We just got back from the Devils Lake area last night.
The normal group Heidi and I go with couldn’t this year and it just so happened that the same thing happened to Kris Brantner(IDO member) and his girlfriend Heather.
We left early last Thurs morning got out there and spent the afternoon looking for spots to jump shoot while scouting for a place to hunt Fri morning.
We found a cut bean field that had a strip of shallow marsh through it with very little cover and we could see it was packed with mallards. We got out there bright and early figuring they wouldn’t roost there but would come back….wrongo…they did roost there so we spooked them out when we got down there to put a few dekes out. It worked out well since they came back in small flocks and singles and doubles. By the time things slowed down we had 19 mallards and 1 goose….we hung around trying to get that last bird to fill us out for the morning but no such luck.
Back to the cabin we rented to clean and eat duck. A quick nap and we were back in the truck scouting for Sat morning. We found a field with a bunch of geese and hundreds of mallards….unfortunately so did at least 2 other groups. We checked a couple other fields in the area and found one that was full of mallards, we headed out early figuring there may be some competition and it was a good thing we did. The first field had a truck in it and we got to the second field we found just ahead of another guy….unfortunately that person decided it would be okay to set up in the same field we had. The ducks were coming off a refuge and we were on the X but these guys set up between us and the refuge cutting us off and sky busting at several flocks that were bypassing them to get to us AND just firing one shot now and then when we had birds coming in to us just to spook them out so no one would get shooting if they didn’t. We did manage to scrape together 8 mallards and a goose….kind of a disappointment given the 1000+ birds in the field Fri night.
Sat night we found what we thought was going to be THE HONEY HOLE, it was a small flooded spot in a bean field with hundreds of mallards. Unfortunately we woke up Sun morning to POURING rain and serious winds putting a kabosh on trying to get back to the spot on the minimum maintenance road we needed to use.
We ended up hunting a private slough in the afternoon we got permission for that was covered with divers, we were selective with our shots and ended up with 11 for the evening with a mix of ringbills, bluebills, redheads and a canvasback.
Mon morning we figured things may have dried out enough to get to the honey hole….the road was pretty ugly with a couple spots where there was a small pond right next to the road, it was so slimy I couldn’t get out of the small ruts that were already there so the truck stayed in the middle of the road and we hoofed it out to THE SPOT. It was a long walk with layout blinds, guns, shells and dekes but it was worth every step. The mallards were dropping in so hard I swear a couple times they were cupped so hard dropping in it looked like their wing tips were touching. It was incredible to watch, we filled out on green heads with one blue wing teal that made the mistake of presenting itself. Never did get the truck turned around so I had to back out the 3/4 of a mile we were down this one lane road….wasn’t too fun but made it out okay.
Tues was our last hunt and after not finding anything during our scouting we opted to hit the honey hole again….it wasn’t as good as the first day but we did end up with a half limit mixed bag of mallards, widgeon and gadwalls.
All in all it was a really fun trip getting to meet some new friends and some really great hunts.
JB
cheers 
