Minnesota Waterfowl Hunting

Going to be an interesting spring for guides in the Dakotas. 10 day is still brutal cold. With the amount of snow I doubt they get any action until April and it may be a quick migration imo.

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When it happens, I think that there will be really muddy fields/roads, unlike anything we have seen for years. Currently there is a lot of snow cover and who knows how much more March will bring. There will be a lot of sheet water, making almost impossible to access some areas. A couple of years ago, they closed a lot of the secondary roads to anyone, except the local residents. They wanted to minimize the road use for mail delivery, agriculture use, and emergency vehicles.

I agree that the migration will be fast and furious, at least with the leading edge birds. If the snow pack does not melt quick enough, the birds will shift west to the Missouri River and go up from there.

Its going to be a huge mess out in the Dakota's with all the snow, my guess is when the weather does switch the birds will be on a mission to get up north. Considering last springs hatch was terrible and from reports from down south its going to be tough going. I will wait and hunt them in the fall in Canada. Too old and lazy to deal with the mud anymore.

Duckman23 wrote:Its going to be a huge mess out in the Dakota's with all the snow, my guess is when the weather does switch the birds will be on a mission to get up north. Considering last springs hatch was terrible and from reports from down south its going to be tough going. I will wait and hunt them in the fall in Canada. Too old and lazy to deal with the mud anymore.

I agree i have not done it in years. My buddy usually puts out decoys near aberdeen, sd but they have so much snow who knows if he will even do it this year. I remember hunting them there one year around march 15th in 65 degree weather. Not happening this year.

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I was in Omaha last weekend, they have piles of snow. The MO river has pushing tons of slush. Things looks to open up in about 10 days with a slow warm up. ND and SD will be a mud fest. Usually around St. Pattys day the geese are around Sand Lake, not this year.

As it stands today, I'd say S SD will have lots of geese 3-4 weeks from now. Eastern ND it'd be 1st week of April before they see them, and 2nd week in force.
As mentioned, the NW route is quite likely. On the map, not a lot of snow in NW ND and SK, once the snow along the MO river in SD melts, that's where they'll head as there's a LOT of snow in NE SD and eastern ND.

If a guy had the $ and time, head to S or SE SK. Minimal snow, so shouldn't be nearly as muddy there plus minimal pressure by the ditch crawlers up there,. so they should relax and be a bit easier to hunt.

Buddy just texted my this. This is right next to sand lake.

Would think so. Talked to Jeff Hanson yesterday. Road north of his house toward field where we hunt is closed. Four to five feet of snow on it almost all the way up to highway, more than a mile.

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1.3 mil in Loess Bluffs, compared to 20 last week. That is something else.


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https://www.facebook.com/amos.wipf/vide ... g6xe2mrEnU

Just N of Aberdeen the other day

Headed to west river Saturday. I'll report if I see any on my venture.

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