Seasons are starting

[tashaz33]

Well, waterfowl season starts tomorrow here in MN. I've been packed for quite awhile. My brother (hunting partner) got stuck working so I'm heading out in the morning alone to knock em down. Anyone else headed out?

[res]

Tomorrow is the day here as well. I am up and will be at the lake by 5:00 to set up dekes and to get my spot. Opening volley at 7:00. WOOOOHOOOOO!!! Rick :D

[rueger's upland skeeter]

WELL, :confused:
How'd we do??? :D

[res]

My morning was a test of will power. We arrived at our hunting spot at 5:00am. We have had this pond to ourselves for the past 3 years. Somehow, when we got there, 4 other hunting parties were spread out around the shore. It was a recipe for disaster and we got out. We went to our plan B (we actually had one even though we figured it was a waste of time) and sure enough, there was a couple of parties in that spot. We made an educated guess and finally settled in on a pond that we knew would have some wood ducks. We got set about 15 minutes before shooting time. We were able to support the steel industry fairly nicely today. We ended up with 5 but two in our party of 4 were young men of 16 and they had a riot. To the best of my knowledge, they did not hit any but they sure had the fun trying. :D Sorry, did not get any pictures. Slumping through the muck and marsh with decoys on your back, blind gear, etc, it was just extra weight waiting to get damaged. Over all, a good morning but not the way we had planned. Rick

[tashaz33]

Morning wasn't the best opener I have seen. I got out to my spot at 5:45 and sat there watching the lightning bolts and decided against walking out in the water. I headed back to my parents to wait the storm out. I head out at about 1030 (shooting opening day starts at 9) and walked down the minimim maintenance road that splits a nice waterfowl area in 2. Tons of birds were flying. I ended up getting 2 mallards. My brother called me and said he was on his way so about 12 he showed up and we walked a ways and got to an opening where him and I each shot a teal. There were two groups behind us that were pounding them which made them fly away from us. Hopefully should head out in the morning again with the brother.

[Bmac]

I hunted with Omega58 and a few others on Randy's property for the northern opener. We ended up with 10 woodies, a teal and a couple of mallards. My labs Mac and Hope had a blast. Mac made some awesome (if I can brag on him a little) retrieves. He chased down a mallard drake that sailed quite a ways up into the woods and came down live. He also located a couple of cripple woodies that made it to land and took off. Hope is also no longer "Hopeless". She had a tough season last year never seeing a bird. She made a good retrieve (with a little help from Mac) on a nice drake woodie.

After the morning hunt we hit the uplands and moved a few grouse and several woodcock. Randy was the top gun and bagged a couple of nice woodcock. We will be back at it in a couple of hours.

[tashaz33]

Day 2 went worse than day one. It poured most of the time we were out. My brother and I set up decoys and sat around for a few hours. Coots were about the only things flying which is unusual. My brother did get 2 teal and I hit 1 but it dove, we spent over an hour looking for it with no luck. We then decided to jump some small bodies of water and ended up seeing 15-20 pheasants sitting in a group of 3 trees. We thought that was neat so we took some pictures. We also helped a guy get his horses back into the pasture after we came over the hill and almost hit one. All in all it was a fun weekend!