# Unreal



## Gooseshredder21 (Mar 17, 2009)

What the hell happened to duck and goose hunting here? Over the past couple of years I've noticed that my hunting friends and I have been getting on less and less land to hunt, private or public. I cannot believe the amount of people hunting ducks and geese nowadays.

Today it seems that even if you finally find a field or slough to possibly hunt, either:
A. There are at least 3 other pickups that stop and watch the field and will try and beat you to the field
B. You call the landowner and he has "guys coming in a few weeks from Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Minnesota, etc." 
C. You somehow get to the field first but the other people just set up on the roost or transition sloughs and you don't get a shot all day.

It's becoming more and more impossible to hunt anything without having insane luck or by being buddy- buddy with a farmer. I mean really? Is it necessary to hold their fields all year for some guys to come and hunt it for one weekend? I mean something has to give doesn't it?


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## snogeezmen (May 28, 2012)

i hear ya! definatley takes more work now days......you can thank all the various social media site including this one, that "pimp" out hunting and how cool it is to have stickers, skull caps and shoot piles of geese.

why cant we go back to the old days where we shot "piles" of geese but we didnt have to put pictures on every internet site and chest bump ourselves to death......we are our own worst enemy and by "we" and "were" i mean the guys that do it. i applauded the people who get out and straight grind birds and dont need a social media site to make em look good.

take a look at various sites its either a thread about Nr's and *****ing and moaning or its a pciture of 100 dead birds.


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## Gooseshredder21 (Mar 17, 2009)

Exactly. Too many "bros" and "prostaffers" nowadays.


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## lesser (Nov 13, 2008)

You come on here and whine and someone enlightens you to the answer to your problem and then you call him stupid.

I will let you figure out who is stupid...


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## snogeezmen (May 28, 2012)

Yeah your right shredder what was I thinking,

The liberal bag limits, face paint. Waterfowl expos, stickers, decals , have nothing to do with it.......every time you grind the birds and pull your phone out, pump your chest and let people know how good your are.....loose lips sink ships.....but WTF do I know


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## stanton21 (Jan 5, 2006)

Same here drove up and spent a week and a half to fight people and find less and less places to hunt. Thinking on passing on ND and move on or even stop all togeather. I posted before and got removed. I talked to farmers in the bars and the land posted is for residents. To much land grabbing, they dont want to here or get involved in issues with people even when they dont know them. Eazyer to say sorry tied up for the season.Granted there is a lot of places to hunt but I/we are moving farther and farther out to new territory. And for the internet,face book and all the other sights. YES advertise you hunting for the whole world to see. Mostly young people doing this and making the sport look like a blood bath. Hunting shows arent helping eather. Flocks of birds with 6 guys shooting looks bad in my view.


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## the professor (Oct 13, 2006)

stanton21 said:


> Flocks of birds with 6 guys shooting looks bad in my view.


So if you and 5 of your family/friends go hunting, you don't all shoot into a flock? oke:


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## BB (Jan 14, 2004)

the professor said:


> stanton21 said:
> 
> 
> > Flocks of birds with 6 guys shooting looks bad in my view.
> ...


 :beer: x 20

What looks bad about 6 guys lying into a flock?
I like 6 guys. I can pretend I am actually working in the morning while the other 5 are doing decoys. 2 trucks. 3 per truck equals lots of miles covered and not much into fuel on road trips


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## slough (Oct 12, 2003)

I and my friends have also noticed this trend. I went out on opening weekend, had a good pothole shoot on Saturday and found a goose field for Sunday but got beat to it. Haven't been out since. Have done some scouting but haven't had the itch with low bird numbers and lots of pressure. Money also factors in. Gets old spending $75 to go scout for an evening only to find nothing or getting turned down on what you do find. One guy I know got turned down on 4 fields last weekend and had nowhere to hunt. I love duck hunting as much as the next guy but as has been said it's almost becoming more hassle than it's worth. Fall fishing is looking more intriguing all the time.


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## BB (Jan 14, 2004)

Will you change your screen name to LAKE?


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

slough said:


> I and my friends have also noticed this trend. I went out on opening weekend, had a good pothole shoot on Saturday and found a goose field for Sunday but got beat to it. Haven't been out since. Have done some scouting but haven't had the itch with low bird numbers and lots of pressure. Money also factors in. Gets old spending $75 to go scout for an evening only to find nothing or getting turned down on what you do find. One guy I know got turned down on 4 fields last weekend and had nowhere to hunt. I love duck hunting as much as the next guy but as has been said it's almost becoming more hassle than it's worth. Fall fishing is looking more intriguing all the time.


I share the same feeling, hard to burn a tank of gas and find a field and get there and there is already 2 pickups setting up at its 3 am.


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## slough (Oct 12, 2003)

BB said:


> Will you change your screen name to LAKE?


LOL...maybe River...


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Duplicate post


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Gooseshredder21 said:


> .
> 
> Today it seems that even if you finally find a field or slough to possibly hunt, either:
> A. There are at least 3 other pickups that stop and watch the field and will try and beat you to the field
> ...


A. Scout on a motor cycle. They won't recognize you as scouting a field and it will save you money on gas. I don't have a bike any more but at one time used it quite a bit for scouting. Instead of having hunting stickers on your truck have some kind of
"ag service" sticker on your truck. A third option is to stop and talk to the other scouters and see if you can join forces. instead of waiting till morning and having such a discussion.

B. This one I generally see more as an excuse by the unknowing. As mentioned if there are birds there today (in a field) they probably won't be there in a few weeks. Around here that ground is likely to get tilled once and maybe even twice, ruining the draw of that field before those "guys" get here to hunt them. There are exceptions but generally this holds true. Sloughs are different but again generally the birds on them the first 2-3 weeks of season are not the same birds on them after that and the local birds will generally move out after that time period pressured or not. Or hunt areas with fewer birds but better land access. I mostly hunt alone but if I see several groups scouting what looks to be the primary flock of birds I will usually try to find a secondary group/field to hunt. I'll use that field and generally beat guys to their plan B.

C. Is something you can't do much about except maybe try to explain to the landowners that shut you out, that if most of the land in the area is "locked out" guys are going to resort to shooting the roost and by the time the out of state crew gets there there won't be any birds left..

Since a large percentage of ND lakes are actually reservoirs often small areas of land/shoreline around them are owned by the State, County or Corp and are public land. Most are largely un-hunted and are large enough that you can hunt one end without disturbing birds on the other end even if they are a roost. This is a type of hunting you really want to limit to a couple guys (who are not trigger happy) and get in an out as fast as you can.

I really miss the old, big grass sloughs we used to have in ND. I think the use of farm chemicals has pretty much turned them all into cattail sloughs. Water was generally 6"-18" deep and the grass extended 12-18" above the water. Mallards loved them and would hold tight as pheasants in that cover. Your first shot would probably flush 75% of the birds within 100 yards but you could walk through them and continually flush singles and doubles often under 10 yards. SIGH...................Things have changed...


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