Posted By:
HonkerHotline
Web Member
Posts 09-25-2012 19:24
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Love the reports guys…. keep em coming. I will be out on Thursday morning chasing some woodies. We’ll see if we can get one for the wall!
Posted By:
knute
Web Member
Mahnomen county 09-25-2012 16:23
Cloudy, High Winds – 30-34 Degrees – Ice
Best opener in twenty years, at least.
Hunted the traditional lake with dad and friends. Saturday, dark cloudy skies and 15-20 mph winds and 34 degrees. Perfect hunting weather.
Had my limit by 8:30. Ringers and teal.
The strange thing was the different ducks on the different sides of the lake. It’s a small 100 acre lake that sits adjacent to my buddies farm and we had all sides covered. All I saw on the north side were teal and ringbills. Our guys on the east side saw only woodies and teal. the guys on the south end shot mallards and ringers and one goose, but everyone got shooting.
Sunday was a whole diferent story. Clear sky, sunny, no wind and 24 degrees. Whereas we saw flocks of 20 to 100 on Saturday, it was all ones and twos and threes on Sunday.
Managed to pick up a mallard and two more teal though.
Total we got 38 ducks, 1 goose, and 1 merganser for six guys for the weekend. a very happy group.
Posted By:
jasonmn24
Web Member
09-25-2012 13:50
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Opener had a buddy and I hunting our plan b spot, just south and about 150 yards from where we were going to hunt.
Saturday we shot 5, one young drake woodie, and 4 blue wingers.
Sunday, we hunted the same lake, just down the shoreline farther. Only 1 teal.
Posted By:
Swamp Gas
Web Member
09-24-2012 17:58
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Had a great hunt on Saturday. Tons of blue wings. Could have been done in the first 5 minutes. Held off for some bigger ducks. Finished in 45 minutes with a mixed bag of mallards, Woodies and both species of teal.
Sunday was a different story. Teal were almost all gone. I’m sure the mid 20 degree temps pushed them out. Even had a little ice in the calm shallow water. Bagged a few teal with some Woodies and a mallard.
Posted By:
Paul-Burton
Field Editor
skime 09-24-2012 14:34
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Great opening morning! The lake we hunted is very low on water so we had quite the mission to get to water.
1. run river to lake with 12′ boat and motor, towing 10′ jon boat.
2. stash big boat and DRAG jon boat 200+ yards to water, DEATH MARCH. Walk another 100 yards in 1.5′ of water to find cover to blind up in.
We set a mix of mallard and teal decoys. The morning flight was intense! only took me half a box of shells to get “warmed up” and start hitting birds. by 8 am my dad and i were done with 12 birds, 10 teal and 2 mallards, stoked to start the season with 2 doubles, the mallards and one pair of teal.
The march back was about the same but found a more direct route to the big boat.
Day 2 was the total opposite of day 1. We changed our game plan and decided to carry less gear and no dog. made a plan to set up in a dry spot and hunt over water from lay out blinds. All or most of the teal had left with the 24 degree night we had. Still a few birds around but not even close to the numbers we saw on saturday. Never pulled the trigger. Besides weather, i had concerns that the other groups of hunters that were sky blasting most of the morning on saturday hunted most of the day and pushed birds out. Thanks boys.
Everyone should have a clear understanding of what effective shooting distance is with a 12 gauge. 60+ yards will not kill a bird, why even try?
Posted By:
Canman OMaddie
Web Member
Sibley county 09-24-2012 14:25
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hundreds of Woodies leaving lake before First light. Not many came back.
Teal were aboundant.
6 teal and 1 big motha goose.
try again next weekend
Posted By:
HonkerHotline
Web Member
Western mn 09-22-2012 13:46
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Well….. day one is in the books and what a morning it was!!!!!!
After two long and tiring scouting trips I landed on a .5 acre slough in the middle of a section. Friday morning had approx 150 Mallards and 50 teal.
Put the birds to bed and had about 100 birds in the decoys 20 mins before shooting time…. man it was light early.
Walked out and scared them away, so I didn’t bust all of them on one barrage. When first shots commenced it was unreal…… Everybody was shooting. I bet 20kof ammo was burned up.
First group came in and dropped two teal… my dad didnt fire (forgot to put one in the chamber 🙂
After that we had singles and dounles work us steady till 9:30am.
Ended the day with a nice retrieve by our pup.
6 Greenheads (well not much green yet) 2 Suzie’s, 3 Teal, and a nice Pintail.
Great start to the hunting season! Will be back after then tomorrow on a spot that litterally might kill me to get to.
[Edited By HonkerHotline on 2012-09-22 13:48]
Posted By:
HonkerHotline
Web Member
Minnesota 09-21-2012 12:41
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Good luck to all afield this weeked!
Not sure how the duck shoot will be, but they are pullin down corn and beans like crazy. Pheasant opener will be epic as there will be nothing standing by then.
If you could use a mojo, I would be hunting corn tomorrow!
Posted By:
HonkerHotline
Web Member
Minnesota 09-21-2012 12:40
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Good luck to all afield this weeked!
Not sure how the duck shoot will be, but they are pullin down corn and beans like crazy. Pheasant opener will be epic as there will be nothing standing by then.
If you could use a mojo, I would be hunting corn tomorrow!
Posted By:
HonkerHotline
Web Member
Minnesota 09-21-2012 12:38
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Good luck to all afield this weeked!
Not sure how the duck shoot will be, but they are pullin down corn and beans like crazy. Pheasant opener will be epic as there will be nothing standing by then.
