# Not finding any ducks in the field!



## Rick Acker (Sep 26, 2002)

Spent the better part of 2 days this past weekend looking for a Mallard feed! Found a few geese, but no ducks! Maybe it was just my area? Anyone else having problems with this? Do they tend to feed less in the fields this time of year, when there is no cold weather? Thoughts?


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Where were you looking. I went to Bismark this weekend and didn't see many duck (on water) until I got west of #1 and south of #2. Most of the ducks NE of there cleared out the weekend before (but not from pressure because there was none). Saw tons of ducks along I 94 east of Bismarck.


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

Your not finding feeds because there aren't any ducks right now. I've hunted ducks one day in the last two weekends because we can't find any birds.


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## Eric Hustad (Feb 25, 2002)

We were out hunting last weekend and really didn't see any feeds. We came upon a slough with around 500 mallards and in the fog they weren't flying so we just set up in an adjacent grain field blind. We were fortunate to have a good shoot, but there wasn't much around for all the miles we put on. Would also help to get some corn down when the ducks migrate.....


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## dlhunter (Oct 18, 2004)

Several inches of rain fell last weekend around the Detroit Lakes area causing fields to flood. Found a spot with several hundred mallards feeding and it looks to be an awesome hunt tommorow morning. More birds then we have been able to find all year but other than this it's been slow. It appears that the birds are finally starting to funnel through.


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## Extrema Hunter (Oct 1, 2004)

We had great luck out of the field last weekend. We set up in a stubble field off of a large slough and we couldn't keep the mallards, pintails, and wood ducks out of our spread.


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## GooseBuster3 (Mar 1, 2002)

The birds are around you just have to do ALOT of mid week scouting. :wink:


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## lbk (Oct 19, 2003)

Just got back from Bottineau ND. Ducks everywhere - just wary. They were flying high and did not decoy easily. We found several fields however - with thousands of ducks. :sniper:


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## Goosepride (Sep 29, 2003)

GB3 is lurking....


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## Drew Willemsen (Sep 29, 2003)

The ducks that I saw when I was scouting tonight were not really in the fields either, a lot were dropping from the Stratusphere into the sloughs, all the birds were WAY high, even with the winds the way that they were....


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## Goosepride (Sep 29, 2003)

Drew - I noticed the same thing further south yesterday and earlier tonight. Out of nowhere, there would be small groups of mallards falling out of the sky. It was quite the sight.


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## Remmi_&amp;_I (Dec 2, 2003)

GooseBuster3 said:


> The birds are around you just have to do ALOT of mid week scouting. :wink:


I have worn out my debit card on gas! Honestly! It doesn't scan anymore, they have to type in the numbers !


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## fowlfoolr (Sep 30, 2004)

Dont listen to these guys saying there is no ducks here right now. I just got back from hunting south of Devils Lake and there are tons and tons and tons of ducks and geese around. We had plenty of field mallard and goose shoots while we were there. You have to SCOUT HARD TO FIND THEM! We had over 1000 ducks easy coming to feed every day we hunting them in the fields. Mostly pinnies and mallards.

Duck numbers are high right now up there as well as geese too. From what the locals were telling us these birds are mostly locals as hardly no migration has started yet.

Layne


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## Booster (Sep 8, 2003)

fowlfoolr, I guess you must have better eyes then most!  This has been the worst year for ducks in a long time. I only live 25 miles from DL and scout pretty hard. I found many goose feeds, however, 0 duck feeds! I haven't seen a field to get excitied about to hunt this year yet! The boat hunters just pushed them on out in a matter of a week. Before the season opened there were numours ducks everywhere, now NOTHING!


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## GooseBuster3 (Mar 1, 2002)

Booster you have to remeber some guys get excited when they see a feed of 1000 mallards. You have seen plenty of those in your days if hunting up around your home town. :wink:


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## Leo Porcello (Jul 10, 2003)

Hell I get excited when I see 1 duck. I don't need 10 thousand birds to pump me up but of course that does help a little. What I have noticed is the ducks in most of my spots have been coming in low and they have been hanging in the dips of fields making it hard to spot from a distance. Seems they are also choosing fields with little potholes so they fly in the morning and then they can feed and drink with out traveling very far and then they take off for the roost at night.


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## fowlfoolr (Sep 30, 2004)

All I am saying is we saw at least 6 huge duck feeds in the 4 days I was there. Now yes there were not 100,000 ducks in one field. But every field we found them in there was at least 1000 probably closer to several thousand. We were south of Devils.

Just keep searching... there are plenty of mallards around up there.

You dont need fields of 10,000 mallards to shoot a limit. All you need is 5 birds per person so unless you are hunting with 2000 guys in one field you dont need that many ducks to make it fun and interesting.

Just my 2 cents.

The same goes for geese.

Layne


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

Like anything it depends on where you hunt. I can't realistically drive 3 hours to scout on a Friday night. Yes there may be ducks up by Devils Lake but the areas where I hunt I haven't seen many ducks.


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## Goosepride (Sep 29, 2003)

I think I've seen.....17 mallards all fall. Yep, that's it.


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## gaddyshooter (Oct 12, 2003)

fowfoolr....I think once again it is just what you are used to. We have been hunting up there near Minot the last several years and we would come up there and the locals up there would be saying "not many birds around this year" at the same time we would be driving around saying "holy sh*t, look at all the birds." Just what you are used to.

Looks like Bottineau will be getting some new hunters this week.


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

If you are coming here....prepare to walk into the fields until it gets cold enough to freeze the ground....really muddy with more rain today and tonight.

Some prairie trails are not driveable.


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## mallardhunter (May 15, 2004)

The fields are really muddy around here now. It was really foggy out last night. When I was comming home I could only see about 10 yards.


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## ottertail (Apr 9, 2004)

Honesty is sweet!! I check the MN forums for the waterfowl report in ND & check the ND forums for the fish report in west MN. Sweet unbiased reports...


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## Simple (Oct 6, 2004)

The fog can be a killer scouting! I went out last Friday scouting and could not see even a 1/4 mile so I ending up calling it off.


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## mallardhunter (May 15, 2004)

It is foggy out now too.  I was going to go scouting tonight, I hope it clears off.


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

In my scouting in ND right now, I can't say I see many local birds left and it's been that way for a couple weeks.

If you're lucky, you'll be in the right area when the birds migrate at the right time. I've seen it myself, there's A LOT of birds north of us still so from here on out, luck will play a part. I scouted a roost Wednesday that has (guessing) 5-10K dark geese and some handfuls of ducks. Yesterday Deltaboy passed by the same roost and said you could walk across it with snow geese.

Ducks are acting more and more like the snow geese every year. They will hold as long as possible and there's no need to migrate if they have ample food, water and aren't stressed by pressure. I think this will be a trend for many years to come if the Canadian provinces stay wet.


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## fishhook (Aug 29, 2002)

I agree chris. And it's been trending that way for years. In my humble opinion waterfowl hunting in north dakota peaked in the early 90's.......right after the big drought.

Since then it has been going more and more sour every year. We are darn lucky the canada goose population has boomed here or we would be in extreme dire straights!!


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

The problem is most of us grew up hunting snow geese and mallards.

Switching to Canadas and LBD's is tough.

But the NR are still thinking this is great hunting.

All in perspective I guess.


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## duxnbux (Feb 25, 2002)

Ducks like snow geese....I agree completely I was just saying the same thing in the decoys this week. They are turning into snow geese...drop from the stratosphere to 80 yards...circle for about 3 minutes then just leave. If your lucky you'll get 2 or three to commit from each group.


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## rem1187us (Oct 11, 2004)

I have been getting mallards on water this week, it seem's like the duck are not going to the fields every day. I find this strange but I have been out every day this week and this is what I have found.


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## kingme88 (Sep 22, 2004)

Found mallards that were feeding all day. 3 feeds, big feeds in the thousands within 5 miles.


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## GooseBuster3 (Mar 1, 2002)

We had the same thing they would hold around 45-50 yards, and well shells arent worth that much to shoot a damn duck at that range. You can tell the birds have been hunted over the 2-3 doz goose and 1-2 lucky duck spreads ALOT it was all we could carry out into the field this morning and they wouldnt decoy worth a crap. Thats the last time im leaving the trailer in town!


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## mallardhunter (May 15, 2004)

I found 2 fields right by each other. It had tons of ducks. I hope I can get on it tomarrow. Otherwise I will just road hunt them because they were pretty close to the road.


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## mallard (Mar 27, 2002)

I found a BIG mallard feed friday and hunted it saturday.On the average,one small group of ducks would decoy for every 30 flocks that came in.They wouldnt even land in the field,they would do the snow goose thing and fly back to the roost.Very tough hunting.


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## NDJ (Jun 11, 2002)

saw a few feeds...in mowed corn!!! alot of the corn in this area wasn't harvested!

Also heard the Fed's will be out in force looking at this(may just be hearsay!)


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## Niles Short (Mar 18, 2004)

And I thought I was the only one with spoooooky birds this weekend


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