# Lousy opener...



## Rick Acker (Sep 26, 2002)

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!


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## birchies (Sep 9, 2008)

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


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## twopopper (Sep 24, 2006)

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


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## incoming (Jan 28, 2008)

Limit of ducks for 3 guys by 9:30.


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## taddy1340 (Dec 10, 2004)

Rick Acker said:


> 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!


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## martin_shooter (Sep 27, 2008)

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


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## jwdinius1 (Dec 14, 2006)

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


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## weasle414 (Dec 31, 2006)

I still have to wait another week for MN opener


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## huntinND (May 1, 2008)

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.


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## slough (Oct 12, 2003)

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.


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## fishhawk175090 (Sep 27, 2007)

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.


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## snow123geese (Feb 3, 2008)

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.


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## 870 rem (Nov 14, 2007)

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!


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## kkelly (Apr 19, 2008)

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.


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## theodore (Nov 3, 2007)

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.


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## Triple B (Mar 9, 2004)

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:


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## USAlx50 (Nov 30, 2004)

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.


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## browningboy (Mar 30, 2003)

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


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## gamberc (Mar 10, 2008)

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


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## northdakotakid (May 12, 2004)

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.


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## FrogMan (Sep 8, 2008)

2 man limit done by 8:55 am. It was very foggy where we were at in SD. Should have been done an hour earlier, we were shooting TERRIBLE...used to shooting them slow honkers...i forgot how quick them ducks were...


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## Maverick (Mar 4, 2002)

We had one of the best opener's in a long time! Saturday we had a 5 person limit of mallards and honkers by 8:30. Sunday we hunted the same fields and got a 5 person limit of mallards and 2 honks by 8:30.

Saturday









Sunday









Awesome time!!!


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

What I saw this weekend is that a few miles makes a world of difference in duck numbers. We hunted east of Mav and did fine on Sunday but Sat was similar to Rick's view. No hunters moving birds around. Since I did not get a chance to scout for Sat we set up on water. Once the birds left the pothole they simply sat down in another a ways away. Nothing really flying other than geese.

Still had a good time, but not the birds in the area like past years.

Sunday field hunting was good!


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## USAlx50 (Nov 30, 2004)

A couple of those drakes look very nice for this time of year mav. We had one simular but a lot of brown headed drakes were shot that's for sure.


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## Maverick (Mar 4, 2002)

USAlx50 said:


> A couple of those drakes look very nice for this time of year mav. We had one simular but a lot of brown headed drakes were shot that's for sure.


A friend of ours had a Fed come in the spread and the Fed had trouble Id'ing a couple of birds!


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Two words.... Flooded fields.

Could have filled out by 9 on ducks Sat & Sunday except I couldn't pick out the drakes. Did a lot of non-shooting. They were bombarding the decoys 20 minutes before legal shooting. Canadas just wouldn't pull even though there had been some on the spot I set up in. Scouted at least 4 large flocks in the area. Could have been my shell decoys. I have to make some longer stakes to get them off the ground more. Saw quite a widgeon in the mix and bagged a couple. Gonna get some FB ducks to add to the mix as I think it will help for later in the morning/day.

Hardly saw a duck on a slough during the day. Must have been on big water all night and fields all day. Did manage to find a couple shallow sloughs with tall grass or short/sparse cattails that held tons of mallards. They are the ideal slough but are getting harder to find as many of the sloughs have matured into a thick cattail mass surrounding open water.

Shot all with the 20 ga. (steel shot) which I prefer over the 12 for ducks. Only had to chase 2 out of 10. The one goose I got was about 35 yards out and dropped like a rock.


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## mmprescott (Sep 29, 2008)

We got our duck limit on sat. with 6 guys and 15 geese, but took some work the ducks were really shy. We hammered them on sun. We had a 5 man limit greens and 1 widgeon by 7:23 and stayed there and got some awesome footage of big groups trying to land right on top of the deeks, sheet water on a canola field is awesome. Went back this morning mon., it took longer but we got our limit along with 2 bonus geese.


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## orangefeet (Nov 7, 2007)

Really sunny on Saturday morning, no wind...no ideal. Pretty slow hunting really, a few ducks short of a limit and a few geese short. It has been a few years since we haven't shot a limit on opener. We actually got some nice passerby redheads. One super nice drake...the didn't decoy but they wanted in some of the water in field we were in. It was weird I think we saw more redheads and mallards...oh well. ND opener still beats SD from my experience.


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## Maverick (Mar 4, 2002)

We litterally had to wait for awhile as we were being infested with Pintails! Anyone else seeing a lot of Pinnies? We saw thousands this weekend!


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## USSapper (Sep 26, 2005)

Maverick said:


> We litterally had to wait for awhile as we were being infested with Pintails! Anyone else seeing a lot of Pinnies? We saw thousands this weekend!


YES!! Thousands, I know our entire group let them all pass or land until we only had 2 birds left, then we picked out two nice drakes


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## texcl (Oct 6, 2007)

3 limits of mixed ducks and 5 geese, would have had more geese but I had a new dog out and he would break cover and spook the birds.


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