Posted By:
john-wickham
Field Editor
NW MI (Traverse) 10-31-2009 18:35
Arctic Blast – 40-45 Degrees
Wow. I would say the big move is on. I hunted the northwest of the state today and I saw 5-10,000 birds. Lucky for us wind was WEST. It was very slow shooting, mostly missing by my partner, I wish now I wouldn’t have left my shells in the layout. Get after ’em
Posted By:
John-Cottenham
Field Editor
Sunrise side 10-31-2009 16:09
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – 45-50 Degrees
Hunted 5 days this week on the sunrise side. Saw few ducks and reports or not very good from other hunters I talked to. Not sure what is going on since I expected the “calendar” ducks to be here this week but on the west side of the bay it just hasn’t happened. I have heard that the east side is doing well.
jacduck I worked out a new deal in Texas this past winter. I quit hunting snows when I get 5 or have used all 12 of the shells I carried. Worked pretty well since I tended to control my shooting. Mostly came home with ammo left over and often with the self imposed limit.
Posted By:
kayakis
Web Member
cass co. 10-30-2009 14:16
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Tim and I shot 2 mallards and 1 woody…jimmy
Posted By:
marsh deacon
Guest
St clair 10-28-2009 11:54
Mostly Cloudy, No Precipitation – 45-50 Degrees
Took a boat ride to scout this morning. Put in at deckers. Cut through fisher and goose bay, no ducks. Went over to Musk.bay, no ducks. Came back around strawberry, and through Balt. cut. No ducks yet.
Posted By:
nurban
Web Member
St.Clair Co. 10-28-2009 11:35
Cloudy, Winds Calm – 60-65 Degrees
Hunted several times during the regular season. The weather has been mild and I missed the windy days over the week end.Goose activity has been slow and are decoy/call shy.There are more mallards in the area and alot of farm ponds available for safe resting. Some corn and soy beans are beening cut but the heavy rains have slowed the combining.
The turkey season was very slow,the woods are wet and few turkeys noticed.
[Edited By nurban on 2009-10-29 11:24]
Posted By:
rick-hungerford
Field Editor
Saginaw Bay Fish Point Area 10-25-2009 22:21
Cloudy, High Winds – 40-45 Degrees
I hunted Friday after the monsoon (steady rain from 4:00 AM till around 2:00 PM). Divers moved well until sundown. High winds (E/SE 20-30 mph) dropped the water more than 12 inches and made shooting very difficult.
Saturday (S/SW 20-30 mph) still low water but the divers flew all day. Redheads, bluebills (if you could pick them out) and CANS!
My son drove by the Refuge on Friday and observed the evening shoot. Birds were every where after the rain. He went for a draw Saturday AM they were picked 40th out of 92 parties. The flight had slowed from the previous day with the birds returning to nocturnal feeding. They took a lesser field and shot two bluewing teal (they had to be lost!)
Very little corn has been harvested. With all the wet weather, farmers are still trying to get their soybeans in. Sugar beets are also behind. It looks to be a couple of weeks yet before the corn will start coming in. That pretty much means there isn’t a reason for the mallards to leave the flooded corn in the managed area. This is pretty much proved out by the few numbers of puddlers being taken in the open water.
So some good and some bad. This year looks to be a great early diver season, while the mallard harvest to date has been dismal. Still on Saturday, if you got out (with the low water) you got to see some David Maas type diver scenes in real life. Not sure how long they will stay around, but right now there here.
I know I’ll catch some flack for reporting this but the duck count at Fish Point is over 5,000 ducks taken so far this year and they are still holding around 20,000 birds. Pick you days during the week if you can (lower number of parties), and hunt the weather changes.
PS – I was kinda joking about the reward/bribe bands. I do think its a shame though that not every band is reported.
Everything else is between seasons!
Posted By:
wberg
Guest
None yet 10-22-2009 17:44
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Working 7 days a week but I can not complain better off then some people. Dad has hunted Freeland area By Fish Point area corn and bay not doing very good so far came home today. Looks like corn will be coming off late again this year hopefully will be able to get a few hunts in later when the action really picks up.
Posted By:
ducknut@sbcglobal.net
Guest
band returns 10-21-2009 20:08
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Rick, the Fed doesn’t bribe hunters with reward bands so that they turn bands in. They have statistical formulas to figure out the normal rate of return by hunters by using the amount of hunters who turn in bands with rewards. I’m not a statistician, but it will show them bias and percentage so they can figure out populations numbers for species using band returns when they factor the normal return rates with the biased return rates.
Posted By:
rick-hungerford
Field Editor
Saginaw Bay Fish Point Area 10-21-2009 16:02
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – 50-60 Degrees
Sorry for the late post.
I hunted Friday and Saturday last weekend. both times on the outside of the MIddle Grounds.
Friday we focused on puddlers. Very few mallards around. We got 3 blacks (could have had more)and 2 green wings for three guys in the morning. Missed an opportunity on pintails. Tons of ducks and cormorants rafting a mile or two off shore. Believe it or not, I watched the teal lift off a raft an fly right to us.
Went for an afternoon draw to see what was up in the refuge. Picked 56th out of 72 parties. Went home an let my son chase divers, he ended up with one redhead and a widgeon.
Saturday was light wind, we went out for 2 hours in the afternoon and shot 4 redheads. You just need to scout a bit.
As luck would have it one of my drakes was a double band (as in reward). I am not expecting the lotto, but I find it interesting the the USFWS has to bribe hunters to report bands.
Refuge hunting is still hot. I saw the post on the Opening harvest. These aren’t my numbers, just reporting the facts. There are around 20,000 ducks using the area which is up from last year at this time.
I look for the outside hunting for mallards to improve as corn starts coming in. Warm weather this week should hold the birds around. The divers have lots of food yet, so there isn’t any reason for them to leave other than hunting pressure, which to date hasn’t been that bad.
Bluebill are just starting. Will post if and when they get here in numbers.
Everything else is between seasons!
Posted By:
kayakis
Web Member
cass co 10-20-2009 12:41
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Tim and I went out this morning we shot 2 geese never tripped the trigger on ducks….jimmy
