Minnesota Waterfowl Hunting

maplelakeduckslayer wrote:Curious as to why theres such a division in the migration this year? Seems like theres adults and juvies as far north as SD, adults around NE and Squaw Creek, and juvies still in southern MO/IL.

After non stop migration Friday saturday and sunday things have pretty much settled out to "normal" now. And it's not just juvies that make up the backside of the migration, there are plenty of non breeding adults as well. Not sure if they are 2 year olds, too old to produce eggs, or gay, but some of my nicest interphase blues always seem to come on juvy hunts.

Lack of snowline has a lot to do with it IMO

tornadochaser wrote:

maplelakeduckslayer wrote:Curious as to why theres such a division in the migration this year? Seems like theres adults and juvies as far north as SD, adults around NE and Squaw Creek, and juvies still in southern MO/IL.

After non stop migration Friday saturday and sunday things have pretty much settled out to "normal" now. And it's not just juvies that make up the backside of the migration, there are plenty of non breeding adults as well. Not sure if they are 2 year olds, too old to produce eggs, or gay, but some of my nicest interphase blues always seem to come on juvy hunts.

True...just don't really recall hearing people shooting 90% juvies in SD while at the same time people are shooting 90% "adults" in MO. Maybe they aren't really adults but like you say couple year old birds, too old to breed, etc. I dunno just struck me as odd, been hunting Spring for 10 years now and just don't recall a migration like this.

The weather and specific migration corridors play into it as well. First, you have colder than normal weather down south forcing the adults to be mixed longer with the juvies while wintering. Then you have much less snow in Kansas and Nebraska, but more snow events in Missouri and Arkansas. Birds that started out in the west didn't hit much weather resistance. Birds that started out in the east hit storm after storm.

Squaw down to 286k. Think we are going to try northern ND around April 9-10...or wherever we need to go. After the warmup this weekend it cools back down again early next week.

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Not much flying east of Aberdeen. I saw several large, honey-combed flocks of migrators last night at 6:30 up in the stratosphere. Very few "local" birds in the area. No tornadoes or swarms. Just smaller sized flocks of 50-75 birds, mostly adults.

I talked with a couple of local boys in Aberdeen this morning. They said that they saw a lot of birds to the west of Aberdeen, near the Ipswich area.

Couple chances of major storms next week. For Sunday night into Monday saying possible significant snow accumulation north of 212...25-35 mph winds. Be interesting to see what happens. Starting to wonder if even second weekend in April will be too early for SD juvies. My friends are all wusses and their wives beat them so no going Easter weekend.

there's going to be plenty of juvies shot this weekend and next week in SD

we're headed out tonight and we'll be scouting 212 corridor tomorrow morning

Word on the street is alot of birds are moving into SE NoDak, lots of hunters moving in too.