2015 Duck Hunting

Thought it would be nice to have a thread everyone could post reports in. List what part of the state your in and what your seeing. Don’t need specific spots but it would be nice to know who is seeing what and where.
DT

South/central WI – Southern season for ducks doesn’t open until the 3rd. I haven’t been seeing strong numbers of resident ducks this year. Just a few woodys here and there and the occasional green head.

Though last night had the first big flock of geese fly over. Probably 100 to 150. Most of what I have been seeing is 6 to 20 at a time. Its getting close – Box elder bugs are grouping up on trees, bees are really going nuts, and velvet is off the bucks.

Sending one to the taxidermist. All we saw was woodies on the lake we hunted near Alexandria. We shot 7 of our 9 allowed.
DT

Lots of woodies in the river bottoms near Nelson

My son and myself were hunting pool 4. We shot are 6 woodies in the 1st 25 mins. Then headed in for Ham and Eggs Hash Browns with lots of Onions. … rrr

Lots of wood ducks up here on Leech Lake as well. We did get a few ringers but mainly lots of wood ducks in the rice.

Lots of teal down here hunting freeborn county, 51 birds for 10 guys today, couple mallards a spoonie and some woodies

At the farm near Fergus we had a lot of mallards around. Most of what we shot were mallards. good numbers of woodies, but very few teal and ringbills. Saw more geese opening day than I did during the entire early season.

Hunted the WI Northern opener this weekend. I would say more mallards than a usual opener for us, but good number of bwt, gadwalls, and wood ducks for us. Nothing crazy but a fun start to the year!

Few more…

Four of us hunted near Marshall and had a great weekend. Opener morning we were done by 7:30, mainly blue wing teal with a few wood ducks mixed in. We cleaned up and spent the afternoon on the golf course enjoying the weather.

Sunday we were done around 10:30, again mainly blue wing teal with a few wood ducks and a few mallards. Sunday was definitely slower, but we stuck it out and were pleasantly surprised by the number of ducks that seemed to come in every half hour or so and give us a little action. Usually on the blue bird days once it slows down, it’s done.

This years weather was almost an exact repeat of last year.

311HEMI That “Ducker” looks to be in good shape. How long have you had it?

Ortonville area…Some did well. Some like us did not. BUT I was able to find a little jewelry which is my first so I was pumped! (banded in August of 2014 in Fergus Falls, Mn…)

BIL said their group got 25 in the Brooten area. Mostly woodies with some mallards and teal mixed in.

super_do wrote:

311HEMI That “Ducker” looks to be in good shape. How long have you had it?

Thanks. I have had it since I was around 12 (36 now). It was passed down to me from my great uncle, along with his Belgium A5!

It’s in ok shape, but has definitely seen a lot of use over it’s life! My dad (in the pic) hunted out of it when he was younger. Enough metal has worn away over the years that it could use some new rivets. I keep patching it up as need be to keep it useable.

Hunted the Douglas County MN area today in the rain. Hard at times. We shot 4 buffleheads, 1 gadwall, 1 green wing teal, 2 blue bills and a widgeon. Sending one of the buffles to the taxidermist. What I thought was weird was we had 3 ducks come in and we dropped all 3. It was the widgeon, gadwall and bill flying together. I was surprised to see the green wing still. I also took a tumble putting out the dekes and got to hunt in wet waders. Glad it wasn’t that cold today.
DT

The picture doesn’t do the head colors justice.
DT

Nice buffy… they are so pretty. Usually when I shoot at them, I aim at the one in the front and hit the one in the back of the flock. If there’s only one or two I usually miss. So if that’s the one you were shooting at… well done.

I took my 4 year old out for his first duck hunt last weekend. We had to make it an afternoon hunt because I don’t have any warm camo for him. We jumped about 100 teal out of the pond on the way in and only a few decided they wanted to come back.

We only ended up with 1 bird, but that wasn’t really the point of the adventure.

Allegan Co. MI (SW MI): Woodies still residing in local swamps and ponds and havent moved south yet. We are seeing new flights of mallards and canadas mixed in with whats left of the locals. A few teal left, mostly green wing. Spotty weather and crop harvesting have the birds breaking routines keeping them moving.

The east side of the state, Saginaw bay areas, was loading up with various duck species and of course canadas.

Was able to bag some jewelry. First band of the year.

Incredibly slow in Ottertail county this weekend. A few mallards still and some local ringbills left, but nothing new and the numbers were way down. Hopefuly this cold front coming in mid week will bring us some fresh birds.

It was really slow in the Mankato area, as well. We saw plenty of birds, but they were all flying really high and had no interest in the decoys.

Starting to see bigger flocks of mallards in west central MN.
DT

Went out this morning in Polk county and ended up getting delayed for an hour playing it safe waiting out heavy rain and lightening, light rain was predicted all day not storms. We could only hope for the best finally getting on the water 15 min before shooting starts and divers flying around while laying decoys. The weather may have been a problem at first, but the light rain that continued kept the ducks flying longer which worked out for us.

All we have been seeing this past week is ring necks.

Hunted big water in west central MN today. Kicked up a ton of mallards getting to the spot but they never came back. Waited it out in the rain but only one mallard. Finally seen some flocks after we picked up. We NEED cold weather.
DT

Not too many Ducks around but the honkers are here!

The ducks were really coming in in OTC this weekend, but I was in the tree. Maybe they will hang around until next weekend. The numbers have been way down for us this year so I have spent the majority of the time in the tree with the bow. Last week we had 2 groups of hunter in camp and they shot a total of 6 ducks

South Dakota hunt Sunday morning we were done in 20 minutes

213 wrote:

South Dakota hunt Sunday morning we were done in 20 minutes

Way to go on just shooting drakes!

Took turns shooting it worked out pretty good