2020 Waterfowl Reports

Another New Year. Place your reports, Pics and comments here for the new Season. Stay Safe and have fun!   

Very windy and iced over this a.m.  Managed gwt and hen bluebill. Seen good amount of mallards. They just would not decoy well do to the wind in my face. Options were very limited today. Seen a lot of divers as well. Throughout the day the ice blew out. Back at it tomorrow chasing greenheads!

SM, I had a similar experience with a forked buck on the Illinois river some years ago. He piddled around on shore close to our blind for a while and finally decided to swim across. He got in the middle of our spread (about 6 feet of water), lowered his head into the water and died there. We waited awhile and boated out to retrieve him. On shore we found a broadhead wound pretty far back on top and an exit wound on the bottom. No one showed to tag him by pickup time, so he went back to the ramp with us.

Late yesterday, after looking at the crappy wind forecast for today (SSE @15), I decided I was going to sleep in this morning.  Mrs. SM talked me into going hunting..."you know you'll be disappointed if you don't go."  Ok, I'll go for a couple hours.  Glad I did.

Not a ton of birds flying, but did have an unusual pairing of ducks decoy in.....a drake redhead with a hen black scoter.  Also had a fork buck swim into my decoy spread, arriving between the divers and puddlers.  That was kind of neat to witness.

Went out yesterday and two of us shot one goose each.  Only two birds that were shooter,  Not a lot of birds in our area.  Bright sunny skies didn’t help.  Great to be out.  Off to work at in an hour.  

One goose and four ducks yesterday in the field.  Ducks came in perfect.  Going out today for another hunt.  Hopefully they will cooperate again. Can’t figure out how to post photos yet. 

Rufflefeathers

Grindstone lake in Sawyer county would be a good open water hunt. Has a shallow bar out in the lake called center bar that would be a great spot to hunt. Always wanted to try, just not set up for it.

Due to Covid and changes to college class scheduling, my son does not have a Fall break this semester where he can come home and go duck hunting.  So he can only "hunt" ducks with a camera.  He took this pic yesterday of a drake green-winged teal developing his plumage.  Pretty cool to see it next to a large, meat bearing Mallard and realize how small they really are.

madforlabs….I will keep that in mind.    

Today was strange....only saw 3 mallards. Expected to see many more where I was.  Instead it was a genus "Bucephala" smorgasbord.  Many Buffleheads and Goldeneyes.  A couple flocks of each were fairly sizable; i.e. 20-30 birds.  Also had a couple small flocks of Hoodies come by.

SM, should you ever want to trade a day of layout boat hunting for a day of private land marsh hunting,  let me know. Have always wanted to try a layout hunt...

did the dnr appease the guys wanting open water hunting a few years back by saying (ok here is a handful of the deepest lakes in the state, good luck! hahaaa) I don't get it. 

I will never get tired of this view of the world....

If someone could shoot better....I would have shot my three geese.  Only got one today.   Fair amount of birds but not in my field.  Saw ducks but no duck decoys.   I’ll be bringing the mojos this weekend.   Had a nice snow going but birds wouldn’t work. Beat going to work!!

Hunted the last few weekends with some buddies. We hunt property in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Last two weekends have been insane wit. Ducks in the thousands and geese near a thousand. Cranes by far took the cake! Lol new property’s and different crops ended up with some trial and errors like every year lol. of course Monday and snow and wind, dieing to be out there right now! First push is definitely here. Nice posts Grizwald as usual. Appreciate it as my cabin is up your way!?? yes that’s an eight point buck just past them decoys! ?? rut is damn near up there! Thanks, empty shells!

Tree stand how can you not work on training for a couple months.  Is it  a covid thing

waupaca co.

sat am:

hunted the field of dreams in anticipation of a goose slaughter but the woodys showed back up probably for the last time this year, good shootin had us done with woodys in about 45 min with 12, soon after we pulled mojos and had 2 bull snow geese work the decoys my first time really working them in WI they do the F around game worse than mallards so after about the 10th loop I signaled to my sharp shooters down the corn row from me ta kill um, expecting atleast one of the crack shots to drop one  but no dice, that sucked! still neat to see them here up close. after that geese were in bigger wads and wanted nothing to do with our spread ended up with 4 geese though still awesome morning.

 Today hunted moving water and ended up with 4. 2 woodys, mallard and gwt  fun gentleman's hunt with 2 good buddys whom i dont normally get to hunt with often fun morning and aside form some chattering teeth dog did good too. 

not to much for migration that i saw by me but they will come!

goodhuntin all!