AM was so slow it was almost unbearable. But as the day progressed you could tell there were a few new birds hitting the area. I ended up having a good shoot. All were divers. As I scouted on my way to work this AM I could see smatering of new divers. I still have too see the Mallards I’m looking for. Lets hope the cold weather forcasted this week drives a few birds in.

I have biological info on this, but I wonder how many birds we get from the Dakotas? I suspect most of the Dakota birds continue south through the Central flyway, while most of our birds cut from Canada down over Minnesota to here. Just a guess though.

The sprigs were definitely cool, it was actually my first drake pintail ever. Mine is heading for the wall. But, hey, no congrats on my bull spoonie???? The drake Greenwaings sure are getting nice color now.

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nice bull sprigs guys, we did pretty good this weekend, better than i thought. the dakotas are frozen and full of snow, i would of thought with the nw winds, we would of been getting some of those birds this weekend? guess not yet, i went out friday morning and shot 2 woodies and 2 greenheads, sat 3 of us had our 12 malards by about 730, and sunday was a little work, but we had 9 birds. today, went and shot 4 greenheads and 2 drake greenwings.
hey, its still better than hunting ditch rats…

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ive recovered quite a few bands here from the dakotas, and it seems in past years, if they get snow or freeze up, we get a bunch of birds here. i beleive alot of it has to do with what direction the wind is blowing. it was blowing wnw and nw this weekend. should of pushed them this direction. no dout i bet some go directly south.

cant really see the spoonie, but i tell you what i have nothing against them at all. alot of people wont even eat them. me? i cant tell the difference when mixed with a few mallards in the frying pan. and i believe a drake spoonie is one of the coolest looking ducks around.

Wright CO Report:

Spotted numerous rafts of divers holding on big water. I could see buffels and golden eyes for sure. One flock was 100 birds easy.

The Mallards are holding with the swans. Where ever I saw swans there were mallards with them. If you can find smaller water still open that’s where they are.

Get the Guns boys. The central MN flight is starting to roll.

I hunted the souith metro this morning. Holy smokes are there geese in the area. There has definatly been new birds moving into the area. We finally saw some decent numbers of ducks this morning also. We need some freezing weather. It was extremely sloppy in the plowed corn field today .

ive noticed a pile of ducks in the ponds that were just frozen a few days ago. once they thawed again they were full! should be a good day for me tomarrow! got about 500 mallards where im going

heres a few pictures from the last week or two. theres a hunt missing on there that i didnt have my camera. that was an 18 bird 3 man limit of mallards and teal. im still waiting for my buddy to send me the pics. that giant mallard must have gotten loose from the farm i think! it flew into the decoys and i swore to god it was a lesser at first. its got to weigh at least 6-7 lbs. ive never seen anything like that!

hey moss, dont feel so bad anymore, i shot a spoonie this weekend too

Kris….that big mallard is SWEET! There used to be one that size that would show up at Silver Lake in Rochester later in the year. It was the same size as some of the geese. We called him Egor. Definitely a park duck, but he wasn’t there early in the year, so he was migrating from somewhere.

Anyway, back to reports…..as much as I want to believe there is going to be another good push to come for us in the Southern portion of MN, I think it may be empty hope.

A lot of stuff iced over last night again, although it was plenty breakable. Thursday night thru Friday night look to be about the end of reasonably sized huntable water. A couple of the main refuges around are froze out already.

We’ll hunt till the bitter end, but not expecting any late season dream hunts as have been the case in years past. Frustrating way to wined down a very mediocre season

Spoonies rule dude!!!!

Nice take of ducks there. That monster mallard is awesome! Are you going to mount him? We saw a big one last week (not that big, but noticably bigger), just couldn’t get him to come in.

you bet im. im not sure what size form to buy for it tho. i will probably have to buy a snow goose form for it or wrap my own. jake, we have been doing pretty good most of the year even as of this week. there are also literally THOUSANDS of divers, mostly goldeneyes up by me now. going to try to whack some of them this weekend.

This morning, we broke 1″ to 1 1/2″ ice to get out this morning, we took 1 green head, 2 spooners, and lost 3, I am guessing greenies. we had to break alot of ice to chase them down and they got away on the ice before we could get there. we did see alot of geese flying as well as swans, trumeters and tundra’s. so be sure you know what you are shooting at before thinking it is geese. today was probably my last hunt for the year, put the decs away along with the boats.

shane

Jake:

You’re killing me!!! Planning on being down to the annual pre-Thanksgiving hunt where we tried to freeze ourselves two years ago!!! Are you planning on hunting that far south during your upcoming hunts??? We are hunting the deer opener and will be down there Sunday night.

Mark