About Us   •   Why Join?   •   Find a Member   •   Search Public Journals   •   Top Public Journals   •   JOIN
CrazyOutdoorsmen Home
Username:
Password:




Join CrazyOutdoorsmen
Click Here
Metro Minneapolis Duck Hunting
~ Nic Dittbrenner (11/17/2008 @ 8:55 PM)

 
Kurt with a nice drake goldeneye









Usually as the duck season winds down, I hunt the last couple of weeks in the suburbs of Minneapolis. This will be an ongoing journal; most recent journals will be on the top.

Saturday, November 15
Rogers, Minnesota
Temp: 28 degrees with 14 mph NW wind

I met up with Bob Reppen to hunt the same little lake we hunted earlier in the week. We decided to take my boat out. After launching we made it over to the opposite shore and started looking for a spot. As we were looking, an alarm went off on my motor; my motor had stopped spitting water. The water was so full of muck and debris that my motor was not able to get any clean water. I wasn't too worried because of how cold out it was, but I ran it as little as possible just to be on the safe side. We set up a large J and waited for shooting hours.

It was pretty slow going early. We had on flock of mallards come by around 30 yards, but we thought they were going to swing back in...no dice. I shot at a high flying drake, but I couldn't make it rain. We were seeing a lot of ducks land behind us in a small stock pond; roughly 100 throughout the morning. Finally around 10:00 we had a group of 8 decoy right in...and we missed. Bob shot one hen, but she went down in the weeds and we couldn't find her. Still not a lot of ducks around.

Ended up having to take the boat in to get the motor fixed..sweet.

Thursday, November 13th
Rogers, Minnesota
Temp: 31 Wind NNE

Went out with Kurt, Jason, and Bob. We took out two small boats, and made it just outside the reeds and realized that the lake was frozen. We endeded up hunting right in the open water by the landing. There was a little pocket of open water out in the middle, but otherwise the entire lake was frozen.

There wasn't much flying at all. I heard one lone goose, so Kurt and I started calling it in. The goose came in like is was on a string and Bob and Kurt dropped it on the spot. No other shooting that day. Right as we were leaving, a large flock of mallards buzzed right by where we were sitting. Pretty slow day.

Sunday, November 8th
Pelican Lake, Albertville, MN
Temp: 21 degrees Wind: 16 mph NW

Kurt Reppen took me out to a new spot. We headed out to Pelican Lake near Albertville. The lake is very similar to Devils Lake(ND) in that it continues to flood into the land surrounding the lake. We found a nice point to set up on and immediately started seeing ducks. The wind was really blowing and it was snowing off and on. Two buffleheads came into the spread, we both shot and each dropped one. The one I shot swam away from us, while the one that Kurt shot, flew a little ways away and dropped back down. We went to get Kurt's first. The duck kept diving on us and finally latched onto something so we lost it. We went back to where mine was, expecting it to be dead, but we didn't find anything. We figured that one must have dove as well.

We saw a few other flocks, but it started dying down. As we were sitting there, all of a sudden Kurt mumbled something, stood up, and shot. A nice drake goldeneye had landed in our spread and we didn't even notice. We went out and got it; nicest drake goldeneye I've seen.

We ended up staying until 10:00 and then headed back to the landing. No one else we talked to had even shot anything.

Join up to view similar journals!



Saturday morning set up.
Comments

Matt Johnson

Member Since: 7/12/2008
 
RE: Metro Minneapolis Duck Hunting
Posted On: 11/18/2008 9:12 AM
Nice lookin duck. It's always good to hear that there are ponds available for outdoorsmen that live in the city. Good way to start the morning.


 

mark lauenstein

Member Since: 8/9/2008
 
RE: Metro Minneapolis Duck Hunting
Posted On: 11/18/2008 9:17 AM
i wonder if the mpd would like it if i set up in the heart of milwaukees ghetto and hunted ducks there, i dont think i would get too far. That awesome you can hunt in the suburbs like that.