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Went out yesterday for my own personal opener, as I passed going on Sat. since it was 70 and sunny. I headed to my little swamp and was really surprised at how low the water was. I know this place like the back of my hand so I know where all the submerged hazards are but was shocked to see every hazard now exposed by the low water. I kicked off 150 honkers and since that season doesn't open until 10-25, they got a free pass. Most of the morning I was covered in honks, but ducks were another story. I probably saw 60 Woodies but they all flew over my spot just out of range and were headed on a bee line to someplace else. As the morning wore on I had a 3 pack of BWT come in fast from behind me, dip towards my spread and then skedaddled off East to points unknown. All of this happened within the first 1/2 hour right after LST and then it died from there. I did not see another bird until I called it at about 10:00. Despite the fact that the weather called for a 10-15 mph N wind, it was dead calm all morning. ot sure when I will get out again as the weather is going to be just too darn nice for duck hunting. Hope you all are doing better than me.

"Better"? Most of us are probably still waiting, so your season has beaten ours by a mile and a half.

Nice report, Don. 10/25 sounds promising with all the goose activity. Hope they hang around!

They will be there for sure. There is some type of aquatic plant that has a bulb on the end of it, and when you break open the bulb, there are dozens of seeds in it. The seeds are pretty large, maybe pencil eraser size and they love em. Hoping for cold weather soon. Good luck to all.

Saturday is the day. Supposed to cold, windy and rainy. I am hoping the duck gods smile on me this week and I hope they treat all you guys well too. They are already starting to call for snow inland so good weather is coming. Report to follow either good or bad. Whack em and stack em fellas.

Sounds promising, Don! Looking forward to your report.

Corn is starting to come down and it's pretty early this year compared to most, Weather is changing, and it won't be long before the white stuff starts falling. I'm grateful to be healthy again to enjoy my favorite sport and time of the year. I hope I'll be posting about some success on Sat.,but regardless I'll be out. Good luck to everyone and thanks for the kind words fellas.

Out yesterday morning to my favorite swamp. We got 7.56 " of rain on Thursday and the wetland is fully recharged. Where it was dry a couple weeks ago now has a minimum of 3" of standing water, so that is good.

Weather yesterday was cooler 49 when I got there, overcast and spitting a little rain for a very brief period of time. I kicked off 60-75 geese on the walk in, and got set up there after. The Woodies were flying but not really the type of shot I like to take, but the numbers were decent. I did have one Woodie swoop in, an touch down for an instant, but I was pouring a cup of hot chocolate and it was gone before I could react. Shortly thereafter I had a 3 pack of mallards come in, and since there was no wind at all they headed for the other side of the swamp, I shot ones and dropped a Drake, and passed on the susie but took a winger at the other Drake and missed. It was a long retrieve across the swamp to get the Drake but ity was worth it as he was fully plumed and had the triple curl. Currently he in soaking in brine. I had a chance at some geese as they came in but stayed high and looked like they were going to overshooting the landing. Regardless I missed.

Had a great time, didn't fall in an even managed a nice fat Mallard. A good day for sure. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see the day, where bagging a Mallard is a big deal. But it is.

Nothin wrong with that, congrats

Seems like a nice outing. Good to read of the rain.

Haven't been out in a few days as it's been non-stop torrential rain for 2 days. Had my eyes on about 200 geese using some cut corn, but they were no where to be found as of yesterday. Turkey hunting this morning and P.I. owner on Monday. I haven't been to an P.I. opener in decades because if you don't have a blind, from the drawing, you are SOL at least for the opener. The duck club put up a permanent blind for us old and infirm duck hunters so that is where I will be. Wind is going to be all wrong but that's the way it goes.

Won't know until you go. Best of luck with it.

All set for tomorrow morning. Hunting with a guy I just met once last season. He is close to my age and we have the same mentality about duck hunting. SW wind won't do us any favors but you never know. Full report tomorrow night.

Tough day at Presque Isle. The wind was all wrong but went anyways. I was surprised at the lack of hunters and open blinds. Granted the S-SW wind was blowing right in your face but typically the place is packed for opening day, but not today. We got set up and had the wind in our face right from the get go. The wind was probably about 15 mph steady, but increased as the morning wore on. We were in the Handi-cap blind for oldsters, which is put up by the duck club, but to get to the water you have to scramble down some big rocks to get there. It's only about 15 feet to the water, but it's a death defying scramble over the rocks to get there. Anyways we got set up and then a short time later the wind really picked up with gusts in the 30's. We couldn't hold anchor on the decoys despite having 16 ounce strap weights on most of the decoys.

Lots of geese came out of the refuge and flew over us, only problem was we didn't see them until the last second and never fired a shot at them. They were here and gone in an instant. We had 3 mergies swim in to the decoys and gave them a pass. They swam in to the guys at the next blind over and we saw only 1 fly off.

Very little shooting other than right at LST. Finally after setting and resetting the decoys constantly, we called it a morning at 11, picked up the now tangled decoys and packed up.

We were checked by Wardens and all was good. For the guys in the next blind down, when they were checked, it didn't look like it was going so well.

A good day to be out.

Beats the couch.

Surprising no crowd on opener! Was this a public area or private?

The place is public. Presque Isle State Park is open to hunting for boats, layouts and shore hunting from one of the 75 assigned blind sites of which 50 are half decent. You get a massive variety of birds there, with divers being the primary species targeted. It was really surprising how few people were there, but with SW wind, and opening on a Monday (which it always is) I guess a lot of guys just decided to stay home. This coming Sat. will probably be a different story.

Picked up a new farm to hunt yesterday. Hundreds of acres of corn, with a pond right in the middle of it. It doesn't get much better than that.

don novicki wrote:Picked up a new farm to hunt yesterday. Hundreds of acres of corn, with a pond right in the middle of it. It doesn't get much better than that.

Go get em !

First snow of the season Mon and Tues.. Calling for a foot or so with temps in the high 20's at night. First real good weather of the season and N-NW winds. Can't decide where to go, but I'll be out somewhere.

Finally will feel right, I'm sure. Good luck

Didn't get all that much snow, but there are 2-300 geese using my field with the pond. Tomorrow morning should be good. Maybe 2-3 " of the white stuff on the ground. Report to follow tomorrow.

Fingers and toes crossed.

Finally struck pay dirt this morning. Hit my new cornfield and the first thing I noticed was there were thousands of goose tracks everywhere. I knew then it was going to be good. I got set up and was hoping for a few ducks but no such luck. However I didn't have long to wait after LST before the first flock of 6 came in dead silent banked around hard and hit the glide mode and came in. I shot 2 out of the first group and then sat back again. Within a few minutes a second group of 8 came right in and I banged another one. At this point I still have not seen the mother load, so I figure I'm going to pick up and call it because I didn't want to educate too many of them. While picking up I had 2 more small flocks come over, and I made no attempt to hide, they saw me and skidded out heading North. After gathering my stuff I hoofed it out and here they come, probably 100+, they banked around, set their wings and landed in the field. I was glad to leave them alone until another day. When I picked up my geese I almost fell over......one was banded. This is the first band in probably 20 years for me. I went to the web site and punched in the information, but due to the govt shut down they were unable to provide information or an online certificate at the current time, so I have no idea where this bird came from, but the band was badly stained so it's probably an older bird. Finally all my scouting is paying off. Now I just have to keep it going. I was in the truck headed home at 8:11 a.m. P.S. I used my Dive Bomb kick back chair for the first time. It was really nice not to be laying on the cold wet ground for the first time ever. I highly recommend it.

Very cool, congrats !

Nice hunt!!

appreciate it fellas.

Just for the heck of it I weighed the birds. The big boy, which was a huge bird, weighed 11.8 lbs.. The other were each around 9 lbs.. IMO the myth of the 16 lb Canada is just that......a myth. I checked my scales accuracy when I weighed a 5 lb bag of flower which showed 4.98 lbs., so I know the scale was accurate.

What a day! That’s the one we think about all summer. Congrats Don!

Congrats on a great hunt.

don novicki wrote:IMO the myth of the 16 lb Canada is just that......a myth..

I know that birds were weighed that were much bigger than that. I also saw one in person that absolutely dwarfed the local birds that were in the 10-12 pound range around 1988. I actually shot it 3 times with the crap steel shells of the day. It would have been my 3 or 4th goose in my life. Didn't know to shoot them up in the head and neck. Man I wish I knew then what I know now. We would have killed a lot of geese. We didn't know anybody that knew so we were hunting big ducks on the river when we should have been hunting geese in the fields.

I have not seen or heard of one since. I have shot 2 that weighed 14 lbs which are beasts. Most of the giant Canadas I shoot are 10-12 lbs and the lessers about 6-7 pounds. I really want to get a little cackler

So I did a bunch of research and what I found out was that when they were reestablishing the giant Canadas, they pen raised them and fed them a very high quality diet which produced the mythical birds in the 18-20 range. Some of them got away or were released, but their offspring in the wild are the 10-12 pounders we shoot now. The last of the oversized pen birds has likely long since passed.