How did everyone do? It was a mixed bag of mallards, pintails, bluewings, greenwings, gaddies and geese for us. I think we all limited on laughs and fun--great to spend another opener with my dad and brother. Colder than most openers I can remember and a lot of teal and woodies must have headed south during the week because we didn't see nearly as many as we did last weekend. There was some frost on the windshield this morning and we all wished we had brought warmer clothes when the wind was howling on Saturday. Heard lots of shooting both mornings. All the hunters we talked to were happy. Only negative part of the weekend was seeing water levels down even further and seeing more dry potholes becoming plowed black dirt.
Opening weekend results--post up
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I ended up having to work this weekend, but got out Saturday morning with my brother and another buddy. We got 11 mallards and 2 geese by 8:30(had to work at 9, was 40 minutes late), but should have limited out. Groups of 20-30 working the decoys all morning with a HORRIBLE display of shooting. It was a great time anyways--an A+ opener. :beer:
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Numerous ducks Saturday with the highlight being an old mature redhead that happened to be BANDED. Today, hunted with Dean Nelson, and we had a hell of a shoot, Limits of canadas, ducks and the highlight for me today - Mature Blue Phase Snow Goose. :beer: This weekend was awesome!!
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I went down to Mankato MN for our traditional opener, as its the only time its good all year until late season. My dad and I shot 20 ducks, brothers group shot 11 and scored another Band. Was a good shoot for MN. Boy it sure makes a guy appreciate all we have in NODAK after beggin for teal :lol:
Went out this morning with a group of 3 others and shot 12 mallards, one teal, and a honker. Most of the shots were 30 yards plus. Had great time. One of the guys was a 10 year old kid that was new to the sport, had a problem with him keeping his face down and getting his gun up fast enough for him to take the first shot. Probably made him a new waterfowl hunter today, he didn't shut up all the way home. 
:beer:
:beer:
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Blake I swear to god man the banding rate had to have jumped like 300% over the summer or something. :beer: I ain't gonna be one to complain.
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Yea Austin, I would say we got the blessing this fall!!
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We went just north of petersburg and got 4 blue geese. we didn't get any ducks because we didn't bring out duck boat this time so we just came with our guns and used the old method of hunting " the sneak" we did alright i guess. Hoping that in 2 weekends we will be ready to break out the dekes and the duck boat for it's maiden voyage this year. we saw tons of ducks and geese but since we didn't have a boat we couldn't shoot any ducks cause we had no way to retreive them. All in all i thought it was a great opener. except for when my nova jammed and i found out that it doesn't take 3 1/2 inch shells. it says on the barrel that it does but everytime i put one in it wouldn't fit. oh well still had fun!
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matt
:beer:
matt
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We had a good morning Sat. Nice and cool with a good breeze. Had a good field, with lots of birds in it. Left real early to get there, and got downwinded. They did set up a quarter mile off, but they hurt us. We were still happy Buddy had his son along, first time, and he got to shoot alot. hehehe. even got one greenhead. I ended up one canada short of a limit.
Here is the interesting thing though. We were 25 miles east of Jamestown, and we figured we could hear 16 groups of distinct shooters within earshot. I think 3/4 were hunting sloughs.There were a lot of ducks in this general area, and I will tell you one thing, there were a lot less in that area tonight.
Anyone who says they never saw another hunter and there was no pressure in the early season should count yourself lucky to be able to A live far enough away from a major sity to alleviate the pressure, or B have a wife who lets you drive 80 miles one way both to scout and hunt another area. Man, I cant wait till my boys get a little bit older.
Here is the interesting thing though. We were 25 miles east of Jamestown, and we figured we could hear 16 groups of distinct shooters within earshot. I think 3/4 were hunting sloughs.There were a lot of ducks in this general area, and I will tell you one thing, there were a lot less in that area tonight.
Anyone who says they never saw another hunter and there was no pressure in the early season should count yourself lucky to be able to A live far enough away from a major sity to alleviate the pressure, or B have a wife who lets you drive 80 miles one way both to scout and hunt another area. Man, I cant wait till my boys get a little bit older.
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Make sure you weren't trying to shove a 10 Gauge 3 1/2" up there, it ain't gonna work. And I have known people to buy 10 Gauge Shells mistakenly... go look. :wink:
go look. :wink:Some buddies flew into Fargo from TN this past Tuesday and asked me to come along with them on a trip into Manitoba. They had booked a guided trip for Honkers, Ducks and Grouse. Well....I knew what was coming but I went along anyway. As I suspected the "guides" turned out the be a joke.....more like con artists. I just hope my buddy was able to stop the wire transfer to the guides account. I tried to warn him but he learned the hard way.
Anyway.....we ended up with a few birds. Way short of what we should have. Luckily these guys were pretty fair shots or we would could have ended up with next to nothing. The Grouse hunt was more like a 300 mile sight seeing tour. Saturday there were hardly any birds flying so I cant blame that on the guides....but it sucked that 4 of us laid in a field covered in straw with 8 pitiful decoys in front of us. :evil:
All in all I limited out on honkers the first 2 mornings and shot 3 ducks the first afternoon. We still managed to have fun despite what we had to deal with. I am sure they will return next year to hunt either ND or Manitoba but will be doing it on their own this time.
The good news.....weekend after next I'll be on my first ND hunt with the girlfriend's father and brother. They are seeing tons of birds right now and cant wait to get me out there!
Be safe!!!
JJ
Anyway.....we ended up with a few birds. Way short of what we should have. Luckily these guys were pretty fair shots or we would could have ended up with next to nothing. The Grouse hunt was more like a 300 mile sight seeing tour. Saturday there were hardly any birds flying so I cant blame that on the guides....but it sucked that 4 of us laid in a field covered in straw with 8 pitiful decoys in front of us. :evil:
All in all I limited out on honkers the first 2 mornings and shot 3 ducks the first afternoon. We still managed to have fun despite what we had to deal with. I am sure they will return next year to hunt either ND or Manitoba but will be doing it on their own this time.
The good news.....weekend after next I'll be on my first ND hunt with the girlfriend's father and brother. They are seeing tons of birds right now and cant wait to get me out there!
Be safe!!!
JJ
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Sat. morning was the best hunting I have had. Between the two of us we shot 8 mallards, 2 pins, and 2 wigeons before 7:30. But Sunday we only managed 5.
The only downside to Saturday's hunt was that my buddy's BPS jammed with an empty shell in the chamber. I had two shells out of 25 that dented the primer but didn't fire, and one this morning that fired after the second try. :evil: I was using 3" 3 shot Federals that were packaged for Herters and bought at Cabelas. The worst thing is that I have over 2 boxes left.
I am looking forward to next weekend but wondering how crowded it will be near Lakota? Does it get pretty crazy once the NR's come?
The only downside to Saturday's hunt was that my buddy's BPS jammed with an empty shell in the chamber. I had two shells out of 25 that dented the primer but didn't fire, and one this morning that fired after the second try. :evil: I was using 3" 3 shot Federals that were packaged for Herters and bought at Cabelas. The worst thing is that I have over 2 boxes left.
I am looking forward to next weekend but wondering how crowded it will be near Lakota? Does it get pretty crazy once the NR's come?
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Hunted NW of Fargo about 70 miles on opener. Lots of mallards around midweek but seemed to have disappeared a little by weekend. Had a fairly good shoot on opener with a friend and our two sons. Nothing spectacular but good water hunt. Have to mention, with the sloughs being so dry and water way down, there's a lot of mud to walk through which really made the going tough at times. Here's a suggestion for you wader hunters. I was looking for walking sticks for the weekend....settled for old ski poles that I had laying around, covered them with camo duct tape...worked great for helping to keep balance in the sloughs.
Sunday field hunted 40-50 miles east of DL. Morning was clear, cold and no wind. Ducks didn't work the 80 or so bigfoots and 5 spinners very well but enough pintails and mallards came in to make it a great shoot. It's always a great day when you can have one son in a blind on one side of you and the other on the opposite side while enjoying a ND duck hunt. Surprising, though that a flock of 30 snows came in that we knocked 2 out of and a flock of 50 canadas that we got one from also. The Canada, which appeared to be fully plumaged was maybe a pound bigger than a large greenhead.
Anyway, thanks Zach, Dan and Matt for taking us along Sunday morning. It was a great time.
Sunday field hunted 40-50 miles east of DL. Morning was clear, cold and no wind. Ducks didn't work the 80 or so bigfoots and 5 spinners very well but enough pintails and mallards came in to make it a great shoot. It's always a great day when you can have one son in a blind on one side of you and the other on the opposite side while enjoying a ND duck hunt. Surprising, though that a flock of 30 snows came in that we knocked 2 out of and a flock of 50 canadas that we got one from also. The Canada, which appeared to be fully plumaged was maybe a pound bigger than a large greenhead.
Anyway, thanks Zach, Dan and Matt for taking us along Sunday morning. It was a great time.
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Lakota will be packed, have fun trying to find a field!! :lol: :lol:
It will be really hard with 15 guys watching a field.uke:
It will be really hard with 15 guys watching a field.
uke:30 ducks, 4 Canadas. I have hunted since 1980 and I have never seen so many wood ducks come into a field. I have seen the occasional but we had hunge flocks of them dive bombing us!!! Man what a great time. The geese didn't like us too much but the ducks were like mosquitos. One of the guys got a fairly mature pair of woodies, would have made a great mount but he already has a mounted male. The mallards we shot were tough to tell the drakes due to a lack of color. Only one real mature one. Any one out there get into better colored drakes???? :beer: :beer:
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dj - I hope you can identify ducks a little better in three weeks!! Woodies in a field? Never heard of it. :beer:
Anyway, we hunted about 40 miles from Moorhead on the Minnesota side. Five of us got 15 mallards and five big Canadas over the weekend. There were very few teal and woodies around on our side of the border.
Water conditions were good. Weather was windy. There was ice in the canoe on Sunday morning.
Anyway, we hunted about 40 miles from Moorhead on the Minnesota side. Five of us got 15 mallards and five big Canadas over the weekend. There were very few teal and woodies around on our side of the border.
Water conditions were good. Weather was windy. There was ice in the canoe on Sunday morning.
Many sloughs in our area were dry. After a couple of hours Saturday morning hunting (no birds within range other than shovelers), took a drive on 46 to Fort Ransom from US 281. All temporary, seasonal wetlands were dry as well as many deeper sloughs that usually are bulrush. Very few duck flocks were seen, only one goose flock but surprise, a couple of snow geese mixed in. Looks like a poor season in Lamoure and Logan counties compared to previous years.
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