Scouting, success and wind...

[Nershi]

Fun reading these posts.

I don't really duck hunt in MN anymore - mainly have the limited time I do have in other areas, and crow hunting is the ultimate for me.

But it's funny, when I think about MN opener and not hunting I didn't miss not shooting ducks last saturday - I missed going out drinking with my buddies, seeing the old places where I grew up and all the hunting I used to do there, all the old memories and not the hunting. (and we used to shoot a lot of ducks)

Kind made me sad that old tradition for me is probly gone, I had a lot of fun over the years. If you told me 18 years ago I wouldn't hunt MN opener I would have laughed in your face.

My buddy and I were chatting about that this weekend. Once my grandpa passes I could see our duck camp tradition unraveling and the guys selling the place. If the tradition is gone I'll probably skip MN opener which is something I never thought would even cross my mind years ago. Not so much for the lack of success, typically we do pretty good, more so because I get sick of seeing all the dummies violating. I try not to let it bother me but it has wore on me in the recent years.

This year I saw a guy running full speed down a river with his motor and his buddy was up front shooting ducks that were jumping. They had their kids with them which means we have future generations of knuckleheads in the making. This is an area that we hardly used to see a soul but apparently the morons are expanding their zone. I am sure the popular public areas were quite the spectacle.

I will probably do a week or two in Sask early and then hunt the late season in MN. I don't seem to run into many fools in late season, probably because they are sitting in a tree somewhere waiting on a donkey, most likely over a corn pile.

[Bailey]

Fun reading these posts.

I don't really duck hunt in MN anymore - mainly have the limited time I do have in other areas, and crow hunting is the ultimate for me.

But it's funny, when I think about MN opener and not hunting I didn't miss not shooting ducks last saturday - I missed going out drinking with my buddies, seeing the old places where I grew up and all the hunting I used to do there, all the old memories and not the hunting. (and we used to shoot a lot of ducks)

Kind made me sad that old tradition for me is probly gone, I had a lot of fun over the years. If you told me 18 years ago I wouldn't hunt MN opener I would have laughed in your face.

Im with you. I havent hunted a minnesota opener in 8 years. I miss the hunting group, drinking, stories, etc much more then killing ducks. Pretty much all out of state now as my minn hunting budies all pretty much quite the sport.

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[Fish Felon]

It may have been my Grandpa's last time being able to partake in the tradition so I wanted to be there more than I wanted to travel to kill more ducks. We took a lot of shots, but most involved whiskey, not ammunition.

That's awesome! I'm sure you could have put time in scouting elsewhere and shot a limit but in the big picture, what memory will you ultimately remember more?

I've shot enough ducks to not care as much about limits. People that say they don't care about shooting limits are either lying or don't know how to shoot a limit. Don't confuse this as meaning I judge hunts only on what's bagged, I really don't at this point. But.....I have to at least try even when hunting spots out of tradition and blindly without scouting where I'm not expecting much. I'm still going to put in a reasonable effort even if I think the odds are against me. We've all probably been on hunts that are a 'sure thing' only to do shoddy and hunts where hopes were to not get skunked and end up filling out.

DA's spot is the type where I get shit-faced the night before and drag a cooler of beer to the blind at noon to hunt the last four hours of opening day. If I shoot something la-di-freiggin-dah. Only way I'd be there at shooting time is if I'm on speed. I don't get how guys can do all the work of rigging up decoys, loading up gear, and getting up really early (the worst part) to go hunt something like that? You've already invested all that work and at the moment of truth you're too lazy to spend a half hour brushing up your blind??? It's incompetence more so than laziness in their case but bottom line it's stupid.

It's funny how most hunters, myself included, will put in the most effort to ensure their success when they have a good spot lined up and do things half-assed when they're not expecting much....when you'd think it'd be the opposite. Concealment, decoys, getting there a little earlier, checking the weather, all the little details we pay more attention to when we have something pretty good...even though there'll be more opportunities that day. On the mediocre spots we're unsure of we often don't really care. The spots that might have a dozen ducks work you within range one would think we'd try harder to capitalize on the fewer opportunities.

A friend of my younger brothers once wore a bright red Old Navy sweatshirt over his waders while standing out in the open on Swan back when they were in college. My brother promptly said, "What the eff dude!? What the hell are you doing?" And his reply was, "C'mon man, if we're going to shoot ducks we're going to shoot ducks."

Oddly there's a bit of truth to that. I often wonder if that's why Minnesotans glorify the days where it doesn't matter if you're hunting out of an unpainted 14' alumacraft barely tucked within the cattails still shooting ducks. Or why we love divers so much. Think of all the Kouba's and other MN prints...they're almost all snowy/cloudy/windy the day before freeze up. You don't see many where it's a bluebird day early in the season with 10-15 mph winds, my preferred weather and time. Have we always been this bad at duck hunting?

You can wear a red sweatshirt or hunt on a piece of scaffolding out in the open and some days you'll still probably shoot ducks. It just seems really strange to be that lazy once you reach your spot after all the hard work and effort it took to get there.

[Fish Felon]

My buddy and I were chatting about that this weekend. Once my grandpa passes I could see our duck camp tradition unraveling and the guys selling the place. If the tradition is gone I'll probably skip MN opener which is something I never thought would even cross my mind years ago. Not so much for the lack of success, typically we do pretty good, more so because I get sick of seeing all the dummies violating. I try not to let it bother me but it has wore on me in the recent years.

This year I saw a guy running full speed down a river with his motor and his buddy was up front shooting ducks that were jumping. They had their kids with them which means we have future generations of knuckleheads in the making. This is an area that we hardly used to see a soul but apparently the morons are expanding their zone.

That sucks, I'm sorry to hear that. I don't hunt many spots anymore where you can launch a boat. If you walk in or drop a canoe or small duck boat off a right of way it typically eliminates most of the idiots....and even good guys for that matter. As much as I complain and in many ways despise MN hunters, I'm sure if I ended up randomly sharing a piece of water with the majority of the guys on here there wouldn't be any issues. I'd still rather hunt without other hunters around. If I showed up and there was someone else at one of 'my' spots I'd turn around and go home.

I'm in-between traditions. I'm busy, my other friends and family are busy, and the old timers I hunted with are long gone...someday I hope to make new traditions of my own. I'm envious of the guys that have a duck camp tradition going back generations like yourself. I don't know any of the details but it'd be a shame for your family's camp to come to end due to a few idiots.

[emptymag]

I don't hunt many spots anymore where you can launch a boat. If you walk in or drop a canoe or small duck boat off a right of way it typically eliminates most of the idiots....and even good guys for that matter. As much as I complain and in many ways despise MN hunters, I'm sure if I ended up randomly sharing a piece of water with the majority of the guys on here there wouldn't be any issues. I'd still rather hunt without other hunters around. If I showed up and there was someone else at one of 'my' spots I'd turn around and go home.

^ A lot of truth to this. 4 of us hunted very close to SD on opener. It sucks getting up at 1am and driving out there when we could all only hunt on Saturday but you make the most of what you can. We limited out and drove past a bunch of public land on the way back. A few of them were void of people, unless the limited and left already. One spot where you can dump in very easily off the road had 9 trucks lined up.

[lanyard]

Man, that's a lot of agreement for this site!

1) Tradition is great, and sometimes you shoot ducks.... but don't blame America because your tradition spot stanks

2) Some of the best times "hunting" are the reasons you maybe didn't quite make it out like you expected... like the night my buddy shows up at Shooter's in Appleton to say as he was walking out the door the wife said she was divorcing him.... needless to say, I think we hit the slough about 9:00

3) When the traditions die, or we fade out of them, the memories stick around longer than the birds killed. I think this is one reason I don't take a lot of pictures. The birds are why I'm there, but they're food. I like to get a lot of food, but I don't remember every steak I ever ate.....

4) The guys that kill, kill. As has been hashed many times, figure that 20% account for 80% of birds harvested

5) For the effort, MN just isn't the most efficient place to kill ducks and guys with the means and gumption do it elsewhere. Apparently ducks and memories are worth coin, but MN doesn't have a product that commands top dollar.

The hunts I remember most aren't necessarily a lot of birds or a specific grand time. Most often it's the days I was proficient. I shot well, all the birds were retrieved, made the best out of a secondary spot, the dog worked right, and something new was learned or an obstacle overcome, or I gave someone the best damn duck shooting they ever saw done on purpose. Like so many, their "best day ever" was an accident and they were killing ducks in red hoodies. Kind of like how most people react the first time they taste duck/goose cooked correctly: amazed at the skill, intuition and capability. I set a guy one time and said, "The ducks are going to swing around this way and pull into the decoys right here, shoot them when the hit that spot there." His answer, "So, you think you can make ducks all that?".... he had his limit in less than an hour, was a box of shells lighter, and never asked me again why I was setting decoys in a certain way.

I guess to me, it's all fun. some days you get the crapped kicked out of you, like when the flash light rolls one way under a boat seat and decoys and the shut off clip pops off and goes another while your bucking a 20mph wind pounding you into shore..... but somehow it feels a bit like DA is a huge fun drain and his underlying tone is that he suffers the hunting and lack of shooting to honor a tradition, rather than holding a tradition that lost it's shooting. It brings people down. Celebrate success once in awhile... I know it would be all anti-Minneostan, but for cripes sakes, throw the peeps a bone once in awhile that gives them hope, they already don't shoot ducks and it wouldn't matter if there 1.5 million breeding pairs. Wonder why their quitting, dude keeps telling them there's no hope!

[Nershi]

That sucks, I'm sorry to hear that. I don't hunt many spots anymore where you can launch a boat. If you walk in or drop a canoe or small duck boat off a right of way it typically eliminates most of the idiots....and even good guys for that matter. As much as I complain and in many ways despise MN hunters, I'm sure if I ended up randomly sharing a piece of water with the majority of the guys on here there wouldn't be any issues. I'd still rather hunt without other hunters around. If I showed up and there was someone else at one of 'my' spots I'd turn around and go home.

I'm in-between traditions. I'm busy, my other friends and family are busy, and the old timers I hunted with are long gone...someday I hope to make new traditions of my own. I'm envious of the guys that have a duck camp tradition going back generations like yourself. I don't know any of the details but it'd be a shame for your family's camp to come to end due to a few idiots.

When I hunt Western MN I usually hunt the tough to get to walk in spots. In my area there are very few of those. I typically hunt a small spot where I think others won't go. Problem is people follow the muzzle blasts to these spots which has been the case the last few years.

I feel lucky to have grown up in a duck shack hunting with my family and friends. It certainly isn't in an area where hunting is anything great but we've made some good memories. If we didn't have a couple sour apples in the group of owners the duck shack would probably keep moving forward on to the next generation. Who knows, maybe if it goes up for sale a group of us will buy it from the current group of owners and keep it going on.

These days I get my most enjoyment out of introducing new people to the sport. I've hunted with a lot of first timers in the last few years and I enjoy seeing how fired up they get when a nice flock does it right. Reminds me of when I was just starting.

[lanyard]

One thing that I think happens to tradition, and taints it... at some point it can become obligation. Once that happens the "good times" become a cliche and it's an experience you can never get out of.... think Christmas.

For a long time the Summer Holidays were tradition.... then they became unbearable obligations. There's a period of time where new things can still happen, but at some point everything new has been killed and it winds down to sitting around a fire drinking because it's the only hope of surviving another round of crap jokes and remembering when it was fun to get together.

[Stute Slap]

One thing that I think happens to tradition, and taints it... at some point it can become obligation. Once that happens the "good times" become a cliche and it's an experience you can never get out of.... think Christmas.

For a long time the Summer Holidays were tradition.... then they became unbearable obligations. There's a period of time where new things can still happen, but at some point everything new has been killed and it winds down to sitting around a fire drinking because it's the only hope of surviving another round of crap jokes and remembering when it was fun to get together.

Last sentence was the truth.......I also think as I get older I am a combination of less fun and lazy. Not sure if that is the sole reason but it sure as hell doesn't help.

[lanyard]

^^^^ Less fun and lazy, maybe, but you got a kick ass avatar...