# 2010 Waterfowl Reports



## templey_41 (Jul 19, 2008)

Post up the pics guys! Looking forward to this coming weekend. Hope it was a fun and safe opener. How is the color phase of some of the birds you are shooting compared to last year? When did the birds feed with the full moon?


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## bornlucky (Jul 24, 2007)

A bit of a struggle this weekend. Shot a few ducks in the field the first half hour and the last half hour of the day. Tried hunting a slough, but they wouldn't even look at us. So I followed them to where they were flying. They were dive bombing into standing water in an unharvested corn field. I'd say they are safe out there.


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## Rick Acker (Sep 26, 2002)

Couldn't find any birds in the field Saturday night. Full moon screwed that up. Hunted water and shot some birds Saturday afternoon with my boy. Didn't bother with Sunday morning after a dismal scouting report Saturday night.


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## slough (Oct 12, 2003)

Very little waterfowl activity in my area. Was out scouting early last week and saw some activity but it totally disappeared by Friday and the weekend was slow. Mallards are showing very little color from what I saw...the few flocks I had come in all looked like hens and I can't say I've seen a "greenhead" yet. Lots of water and there are birds on it but they just didn't seem to be moving. I was in the Central part of the state but I had some friends up in the NE part who had 3 trucks out scouting on Friday and didn't really find anything worth hunting. Not sure what to make of it, the moon probably had something to do with it...it sure was bright, barely needed a headlamp to set up the spread.

Should add I only heard a handful of other shots both mornings and it was dead calm Saturday so you could hear for miles...


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## chrisg (Mar 17, 2010)

The moon phase is the reason it was tough I hope. We had three vehicles out and about Friday afternoon/evening and you would see ducks here and there (15-20) but trying to find a field was a waste of time. Ended up with a dozen mallards Saturday morning but would have had a good half dozen more but the ID'ing greenheads (or lack thereof) was tougher than I thought.


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## waterfowl kid (Nov 7, 2007)

i'm sure the warm weather didn't help with the birds not moving much either.


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## chrisg (Mar 17, 2010)

We got wind yesterday and it was much better but the warm weather seemed to make them sluggish to get off the water and when they did it was just up over the cattails to the next slough over.


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## Omann_12 (Aug 17, 2010)

Found some ducks hunted some flooded stuff but the ducks seemed to be really spread out and the birds had virtually no color on them.


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## templey_41 (Jul 19, 2008)

Too bad about the moon too we got stuck with that problem last year for the NR opener. Giant full moon and little bird movement. Hopefully things pick up for you guys and best of luck the rest of the season.


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## beakbreakers (Apr 24, 2010)

hunted water saturday and got some teal and gadwalls but no mallards. scouted saturday night for some geese for sunday and outlook was so bad we didnt hunt sunday at all....saw lots of geese saturday morning lifting off the roost but nothing saturday night.


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## AdamFisk (Jan 30, 2005)

Geez, here I thought I was the states crappiest duck hunter....Glad to see I'm not alone,. 

Had 3 vehicles scouting Friday night, found 1 field, hunted it and it turned out pretty poor....Had 2 vehicles scouting Saturday night, and did not find a field to hunt. Worse opener I can remember!!!!!!!!


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## tikkat3 (Jun 27, 2006)

We had our best opener ever, 36 ducks 3 geese day one 20 ducks 13 geese day 2 , 6 guys


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## duckp (Mar 13, 2008)

Our local CO had said in the paper pre opener that 75% of our local ducks had left.We scouted very hard and it payed.Limits all 3 days so far(2 field hunts,one water).Mallards were easy for us,it was the bonus ducks we had to wait out.Poor geese with only 4 taken.My Illinois bow buddy got his first honker though and was as excited as when tagging a 160 buck(he does that often on his place).
A friend and very good hunter with what we agreed was a honeyhole shot 3 ducks saturday so....finicky here at best.The ducks were just gone.They hunted big water sunday and did well though.Lousy weather didn't help.Overall very poor reports around here.


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## Honkerhornet (Sep 13, 2006)

Best nd opener I have ever experienced. We had no problem finding fields, and there were large amounts of birds in our area. Both days we could have been done by 7:30 but took our time and enjoyed the mornings.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

I had a great opener. Got my first wooduck in North Dakota. Fisky you shoulda stayed.


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## Duckslayer100 (Apr 7, 2004)

Hunted water Saturday and Sunday. Birds everywhere Friday evening, but nowhere during the weekend (who tipped 'em off?!)

Shot a few ducks, but this will go down as one of our slowest openers ever. Thank goodness there were plenty of sharptails around, otherwise my dog would have been pretty disappointed in me.

Guess the reports about an early exodus were true. First time I've ever seen tundra swans and sandhill cranes that far south on waterfowl opener. Looks like I'll be waiting for the next big cold front to push some Canadian birds down, eh. :beer:


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## young_gun33 (Sep 16, 2008)

We limited out sat and sun with a total of 66 ducks and 3 honkers. All over water, would have pics but forgot camera at home when i left for school.


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## okoutlaw (Dec 21, 2008)

Seems like the ducks are really concentrated right now. I found a massive roost with ducks, geese and cranes. Set up for the geese and cranes and the ducks worked the field perfect too. It was a tough field to hide in and the geese picked us apart, only shot 3. 18 ducks for 3 guys and no cranes. Saw some color but not alot of mallards, couldnt keep the pintails off of us.


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## beretta16 (Aug 29, 2009)

Ran into the biggest ***hole I've ever met on Friday, but limited out on Saturday and Sunday. Our group limited on Gadwalls with a few nice redheads and canvasbacks. No mallards to speak of. With the full moon they were all done flying before shooting hours and we had no chance. Hunted a nice slough.


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## Nick Roehl (Mar 7, 2002)

I saw one field full of mallards and honkers but it was a newly planted winter wheat field and it was pretty wet so that was not going to happen. Ended up hunting a small slough. My girlfriend got here first honker and ducks. We shot some gadwalls, blue wings, and redheads. I also ended up with a banded honker. The full moon and warm weather definitely slowed down the bird movement. I also think some birds moved out as well.


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## texcl (Oct 6, 2007)

I took 2 guys out yesterday afternoon who had never hunted. They wanted to go pot hole jumping so we did that for a couple hours, they managed to shoot 2 ducks. That was not my cup of tea and I told them we should go to my spot and set up dekes since we only had an hour and a half of light. Humped out to the spot which was a brutal 400 yard walk through reeds that have always been dry up on the road bed but now had a foot of water over them. set the dekes out the whole time ducks were wizzing past. hid in the reeds and let the fun begin, we ended up with 14 total , not bad considering they shot four times for every duck they hit. I think between the 2 they almost spent a case of 100 shells. I have to admit I missed plenty myself, those teal rocket in and back out like a f-4 on a bombing run. We shot mostly gadwall teal and mallards, for once all the mallards were drakes and one was in full plumage with a bright green head, they were in very large flights and were most certainly migrators. There were also tons of geese, but we weren't after them. I have to recover now from the hump, maybe next week I'll be up to going out again, they were so excited it was like taking my son out for the first time, they were talking about coming out again on the way home, so I think it was a hit.


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## greenwinger_13 (Oct 6, 2005)

Between being in this area the entire early goose, and scouting it for a few days seeing many thousan ducks n a few hundred geese.. didn't seem like there could be a problem. Rained, fine.. got cold n fogged up completely.. full moon.. we still did alright don't get me wrong but it was hard to believe the shortage of ducks we saw compared to previous times and our scouting.. very interesting but not worried.. def worst opener so far but like I said not even a little worried just got screwed by a full moon! Waitin for a corn field!


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## nryan (Jul 14, 2010)

ya not really sure what happened on opener but limited out on honkers in the morning and hunted a corn field in the evening that ive been watching over 1k ducks in for 2 months now, only would get singles and pairs to commit, no groups, ended up with a handful greenheads(about 20 away from a limit), shot a couple with full color and 3 curls, did get a group of woodies to come in somehow and shot a few of those, im hoping it was the full moon, because the birds didnt move much and they werent committing like you usually see on opener


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

We had to put on double the miles we're used to, but had good hunting all field hunts. Had a water hunt that didn't turn up a lot of ducks but the water produced 7 bands - I didn't get one, don't have the band mojo.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

nryan, woodies come into fields very often where I hunted in MN, that's actually how I hunted them, so its not too weird. Is it just me or are there alot more woodies being shot this year, in ND?


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## templey_41 (Jul 19, 2008)

Chris Hustad said:


> We had to put on double the miles we're used to, but had good hunting all field hunts. Had a water hunt that didn't turn up a lot of ducks but the water produced 7 bands - I didn't get one, don't have the band mojo.


Sorry about the band mojo.....were they all geese bands or duck bands. That's a lot of duck bands in one hunt. Best of luck the rest of the season.


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## hwdeuce (Apr 6, 2010)

Have any of you guys been noticing any fields with water in them


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## texcl (Oct 6, 2007)

If it stays clear and windy like this there won't be standing water in the fields for long.


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## Gooseshredder21 (Mar 17, 2009)

Hunted water opener got our 24 ducks..lot of teal and 4 or 5 mallards. Hunted a field the next day the geese in Nodak were weird this year they were scattered all over and didn't even look at our 100+ dec spread shot 6 mallards and 2 crane. Weird opener definitely need the migrators to come down.


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## slough (Oct 12, 2003)

hwdeuce said:


> Have any of you guys been noticing any fields with water in them


Many low spots in fields had water in them in Central ND. I haven't really seen fields that I would call "flooded" but I would guess there are some in the eastern part of the state that have some standing water as they had quite a bit of rain last week. This weather should dry it out pretty quick though.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

hwdeuce said:


> Have any of you guys been noticing any fields with water in them


That's what I hunted in, but its all dried up now.


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## nryan (Jul 14, 2010)

blhunter3 said:


> nryan, woodies come into fields very often where I hunted in MN, that's actually how I hunted them, so its not too weird. Is it just me or are there alot more woodies being shot this year, in ND?


thats good too know, what i meant by weird was in my 12+ years of duck hunting central nodak i have never seen a wood duck, let alone shot one, so it was pretty cool, one almost was saved for the taxidermist

we too hunted a flooded part of a field, had to walk all the decoys out to the spot cuz there was so much standing water, the little flooded part of the field we hunted was about 3 1/2 feet deep, dont think that will go anywhere for awhile, and there wasnt water there last year


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## ImpalaSSpeed96 (Aug 25, 2008)

Saturday was pretty nuts, but we were in the wrong spot. Went and set up in the right spot on sunday and didn't see a quarter of the birds we did on saturday. Should have shot our limit on sunday still, but w/ shooting no doves this year, we were both rusty. Ended up w/ three. Fair amount of mallards, very few drakes in the groups, lots of junk ducks... And nothing really in color, that we noticed. Trying a new spot I guess this weekend. But all in all, we found a pretty good new spot, since someone was already in our spot we scouted when we got out there. I'd like to hunt more than we are but my buddy w/ the kid this weekend, pretty much shoots that plan down.


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

templey_41 said:


> Chris Hustad said:
> 
> 
> > We had to put on double the miles we're used to, but had good hunting all field hunts. Had a water hunt that didn't turn up a lot of ducks but the water produced 7 bands - I didn't get one, don't have the band mojo.
> ...


They were all duck bands, lots of traps up here this year so some areas it's unavoidable to shoot a band.


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## PJ (Oct 1, 2002)

Chris Hustad said:


> templey_41 said:
> 
> 
> > Chris Hustad said:
> ...


Band Mojo? Maybe not on ducks, but I have seen you shoot banded snows every spring and fall for a couple years in a row now Homey!


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## hwdeuce (Apr 6, 2010)

Hey guys just want your thoughts on putting a few snow goose decoys with your spread and how many would you put out


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## jblabsnduck (Mar 15, 2006)

Put the smack down on some birds this past weekend.
Mixed bag of mallards, gaddys,teal, red heads and ringers.
Had a few extra bonus geese to boot.

Some blue platters out there given this blue platter a bad name.(saw one blue and yellow platter giving ND a bad name also)
Hope them 4 like that flock of 1000 coots they were sneaking up on. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Had a great time as usual in ND.
Good and friendly people in ND.

Can't wait till Oct.23 to roll around for our second trip.

P.S. saw snows and specks in the area. Very early IMO for the area we were in.

Thanks again ND for the fast and action packed hunts.


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## ImpalaSSpeed96 (Aug 25, 2008)

Went out to our planned opening day spot this weekend. Limited out both days. 10:30 on saturday, 10 on sunday. Mostly blue wing teal w/ some greens mixed in, lots of gadwalls, few hen mallards and 4 reds, two drakes and two hens. Couple spoonies mixed in by accident oke:


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## PnR_Productions (Feb 15, 2010)

Wingmaster said:


>


I see your useing a LMC Slipknot, Great Call! i love my slipknot, best call i've had yet!


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## PnR_Productions (Feb 15, 2010)

Here is Wisconsin some of our birds aren't full plumage yet, i'll put up a pick of a drake woodie we shot last week thursday and some i shot for our southern Zone opener, some full plumage and some not...


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## Nick Roehl (Mar 7, 2002)

PnR_Productions said:


> Wingmaster said:
> 
> 
> >
> ...


I love my slipknot too! It's super responsive and I have it tuned fairly low for the big honkers, but I called in a nice flock of blues with it yesterday. It's a great call and I would recommend Lynch Mob Calls to anyone!


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