[Rick Acker]

Nothing feeding in the fields, couldn't even get looks, very few ducks, very dry, no hunters to move birds around...(never thought I would be complaining about lack of pressure)...Is it 1985 all over again??? Hope you guys did better!

 

[birchies]

nope just 2 geese my brother refused to hide himself well and flared all the birds

 

[twopopper]

One goose, no ducks! Same problem here-DRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seen a few small wigions but not much else.

 

[incoming]

Limit of ducks for 3 guys by 9:30.

 

[taddy1340]

Nothing feeding in the fields, couldn't even get looks, very few ducks, very dry, no hunters to move birds around...(never thought I would be complaining about lack of pressure)...Is it 1985 all over again??? Hope you guys did better!

Better luck next time Rick!

 

[martin_shooter]

we saw plenty of birds but little shooting walked away with a few woodies and gaddys but not as good of a day as expected

 

[jwdinius1]

4 man limit of ducks with a banded pintail, limit of honks and 7 bonus blues by 8:30. best opener in years :beer:

 

[weasle414]

I still have to wait another week for MN opener

 

[huntinND]

Got a two man limit right away in the morning. There were a lot of ducks around the area I hunted but there were very few mallards around at all, mostly gadwalls and teal.

 

[slough]

Had probably the most canada geese work a spread that I've been in ever. We had a four man limit by about 8:15; we probably could have shot 2 or 3 more limits each in the time we waited around for more ducks to show up (till about 9:45). They were flying really low for some reason even though there were almost no clouds nor wind. Had plenty of ducks on us but they were so brown that they were very hard to ID - we would have flocks of 10 or more right on us and we would only take a couple shots because you could only positively ID 1 or 2 drakes out of a flock. Of course we couldn't help ourselves at first light (seems it happens every opener) and 2 of the first 3 birds we dropped were hens and then a pintail drake came in early too so we had to be pretty careful from there on...A very memorable and awesome opener. Water levels are definitely way down - I have a hard time imagining how guys are gonna hunt out of boats next weekend since most sloughs have a good mud ring around them. Granted some sloughs look good (the deeper ones I suppose) but it's pretty dry. Hopefully with the lack of water birds will still stick around a bit.

 

[fishhawk175090]

Are you groups that are doing well shooting them over water? Are the groups struggling to shoot birds field hunting? Just curious if there is a big difference in success based on style of hunt. I have spoke to a few people who have said they have never seen so many birds this early, but this may be based on the lake is a major holding area.

 

[snow123geese]

Only got 5 geese and 2 mallards. Probably would have had our limits on geese but our sillohuete decoys were glaring really bad if you looked at them from the right angle. We were trying to take them down but then we would see geese coming so we had to get back to our blinds. That happened a lot of times. And by the time we got all of the sillos down, the geese had stopped flying. It was a good opener though. We had a group of 13 lessers working the spread and a whole bunch of residents.

 

[870 rem]

Limit on ducks and 1 goose for 3 by 10:30. Took us about 1/2 hr with two dogs to find the last one but well worth it, a nice drake wood duck. We were field hunting and you guys aren't kidding on it being tough to id those drake mallards. We had to wait till they flared and we saw that line where the chestnut brown meets the gray belly. Very tough to tell though. All in all a great opening hunt!

 

[kkelly]

Saw quite a few medium size flocks in SE ND early this morning and by the time we got set up the larger flocks had taken off. This didnt discourage us though. We ended up with 3 drakes and 3 hens. Not bad for our first time ever.

I was surprised to find that the Canada migration has already started. We had a couple of Canooks sneak up from behind us without a sound and by the time they were in front of us, it was too late. But oh well, those kind of mistakes are corrected with experience.

Overall, good days hunt, going out again tomorrow.

 

[theodore]

Saw a lot of gadwalls, a few teal,pintails and mallards. Lots of honkers. A few lessers and snows. I believe in leaving the carcasses in the field , but after hearing some of your thoughts on landowner perceptions, took my birds to federal land to clean. A couple of vehicles were there and the guys back there were blasting away at a prodigious rate. Nothing seemed to be dropping.

 

[Triple B]

one of the better openers we've had, little pressure and alot of fresh birds. got into a few snows this morning, ended up with 18 snows and 5 cacks. the snows and squeekers are starting to move in with huntable numbers. hunted south of mott. :lol:

 

[USAlx50]

We had a great opener with exact opposite results of you Rick. Lots of birds, LOTS OF HUNTERS. There were 4 or 5 rigs that wanted in the field we hunted saturday, and our backup got hit by 2 rigs both sat. and sunday.

 

[browningboy]

limit of geese by 9..... 18 canadians and had a couple beers rite after and the geese were still landing

 

[gamberc]

5 man limit , teal, mallards, couple pintals, gadwals, one wooduck we didnt have ne problem in sodak lots of ducks around

 

[northdakotakid]

We found a good pocket of birds but they were sailing with the wind Saturday... we got shooting but it was not the best "SHOOT" we have had on opening weekend but I hosted two buddies I grew up with in high school.

We hadn't really done anything in nearly 10 years so it was one of the "BEST" waterfowl openers I have had in years. Plus my 2 year old lab made some great retrieves that drew compliments all weekend... any dog owner knows there is no greater compliment to a weekend.

We saw about as mixed a bag of bird types as we have ever seen this early... some migrators moved in and even a few specks. But like I mentioned earlier the sunshine and high elvel winds kept the birds pretty high and they were very call shy. I shot more ducks with the goose call than the duck call.