Last year, I started doing a summary of all my duck hunting trips in one post. This format seemed to work pretty well and didn’t really drag on too much. I think I am going to stick with that format. This year, we totally hunted public land again and had decent success. Personally, duck hunting for me isn’t about the number of ducks harvested, but the experience, bonding, and enjoying the outdoors that I always look forward to the most!
10/01/11
This was the first trip Dad and I took for the year. We headed back down to the MM WMA. We got down there plenty early enough in the morning but were the second group out there. The weather was cooler, but not super cold. We wore our heavier hunting clothing. It ended up being a blue bird day, but we did rid the world of one goose. Dad and I are both claiming this harvest, since we both shot it and then it fell!
10/13/11
This trip, Dad and I heading back down the the MM WMA. The weather was much cooler and we were right at the leading edge of a front pushing through. We had a fair amount of wind but there was a lot flying! We had one other hunting party on the slough with us. We ended up bagging a Hen Gadwall, a Hen Scaup, a drake Woodduck, a drake Blue Wing Teal, and a Drake Green Wing Teal. It was a very fun day of duck hunting.
10/27/11
Dad I headed down to the MM WMA area again for our third trip of year. Since our last trip, Dad and my brother Michael had also hit the MM WMA and harvested two Widgeons. It was warmer than the previous trips this morning. The winds had also shifted, so we set up our decoy spread on the opposite area we normally do. We were the only ones on the slough today. We both missed a pretty easy shot on a landing drake Mallard, but it was still a nice morning, despite not having bagged any birds!
11/06/11
For our forth trip, we really switched it up. We did an afternoon hunt on some federal land along the Minnesota River. The nice thing about this area is it about 5 minutes from my house. We had the opportunity to scout this area early in the year and got a feel for the layout of the area. Trying to get a good spot to go hunting in the morning is almost impossible. The hunters start flooding the area around 0300 for a 0700 shoot time! We both like duck hunting, but we are not that dedicated. The actual lake we were on, isn’t directly connected to the Minnesota River, but has a large amount of river sediment in it from years of the river flooding. This made for a muddy experience. We were not able to pull the boat up onto any cattails or brush, we pretty much had to get as close as possible to the shore and use some camo netting for cover. We saw a few birds flying, but didn’t have any shots. It was a unique experience hunting and hearing cars passing on the highway, smelling diesel fuel, and being able to see multi-million dollar houses in the distance!
11/11/11
This will make my last trip duck hunting this season. A co-worker and I headed down to the MM WMA area to try our luck. We used his boat and decoys for this trip. It was the coldest day duck hunting yet. It was in the 20’s and we had to break through 1/4 inches thick layer of ice to get into the slough. It was nice having a little bigger boat, but it was a little harder to move around. We had a nice decoy spread set up and we were the only ones on the slough. We both missed another easy drake mallard and that ended up being the only shooting we had for the day.
Overall, it was another great season. We had a decent harvest, got to enjoy many nice sun rises, and even tried some new areas. Not bad for my 21st year duck hunting!!!
(You may have noticed, I intentionally left the names and locations of these WMA's off of this post. I have heard some horror stories from a couple other "blogging" friends who put this information into their blogs and were taken advantage of. I have no problem sharing these with other people, just leave me a comment with your contact information and if I feel you are well intentioned, I will send you the information. Thanks for reading!)
