Posted By:
crsjhawk
Guest
Cheyenne Bottoms 11-01-2007 22:53
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Has anyone been hunting the bottoms? I heard the water was back to normal but most of the habitat is gone. I will be out over Thanksgiving and would like to get a report. Thanks
Posted By:
MrMallard88
Guest
NE KS 10-29-2007 18:29
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 45-50 Degrees
Made it out again this morning and managed a 4 man limit by 10. A little slower than Saturday morning, but today it seemed most every bird we saw ended up cupped up at 15 yards. It was another hunt to remember, shared with great friends. Todays bag consisted of mostly gadwall, with a couple greenheads, a wigeon, a couple teal, and two real nice pintail drakes. I have early classes the rest of the week, but will be back at it this weekend and will report what I see.
Also was considering going out for an afternoon of pheasant hunting sometime this weekend…
Posted By:
Tim-Carrigan
Guest
NE KS – private – MI Co 10-29-2007 14:28
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 45-50 Degrees
NO WIND!
Saw a fair number of birds but none wanted to work, just circle and circle and eventually bug out. Managed mixed bags on both days of wood ducks, gadwall, teal with a bonus pintail and a goose thrown in for fun. Saw a few groups of mallards and pintails, but they didnt want to play nice.
Sunday, we saw more gadwall and uncooperative mallards than Saturday, which was mostly teal and woodies…I think the cool front helped with them a bit. There were definitely more high-flying geese on Sunday.
Tactics: After enjoying Saturday’s great golfing weather from the duck blind, we confronted the calm on Sunday with as many shaker butts and quiver disks as we could find in our collective basements and sheds and it seemed to help a bit…did not deploy a jerk cord, but should have. Hope everyone had a good, Late Zone opener.
Posted By:
Greg-Haygood
Web Member
E of Quivera 10-29-2007 12:44
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – 45-50 Degrees
Promised to report the good, the bad and the ugly…….i could see it setting up in the days prior to Saturday, but hoped it would defy my gut feeling. However, it didn’t. We only had a pair of mallards, one single mallard, pair of teal, single wigeon, and single pintail………7 total ducks come to our spread, of which we dropped the 3 mallards. 3 guns in the blinds, 3 ducks on the stringer, not a memeorable opener…and didn’t hunt Sunday.
We only had a couple of 10-12 pack groups pass by in the distance, however, the geese were v’d up all morning and moving south the entire time we were in the blind (10:00am).
Reports seem spotty at best, but quite a few still have great limits to report. Think we were really impacted by the lack of hunting pressure on Quivera as many of the 20,000 reported ducks failed to leave the refuge. Guess if I were a duck, I wouldn’t either. Hopefully we’ll get the Whoopers off the refuge and hunters back in there, should improve conditions around the area significantly. We’ll be back at ’em in short order.
Posted By:
kerhonk
Guest
central KS 10-29-2007 08:59
– – 45-50 Degrees
Sat. a.m. 3 kids and 2 adults shot 13 teal. Saw very few big ducks but lots of teal. Saw a few groups of geese. Dog got some good work but should have had more if we could have hit the little guys.
Posted By:
MrMallard88
Guest
NE KS 10-28-2007 17:24
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Went out for opening morning and ended up killing a 3 man limit in about an hour and a half … consisted of mallards, pintails, wigeon, gadwall, and teal! We were able to be very selective and choose which flocks we wanted to shoot, and litterally had ducks in the decoys all morning! Also saw thousands of snows and specs high and headed south … probably my best opening day Ive ever had … going out again in the morning and will post what I see!
Posted By:
Greg-Haygood
Web Member
Quivera Wildlife Refuge 10-26-2007 14:25
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NOTICE:
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT QUIVERA HAS CLOSED THE ENTIRE REFUGE DUE TO WHOOPING CRANES ON THE PROPERTY. IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO HUNT QUIVERA, CALL BEFORE YOU GO AND SEE IF THEY HAVE REOPENED TO HUNTING 1ST!!
Penaties are significant to violators.
Posted By:
goose316
Guest
WYCO/LEAVCO 10-26-2007 11:43
Cloudy, Light Rain & Drizzle – 45-50 Degrees
Anyone looking for someone to hunting with opening weekend? (Late Zone) I have deeks, waders, etc… just need a place to hunt. Wasn’t expecting to be in town, plans fell through so I didn’t do any permission asking for this weekend.
I do have fields for geese could possibly trade or something… let me know if anyone’s interested… Eastern KS..please
Posted By:
Tim-Carrigan
Guest
E KS 10-24-2007 11:24
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – 50-60 Degrees
Well, with a few days to go, my phone scouting (at work all week) has yielded few reports of birds. Still a lot of teal hanging around and few woodies here and there, but not the numbers we’ll see later this year for sure.
All the reports are for good numbers, so even if they aren’t here for the opener, its sure to be a good season…good luck!
Posted By:
Greg-Haygood
Web Member
East Quivera 10-24-2007 00:17
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – 60-65 Degrees
We had 6 youth hunters in the blinds on Saturday morning (4 shooters, 2 non-shooters). We had a decent number of birds dropping into the dekes prior to shooting time, which created some excitement for all of us. Once legal shooting time kicked in we had some pretty good oppotunities to spank a fair number of ducks. One blind had a group of 20 BW Teal drop in range, while the other had 25 big, beautiful local mallards drop right in front of us…….with guns a blazin’ in both blinds, we managed to knock down ZERO!!! Couldn’t believe it, shots don’t get any better than that, but 1st morning jetters prevailed. Think the boys just shot into the crowd thinking surely they would knock some of them out. But, as we all know, you gotta pick out a bird and drill it, then move on the next one. I’ve seen this repeated countless times where the ducks are so bunched up together and slowly dropping into the spread that you think you don’t have to aim, just spray steel in the general directions and your sure to hit something. Anyway, that was best opportunity of the morning, as activity was limited to a couple of other good shots on singles and doubles and then watching a numerous small groups (6-8 birds) transit a well known route to and from the refuge. Ended the day skunked, but still big fun for the whole crew.
Observations: A greatly reduced number of birds transiting our flight path versus our Teal season experience just a few short weeks ago. We couldn’t keep the big ducks out of the marsh during Teal season, but they seemed to have changed feeding locations at present. Judging by the reports of some buddies that have been hunting in Canada the last week or two, bird numbers are off the chart in Sask. and Manatoba Provinces with few crossing the northern boarders. This recent front has started pushing some early migrants into N. and S. Dakota, but not in real numbers.
Big kids season opens this weekend and we will be there to take part. Hope the temps continue to cool off and we get our 1st flights of migrating waterfowl pretty quickly. Optimistic as ever (or always as some of my buds say), I’m hoping for an action packed season that adds to the many stories and memories we’re building with our freinds and family. Good luck to all that put in the time and effort to do it right!! And remember, “durky” beats store bought beef jerky any day…..24 hr soak in the special brew and 8 hrs in the hydrator = bona petite.
