Posted By:
Peter-Brown
Field Editor
Did Not Hunt 03-31-2011 16:45
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 35-40 Degrees
I’m finally getting situated in my new home north of Askov. We moved last November.
It’s going to take a ton of scouting and talking to get some hunting spots around here. It will be interesting.
That said, I’m seeing signs of Spring and birds. Canadas moving in , Sandhills this morning, a bunch of Turkeys in my road last week. (I missed out on a license)
The reports I’m getting from SoDak White Goose hunters are “no shortage of birds, just tough to get”.
Life is good !!!!!! Only about 6 months until the 2011 Fall season.
[Edited By Peter-Brown on 2011-04-03 10:50]
Posted By:
CPAMAN
Guest
Did Not Hunt 03-20-2011 13:52
Sunny & Clear, High Winds – 40-45 Degrees
Driving back from West Central MN on Friday, March 28th was pretty exciting to say the least. In the morning, not much wildlife seen at all. No deer, saw only one pair of Canada geese, and nothing else to speak of. Coming back around 4:30 pm was an entirely different story.
I saw four large herds of deer grazing over about a six-mile area. 15-25 deer in each herd. I saw three fields and/or wooded areas with 12-25 wild turkeys. Five flooded fields had 150-500 Canada geese and saw at least three dozen nesting pairs of Canada geese. No ducks seen yet but they should be here soon. A little discouraging was no sightings of pheasants. This winter was likely very hard on pheasants as much of their natural vegetation cover was entirely blanketed in snow for the past several months.
Posted By:
Canman OMaddie
Web Member
12-03-2010 08:18
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Post them in the Photo forum. easy to do
Posted By:
dstohlberg08
Web Member
south central mn 12-01-2010 10:05
Arctic Blast – –
Hunted a cut corn field for ducks and geese yesterday,in twenty five minutes had a six man limit of geese.we waited onother hour or so for ducks and scratched out four fat daddy mallards. The whole time we had geese lighting in the decoys. One of the best hunts I’ve been on. I have pictures but don’t know how to add them, any help would be great.
Posted By:
Peter-Brown
Field Editor
North Metro, Anoka County 11-28-2010 05:05
Cloudy, High Winds – 10-20 Degrees – Ice
As one can imagine things are pretty much over for ducks on the chain of lakes in Lino Lakes. It was a decent season, certainly better than 2009
Some open water may remain in portions of Rice Creek, but I haven’t a chance to check it out.
I’m still seeing a some geese in the area.
This probably be my last report from the North Metro area. I am moving on Monday.
Next fall I’ll be scouting up new spots in the Askov area. I wiil continue to hunt from my cabin near Orr and report accordingly.
I’ve hunted near my home in Lino for 25 years so looking for new areas will be interesting for sure.
I plan to hang with this site as long as it remains viable ??????
Posted By:
Paul-Burton
Field Editor
11-23-2010 12:09
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Finally had migrating birds thru the brainerd area last week with the weather change. There wasnt so many that you could go any ol place, you had to scout but it was worth it.
Hunted big water on saturday on a prominant point midway on a lake that runs North/south. Thru the week it had been slow with a few divers here and there and the remaining dock mallards.
Large diver set with long line and 3 dzn loose.
7:30 it started, groups of golden eyes ranging in numbers of 15- 40 poured RIGHT in the pocket and had no hesitation. by the 4th or 5th flock, all within an hour we had 18 golden eyes for 3 guys. As I remember the best shoot we have EVER had on this lake and we hunt it a ton.
Went back on sunday and didnt pull the trigger. there was heavy fog and i speculate that the birds didnt want to fly.
This lake since sunday has started making ice but there is still at least 200 golden eyes still on it but virtually no way to get to them due to shore ice.
Its over i think, another season done. I will start a season overview in the MN forum later today to see how everyone feels about their season
Posted By:
Peter-Brown
Field Editor
North Metro, Anoka County 11-22-2010 05:42
Cloudy, Light Rain & Drizzle – 10-20 Degrees – Open Water
There are still birds in the Centerville area. Mostly divers and geese.
Geo. Watch was iced up Sat.
Although I haven’t been out every day we have taken a few birds.
My partner and I shot a 12 bird limit(all divers) on Centerville last week.
There seems to be a bunch of guys still getting after it. Saturday there was fair amount of shoting on Peltier Lake.
I will get out a few more times before it’s over.
Posted By:
Canman OMaddie
Web Member
West Metro 11-21-2010 21:43
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Buddies and I decided to do an afternoon hunt this afternoon. Very slow. Didn’t see a single bird until 3:45. Shot to bills and that was it. With this weather coming, Ice is sure to come. Busting out the Ice fishing gear.
Posted By:
knute
Web Member
wilkin county/ottertail county 11-20-2010 16:55
Cloudy, High Winds – 25-30 Degrees – Ice
Hunted Thursday near Rothsay. Little slough, covered in thin ice. Broke ice and set out a dozen and a half decoys and 1 roboduck.
About 9:00 finally, in came a pair of drake mallards. As they got close, they must have figured out that my dekes were all frozen in the ice. They flared up, and I dropped both with one shot. Wow!
An hour later a flock of 15 mallards were flyting in the north. Literally one quack from me and they made a 90 degree turn and came right in like the first two. Dropped two more drakes from that flock. Stayed another hour but saw nothing( other than high flying flocks of geese).
Scouted the afternoon and decided to hunt closer to Fergus falls the next day
Found more than 5000 mallards and several thousand geese at orwell. Asked permission to hunt a couple different cornfeilds for the next day but both already had people hunting them.
Settled on a small lake/large slough in the area.
Friday morning the wind was blowing 20-30 mph out of the wnw. Temp was 22 degrees. Took the boat out with the trolling motor. Set up on the quiet side of a point with a little hill on it blocking the wind. Really wasn’t too bad out of the wind. Saw a few flying around early then nothing more until a flock of four mallards flew in about 9:00 again. Dropped two nice drakes. Both apparently had only broken wings and Both made it into the cattails about forty to fifty yards away in a hail of shots across the water, but couldn’t get a head shot in the waves. Went across to them and searched for about forty minutes. Couldn’t find them anywhere. I hate losing birds!!!!!!!!
Notning else flying so I picked up about 11:30. that’s when the fun started. As I came back around the point I realized the wind had really picked up and there were good sized whitecaps. The spray from the waves was icing up on impact with my cold aluminum boat. The trolling motor bracket froze up and wouldn’t lock into positon when I put it down. Wet gloves froze solid and It made for an interesting ride back across the lake into the wind.
Really glad to get the heat going in the truck when I got back!
Drove around a bit to see where all the geese were going that I had been seeing. Found several hundred in a plowed corn feild bordering a wpa. Parked the truck and walked about half way across until the land leveled out with the cornfeild. Then crawled another hundred yards up to within about seventy yards of all the geese.
My hope was when they got up they would fly over me for a shot. Well the first few groups that moved out went the other way, but after about a half hour a group of a hundred got up and came right over me. An absolute gimme shot. Soooo…. I picked out the closest goose and preceded to miss three straight shots at it. I got no Idea!
Ton of ducks and geese all around the orwell area but securing permission hasn,t been easy and the lakes have divers on them but alot of ice and wind. Saturday The temp dropped to 10 degrees all night and the wind dropped which created a thick layer of ice across everything I saw Saturday. Almost everything along the way home along 94 was completely covered in ice and NO ducks.
I’d say the season is done!
Posted By:
dstohlberg08
Web Member
south central mn 11-14-2010 21:42
Cloudy, Snow Flurries – 30-34 Degrees – Open Water
Scouted Friday and Saturday for geese and ducks in the fields, Friday saw lots of ducks and geese hitting corn fields that had been plowed. Saturday we found a field that had several hundred geese in it and were able to get permission to hunt it Sunday. Set up in the dark after walking in the spread only to find out we were set up to close to the road. Had one Flock work us but landed behind us. So we decided to to move the whole spread further in the field onyx to have the sky on the horizon fill up with geese coming right for the field when were not set yet. Still got shots on groups as we layed there there. Finally set up and had a single come in and my buddy shot it above me but wouldn’t drop. A few more flocks come in with more poor shooting. Ended up with a couple of geese for two guys. Saw thousands of geese in the area.
