Manitoba duck hunters: how's it going so far?

Grouse Man

Grouse Man

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I found the early season had more ducks flying around and coming into the decoys. The past few weeks I've seen far fewer ducks, and some mornings nothing has come round the decoys.

How is everyone else finding the bird populations this year?
 
Rather bleak season for me, although I did not get out much. I found my favorite marshes to be in flood condition making hunting tough. Mallards avoid the high water and solid reed edges like the plauge.

Divers were down in full force past few weeks, shot a couple limits of bluebills and thats about it. Did manage to take 8 bills in half an hour Sunday morning... short but sweet solo hunt.
 
Very sporatic. Mostly hunting Libau for ducks. Had a few reasonable shoots, nothing great. Geese are really hard to pattern this year although we have had a couple of great shoots. Seems the geese just stay in the fields with all the water and just walk a few feet to feed.
As an FYI, I have spoken to a few American hunters who hunted The Pas last week and they say the same thing about sparce ducks. Two hunters said they got two limits( as in one day) in a week of hunting up there.
We`re going out this evening to a field we have been scouting. With the winds gusting to 60k from the north it might be a quick hunt with the birds hopefully flying on the deck.
I think we still need a good cold snap to get things moving. Good luck guys.

DF:D
 
We spent three hours checking our fields today for an evening hunt. We usually hunt most of the fields on either side of HWY#1 from the Floodway to HWY # 12. Well, we didn`t see one Canada. Nothing in the fields and nothing flying. The fields around Syminton Yards, Tinker Town, and Fun Mountain were even empty. We did see about 100 Snows in the middle of one field with no way to get to them as the fields were all flooded.
That was our hunt for the day. I thought it would be a lot more productive with these 60K north winds we had today.

DF:D
 
Lots of geese out west now. They're starting to group up. I've been out a few times not and gotten skunked more than I'd like to admit. Now that I filled my muzzleloader deer maybe things will shape up. It's hard to commit to a morning of waterfowl when they've been so sporadic and the grouse apparently bred like bunnies this year.
 
I work at a school in Winnipeg and last year the geese were so plentiful on the school grounds we had goose crap tracking in on people's shoes. You would walk out of the school and part them like Moses thru the Dead Sea.

This year its only been in the last week or so that we have been getting some on the grounds - nothing like last year.

Some hunters opinioned that they were early. When we hunted the marshes we didn't see much geese or ducks until a few weeks ago. Too much water I think. But I haven't duck hunted now for the week as I'm muzzleloading for deer so maybe its better.
 
WOW! I've been to that spot, so I know how much water is in there. That was a tremendous storm. Do you know how much higher the water levels were in the south basin? I would guess that waves were reaching 15 ft higher than normal, judging by how the waves were breaking over at Fort Alex.
 
I could literally walk into the field behind my house with a golf club and bag my limit if I wanted. They're everywhere!

Haven't shot any though because real life is being too damned inconvenient.
 
Mr G. Whittles Point in under water also. We could`nt even get to my bud`s cabin as the road is flooded over. We figure the water is at the base of his cabin. Another friend lives about two miles up the road. He has 80 acres with most of it under water. The lake was lapping at his back door but it recided over the last few days. Our usual boat launch a mile south of where I filmed has the road flooded too.
On a happier note, we did see about a 1000 Mallards flying back and forth along with about 500 Snows so they`re still there. Just trying to get into the fields to hunt them is almost impossible.

DF:D
 
My friend and I shot 10 super fat bluebills Friday morning. Numbers were down greatly from the week before. Couple inches of lake effect snow through the night. Got up Saturday morning to find all the birds pulled out but a few stragglers. No mallards to speak of out our way as well...infact I've only shot 3 mallards all season!
 
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