2nd Week of MN Duck Season

Logan and I arrived at the cabin around 7 PM on Saturday evening. I wasn't able to hunt saturday because of a prior commitment, but Logan and I would both be calling in sick Monday morning so we could get two days worth of hunting in.

10/10/10- Sunday morning found us back in the Honey Hole Slough. Conditions where not exactly ideal for duck hunting. The wind was blowing out of the south and 0-5 mph, no cloud cover and a temp of 60 to start out the day. The temp would climb to near 80 by the afternoon. On top of the high temperatures the mosquitoes also decided to return. To make matter worse, the duck movement was very slow. I managed to scratch out one full dressed drake mallard while Pops and Mike teamed up on a young drake Mallard and Redhead.

10/10/10 marked the first day we could hunt until sunset in MN. Logan and I slid into the slough around 4 PM wearing t-shirts and bug spray. The wind switched to the north at 10 mph so we moved to the NW corner of the slough. Duck movement was almost zero until around 5:15 PM. At that point we had a nice flock of wood ducks work the slough. Logan give them a couple whistles with wood duck call and the birds started to work our spread. They circled several times but never committed, that's when I picked out a Drake and let the Browning sort things out. Duck #2 was in the boat. 10 Minutes later we had a mixed flock of ducks commit to the decoys. Three shots later and I had three ducks floating on the water (2 Redheads and a Ringbill). I finished the day with a chip shot on another Drake Wood duck. Pops and Mike poked a couple holes in the sky and got to watch Logan and I knock birds down. Below is a pick of Logan with a Wood Duck and my triple!
10/11/10- We headed back to the Honey Hole Slough for the morning shoot. I wasn't expecting much after jumping in my rig and seeing the temp at 70 degrees and it was still 5:30 AM. Logan, Mike and I set up in the same location as Logan and I had hunted Sunday evening. We had clear skies and a light 10 mph north wind. Duck movement was almost zero. We picked up decoys at 8 AM and headed over to the flooded timber on the south slough after hearing wood ducks screaming all morning long. Logan and I crawled up to a patch of flooded brush we saw a group of wood ducks fly into. Once we got to 30 yards the brush exploded with Wood ducks. I folded up two gorgeous drakes and had to sit and watch hundreds of others fly off. It was fun to watch and made the weekend.

We finished with a total of 10 ducks on the weekend. 4 Drake Woodducks, 2 Drake Mallards, 1 Ring Bill and 3 Redheads. Logan and I will be back after it the weekend of 10/23. That will be the last duck shoot of the year, then it is back to the whitetail woods.....finally!