The early teal season in combination with the youth hunt has had a significant impact upon the number of waterfowl using the marsh we hunt during the early part of the season. Opening weekend this year was the worst hunting any of us have observed in 40+ years of hunting "our" area.

As most of us are well aware, severe hunting pressure results in movement by birds into area's where they are not harassed and shot at. The net effect has been definite reduction in the number of locally raised birds using our area.

I have no reason to believe the situation will change. Reading the year 1 DNR report makes in quite clear that the early teal season will be with us for good. Just another reason I pursue my QUALITY waterfowl hunting out of state.

Fowler2 - thank you for clarifying, that changes the whole ball game for me now. I always thought when scouting, "man there are a lot of people putting blinds up way to early". I've got 2 different places I would hunt regularly that I would choose from based on reports and two new places in mind. This means earlier scouting for me so I'm ready to put some blinds up come time. Thank you

I didn't participate at first, but the 3,000 acre lake got hammered on pretty good. While early goose hunting that Monday, I did see hundreds upon hundreds of mallards looking confused cause of the gunfire. The following Saturday, I decided go. I did shoot 4 teal and it was nothing to brag about. The mallards were gone. Numerous early shooters that didn't read the regs. There was a fair amount of teal around for the opener, but not as many as there should be.

JM....Goose season is underway as well. You would be legal putting a blind out 7 days prior to either the early goose season or Teal season AND keeping it out until 7 days after the conclusion of any remaining waterfowl season dates. Which would be one of the lengthy goose season dates.

Depending which zone you hunt, exterior goose concludes Dec 16 in the north + Horicon P2, Dec 21 in the South and Jan 8 in the River zone. You would have 7 days to remove blind behind any of those dates.

Question for you all, this may or may not be the please to ask it but hopefully someone can give me a definite answer. I did NOT participate in the early teal hunt this year, but my question is, your allowed to put out a blind one week before the season starts and it has to be down within one week of the seasons closed date right???? So does this mean you can put out a blind one week before the teal season opens and not have to take it out until one week after the regular close date? I ask because I scouted a few times this past late summer and again exactly one week before the southern opener and that Saturday before the opener there were already A LOT of blinds up where I was scouting, and I was out there early Saturday that week before the opener. All I could think is these blinds were put up for the new early teal season. I intend to scout a few other places next year as well as this same place again and if I can put blinds out that much earlier I well...can anyone help clarify this for me. Can I LEGALLY put a blind out the week before early teal and leave it all season if I want?

We shot and saw plenty of woodies and bwt on the Miss for the first month of the season including the opener. I would say little to no effect.

I went out the first day of teal season on pool 10 on the Miss. The water was 1 1/2 feet higher than normal river stage. I drove the boat around for 2 hours looking for teal and saw four. No one was out hunting, except geese hunters . The report posted said that the Miss. did not do well and I agree, but only tried there the first day.

I do not think that teal season affected the regular season but the water going up 5 feet above normal water stage did. It was a poor opening of duck season. But the rest of the season went well.

I'm just curious if anyone seriously thought there was a noticeable difference in duck numbers during the regular season because of the teal season. I know that was a concern of a fair number of people prior to the teal season and wondered if they noticed anything. I personally didn't hunt for teal at all or regular season ducks much on water.

Anyone hunt teal on the Miss River? Curious as to how that went.

Lets get a couple of things corrected here. My report on what we seen yesterday left out one thing. The big flocks of Pintail that were in the air working the marsh. Now all I said was that the breeding population was down. Never said it was due to hunting. Yes, I know what sarcasm means. Yes, I remember when canvasback was closed and how desperately we came to never having a season. The cans struggled very hard to come back. Loss of habitat and predators were the two contributing factors. I will agree that I do think it will be a good season. One concern some of us have are the signs of an early fall and the possibility of early cold weather freezing us out due to observations on "mother nature". However, we will continue to hope for the best. Overall, have a good feeling about this years season.