Posted By:
DU870
Web Member
South of Madison 11-19-2010 09:51
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Made it out this morning in hopes of doing a little scouting and maybe a bird or 2. Birds were flying early and leaving the water before legal shooting time. Birds were very skiddish and even flared off live birds on the water. Tells me they are old birds and this being public water, smart birds. Hundreds of coots, maybe 50 mallards and some teal. Hoping the wind switchs for next week of vacation. Might get some new birds down.
Posted By:
Kris-Bertelsen
Field Editor
Chippewa Valley 11-18-2010 15:10
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Birds are moving in this week from Eau Claire to Augusta. The migration is picking up; so if you are going out good luck. Even saw a couple small flocks of tundra swans. Small ponds haven’t froze up yet, but I’m sure they will in the next couple days. Big water is definitely open, and probably will stay open for a week at least. Lots of fields are picked so there is plenty of feed. Looks like pieces of the puzzle are coming together.
Posted By:
stumper
Web Member
SE North Dakota 11-17-2010 14:29
Cloudy, Winds Calm – 35-40 Degrees
If any Wisconsin-based waterfowlers are interested in heading to NoDak in the next week send me a PM. The migration is close to peak there with mallard populations near record levels right now. I just returned and we limited out on greenheads hunting the cut corn with three guys in two days. Unreal. Check out my post on the NoDak page for more details…
Enjoy and be safe out there with the guys in orange running around!
Posted By:
Kris-Bertelsen
Field Editor
Chippewa Valley 11-15-2010 12:48
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Trial Lawyer is right on target – Great weekend! The birds we hunted moved on though because another buddy hunted the same spot and picked up 6 greenheads out of 30 birds left. This morning we saw 2 in the water while driving to work.
Stanley had nice numbers of geese. I saw one ross with them. I would estimate at least a thousand if not more. Many fields had 50-300 and one field had at least 500+. Of course the owners of the field with 500+ wouldn’t let anyone hunt!
Geese flying west of Eau Claire. There numbers double this weekend.
The Fall Creek pond has flucuating numbers but definitely huntable.
Menomonie had good numbers of geese east of town.
As the same as the past few years – The migration is just starting and my ex-wife is tuning up. I hate duck hunting during deer season. The crazies in orange scare me.
Posted By:
DU870
Web Member
11-15-2010 12:09
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Hunted a lake south of Horicon on Sunday morning. Saw very very little movement all morning. A few high flocks moving due east and had a few groups on the lake. Overall very dissapointing numbers.
On the way home we did some scouting and did find some birds. Also saw some big flocks high up and moving. So it seems there are some birds, just in small pockets and mainly on private land/marshes.
Posted By:
Stu-Soper
Field Editor
Potosi 11-15-2010 08:26
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Good numbers of every species on the move yesterday. Heard shooting up and down the river. Lots of divers working the islands above Potosi. Get out and hunt now if you can!
Posted By:
stone
Web Member
Jefferson 11-15-2010 08:24
– – 40-45 Degrees
Basically no migration yet. The entire year has been muted with only a few minor spurts and lasting for only a few hours. Today, more of the same. Few birds hanging around that have been lingering and smart. Few very high flocks of mallards which appear to be moving thru. Almost as bad as last year, the worst in 40 years. Not looking good either with no real good strong fronts or wind.
Posted By:
Trial Lawyer
Web Member
Eau Claire area 11-14-2010 11:59
Cloudy, Snow & Rain Mix – 30-34 Degrees – Open Water
Kris Bertelsen found 2 honeyholes that 3 of us hunted Saturday morning. The day started off badly with the truck stuck in a chopped corn field at 5:45 am. We tried our best to push it out, but the front left tire was buried up to the axle. We walked to honeyhole #1 where the mallards wanted in to some flooded standing corn. We had fantastic in your face shooting from 6:40 am to 7:00 am with 10-20 yard shots. I was a little overgunned with 3 inch BB’s through a patternmaster but we managed to take 9 nice mallards from that great spot. The farmer was nice enough to pull out the truck and we proceeded to honeyhole #2 which was a slough that held many mallards and geese. We walked in on the slough and scared off 100+ mallards, which came back in groups of 2 to 30. Kris had 2 great shots on big greenheads and Jerry picked up the remaing mallard for our 12 mallard limit after a great morning hunt. We hunted geese in the afternoon, but were only able to knock down 1 huge honker.
Kris, thanks again for a great hunt. I just wish that the northern zone had a couple weeks of no hunting earlier in the season so we could hunt until the first weekend in December. It’s always like this where the northern birds show up a week or two before Thanksgiving and then the season ends. I’m just glad we got out for a great hunt on Saturday. Thanks again.
Posted By:
MallardKingWI
Web Member
Horicon 11-13-2010 13:22
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Hunted Thursday morning. Had one nice flock buzz and one bird landed in our decoys about 10 to 15 minutes before opening, which is always a bad sign. After that nothing came near us. In fact, birds were landing 75 yards to our west in some cattails and totally ignored us. We pushed them later and got one black duck.
Hunted a different spot in Horicon this morning and had the same results. Only a few birds flying and they ignored the decoys again. The ducks were landing in small potholes in the cattails that no one has skied. They have sort of created their own refuge. Once they get there they just about dive in. No swinging around 6 times and then deciding to go in.
Talked to another party at the dock and they had the same results: one shot fired. The only shooting (and not very much)was at Cotton Island and in the West Lake area.
We need some ice and new birds.
Posted By:
lund-ducker2
Web Member
horicon 11-12-2010 19:16
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 45-50 Degrees
hunted the marsh on wed. morning for 2 hours. 3 ‘lards and a shoveler. all single birds, didn’t see any flocks excepton the ride back to the landing.
