I will start it off.

Did not go Opening morning for early goose.  Thunder, lightning and rain make me sleep in.

Scouted and gathered permission for most of the morning, went home, took a nap.  

Went out at 4:30 and set up on an oats field. Had multiple flocks come in silent and dropped two with the first two shots of the year.  

All together my hunting buddy and I got 5.  Not a bad start.

Two other groups we hunt with got 1 goose in one group and the other group got 4 geese, 6 dove and 9 pigeons.

Same situation on opening day. Lightning and heavy rain, and aluminum boats on a large lake, don't mix. There's not many agricultural fields in my area, and the majority of the ones that are here are potato fields owned by Frito Lay - which does not even allow it's own employees to hunt geese in their fields. All of our waterfowl hunting is on lake shores. A buddy and I went out this morning to hunt on a lake. We saw several geese, but none came close enough for a shot. We had a flock of about 20 teal buzz by, but they came down the shoreline, low over the water, and caught us off-guard (we were watching the lightning from a big thunder-boomer to our south, birds came from the north and were on us and gone before we could grab our guns). Zero shots fired.

I bought two Real Decoy mallard swimmers last week, and gave them a test run today. They work as advertised! Very realistic looking, they don't just swim in circles, but dart back and forth. I put them out in between our 18 teal dekes, and 42 goose decoys (only 6 floaters, but 2 dozen Real Geese silohuettes, and a dozen GHG over-sized shells on the waters' edge, up and down the beach in front of our blind). Several times we had mallards come in to check out our decoys, twice some landed right by the swimmers. I've got 3 spinning wing ducks too, but didn't bring them... all the 6v batteries are several years old, and when I tried to charge them up over the weekend, they wouldn't hold a charge. Time for new ones. Only 25 days til the real duck season.

My hunting buddy and I were looking at radio controlled ducks at Fleet Farm just before season.  We may pull the trigger, though we know damn well what will happen.

Imagine not seeing any flying ducks for an hour or so and there are two remote controlled ducks in the water.  Much hilarity and pirate talk, coupled with crashing plastic and sinking decoys.  The ducks would fly in and land and we would be trying to spear them with a duck taped stick on the front of our R/C decoys.  I may have to go to Fleet Farm now.

How are they controlled?  How do they do in a decoy spread?  Do they smash into the decoys and keep swimming?  Is the power intermittent or constant?

Power is constant, push button on-off switch near the tail. You've got to give them some room to swim. I put an adjustable anchor line on them, with a standard mushroom type anchor. They come with a snap swivel so the line doesn't get all twisted. My regular decoys have "Texas rigs" with 4' of line, I put 12' of the same type line (heavy mono) on the swimmers. I usually have my decoys in 2-3' of water. I intend to put them just beyond, or at both sides, of my regular decoys. Yesterday (and today) we had a 25' gap between goose & teal decoys, so we put them in the middle, far enough apart from each other they wouldn't twist their lines together. With 12' of line in 3' of water, the anchor must be at least 10' from the nearest decoy, for it to swim past without playing bumper cars.

Went out for teal Mon and Wed (got 3) but no real numbers though. Did see 30+ mallards that are more then likely just locals.The only geese I saw are the locals that fly between the lakes in the area. Heard a lot of shooting from the lake and river that I hunt by, but don't know if they were teal or goose hunting.

Went out last Saturday with my son and best hunting buddy.  We had 12 birds down by the time they shut off for the morning.  I ran out of shells for my 10 gauge.

We left the decoys out and headed to Eau Claire for restock.

I decided it might be time to retire the 10 gauge and try my 12 gauge, so I bought a Patternmaster choke for it to match the one I already had in the 10.

Went back out for the afternoon hunt and the first flock that came in flew away 3 short.  Ended a very nice Saturday in the layout blinds with our limit of birds.

Mosquitos sucked.

I've been out 3 times, yet to fire a shot at a goose (would've gone through a box or two of shells  if mallards, woodies, & widgeon were open already ) 17 days to wait.

Pack your shit and come visit me this weekend.  I can almost guarantee shooting, we never get skunked.  We aren't that far apart.  Just bring your shooting gear and a laydown blind.

The ducks last weekend were thick as hell, I haven't seen ducks like that this early in the season in a long time.  It makes me very very nervous.

My daughter lives across the road from a small lake that fills up with migratory geese every fall. She's sent me pics... 1,000s of geese on a 50 acre "pond". It's on the outskirts of Farmington, MN, which is south of the twin cities. Today's her B-day, just talked to her an hour ago... she asked if I could hear the "honking" in the background. They started showing up today.... a month EARLY!!! Last year, the first geese hit the lake in mid October, year before was late Oct / early Nov. She's been there 6 yrs, never been geese in the lake in Sept before.

Thanks for the invite, but I've got shit to do here, both this weekend & next... got to get my chores on the "honey do" list done before the 27th, because once duck season starts, nothing more gets done til after deer season.

I hear you, GF and I got into it last night.  

She wants me to go with her to the gym every morning at 0530.

She knows I'm a night person, prefer nights to days, and I always complain how I absolutely hate the mornings and getting up to an alarm clock.  

So she hit me with the old "You have no problems getting up to go hunting, why not to go to the gym with me?"

I didn't really have an answer so I deflected and asked her why she was so pissy.  It didn't work so I ended up running away.

"Honey the only thing more exciting then getting up to go hunting would be if you got up to go with me."

"Now you understand this whole hunting thing, every day I hunt is like another Christmas when you were still young enough to believe in Santa.  Seriously, its that good."

"Why do you think I keep buying all these expensive guns?  It is so I will have an extra one for the day you decide to go."  (this one is weak, use it last).

"If I did go tot he gym what exercises do you recommend to help me shoot better?"  (you are pretending to be interested)

Also, get up one morning and go with her but turn it into a scouting trip.  You never make it to the gym and totally screw up her routine in the process.

Sounds like you have had quite a bit of practice.  I will have to try some of those.

Not the best luck this weekend.  We screwed up having too many people in the middle of the spread in an alfalfa field.  6 of us got 11 geese.

Sunday we got three.  I made a 78 yard shot on a standing goose outside the spread.  GO PATTERNMASTER!!!

I SHOT A WOODCOCK!

It was pretty cool. We don't get many of them around here.  Shot it while goose hunting.

We got 8 yesterday and 2 today.

One more week!

Terrible start to the duck season.  Way too hot and only three ducks on Sunday.

Next weekend I will be hunting a little further south.

Should have gone up to the Chippewa Flowage.

I was up there all weekend camping and Musky fishing.

Starting Saturday, the entire flowage sounded like fully automatic shotgun fire.

We'd be fishing, and see some ducks fly by.  We'd look at eachother, "3....2.....1....."  BLAM!!

All day long, Saturday and Sunday.

Hunted the Rainbow flowage Saturday & Sunday. Too hot, sunny, no wind. Water is way too freaking high, all our blind locations are totally submerged, had to hunt from the boats tucked into willow branches we usually sit behind on the ground, which is now lake bottom under 4' of water (which is OK, I do have a boat blind... just a little crowded with 2 guys and a dog, my dog is not used to the confinement of staying in the boat for hours at a time). I fired 2 shots all weekend, killed a mallard with them on Saturday. My partner got a bw teal with a single shot on Sunday. His brother & nephew were in their boat blind 15yds from us, they fired 4 shots at some teal but missed. Altogether, 4 guys fired 7 shots in 2 mornings, killed 2 ducks. Pretty close to our worst opener ever... only last year was worse, with 1 pintail hen & 1 teal with 2 shots fired from 5 guys over 2 days. Couple years ago, 3 of us killed 8 mallards, 5 teal, 3 widgeon, 1 pintail, 3 geese, all on opening day. But weather and water conditions were perfect. This year, they were about as bad as we can expect. Hot, dead calm, all the weedy areas the ducks like are under flood conditions water. The water has a lot of algae bloom right now too, as it appears to be "turning over".... looks like pea soup. Yuk.

Not as many hunters as usual, because without a boat blind, there was nowhere to set up. All the weedy "flats" were flooded under 4-5' of water, and the rest of the shoreline is a steep grade and drop-off under the water (you'd need 20' of line on each decoy). Lots of fishermen out Saturday. Saturday morning, just after the 9am opening time, we had one asshole (a FIB no less) anchor his boat 50yds beyond our decoys and start casting, right in the line of fire... he stayed there a good hour, and he knew we were there. Of course no ducks came anywhere near us. The lake is 1.5 miles from east to west, and 6 miles from north to south, and he couldn't find anywhere else to fish besides right off our decoys?

Better days are coming. The temp right now is 35 degrees cooler than it was at this same time yesterday (now 43, was 78 at 4pm yesterday & Saturday too).

Kind of slow so far in my area of SE WI. Drake and a hen woodie and a goose.

It's slow here too.  This weekend should be great, we have had frost every day.  That usually gets them flying.

I wish it was slow here too... slow would be an improvement over "non-existant". I've been out trying (can't really call it "hunting") 6 mornings so far, today's 13th day of northern season, and have not fired a shot since the two fired on opening day. Very very few ducks around, and water levels are very high everywhere, which only scatters the few ducks more. In fact, the main body of water we hunt, a flowage on the WI river, is less than a half foot from "maximum", or flood stage. We took a boat ride Monday after hunting for 4 hours, and drove for miles up the beginnings of the Wisconsin river, in areas where there's usually not enough water to safely run my 25hp outboard, and my boat would usually run aground. Now it's 5-6' deep. All the weedy areas where puddlers like to stop and feed are submerged under several feet of water. The water line is backed up into bogs that have "loon-shit" bottoms, making walking in to flush the ducks out, impossible.

Sorry to hear about the flooding, if you want to put some in a truck and bring it down here that would be ok by me. Of the 5 ponds I hunt, 4 of them are gone and the 5th is down to 6" of water (normally it's about 16-18"). I've started to field hunt for mallards while I'm goose hunting because of this. Though for some reason the irrigation ditch (that has 5' of water in it) doesn't seem to be attracting much. I think that we still have the local ducks hanging around and that things will pick up once the migration picks up...I hope.

For the first time in decades, I had a skunk weekend.  Not one duck, not one goose.

We watched 300 geese land a mile away and could do nothing about it.  Not a duck in the sky.

Sunday we were at our favorite Woodie pass shooting spot.  Had two fly by 2 minutes before shooting time and one right at shooting time.  Didn't even get a shot off.

I did shoot a coon last night that was 5 feet from the back door.

There has been a constant stream of Geese here in the fields since 9/1.  With the river being up, the last few days they have been within shooting distance of my back porch but I leave for work by 5:30am.  They come in up stream during the evening and work their way down to my yard.  Compared to last year I see virtually no ducks of any kind and there were not a lot here last year.

Clearly, the way to hunt these suckers is the layout.  I am hitting the two bars closest to my house and joined a dart team for one of them.  I am meeting a lot of my "neighbors" for the first time and some own these Goose laden fields.  One morning on my way to work late I watched some guys layout in a nearby field and then run down a cripple.

Up until last season, we rarely got skunked a single day. Last year & this year have sucked big time. Now getting "shut out" is the norm. I still haven't fired a shot since opening day. In addition to the flooding covering most of our blinds and weed beds the dabblers hung out in, there just doesn't seem to be 1/10th of the mallards, woodies, widgeon, and BWT that we'd normally see migrating through. Hasn't been much to shoot at all season. It's like they changed their migratory patterns and don't come through here anymore.

I hunted again this morning, never saw a single duck... again. I likely wouldn't have seen them if they were there today anyway (might've heard some) .... I needed the Back Country Navigator Pro GPS in my phone just to find my blind location in the dense fog. I packed up my decoys & came home about 11am, and  if I don't know the lake as well as I do, I would've needed GPS to find the boat landing then too, as the dense fog still hadn't lifted off the lake.

There hasn't been  ANY here. I saw one flock of 50-60 migrators last week, a mile high and booking southbound with a good tailwind. Up until 2-3 years ago, I'd see 1,000s in just a good weekend. Something has pushed them west, and/or east. Central & eastern Vilas/Oneida Counties & western Forest County have become devoid of waterfowl migrations all of a sudden, started last year. WTF? I can understand how the flooding conditions can effect local birds, and if their food source is gone they move on.... but it's not like the migrators from the far north know that the water's too high here,  before they even get here, and take a different route. Or do they....

Driving to work (live and work in farm land area) I have been seeing the local geese useing the fields around my house. 200-250 in one field and 100-125 a bit up the road. Same local ducks sitting in the same old areas. No real sign of new ducks or geese yet. I saw geese in cut corn, beans and a cut hay field coming into work this afternoon.

Some migrants are finally coming through my area.

We spent the weekend pulling 3 pontoon boats out of the lake and putting them in winter storage, but had some time for some grouse hunting. Didn't duck hunt until this morning, and we saw more ducks in 2 hours this morning than the entire prior season combined. Mallards, redheads, ringers, and bluebills are here. But we had a funeral to attend today (a buddy's wife died from cancer last week) so we had to quit hunting at NO LATER than 9am, with just some redheads bagged. Mallards were trying to land in our decoys as we were picking them up. We'll be ready for them at 6:53am tomorrow (shooting time in our zone).

I gave up on WI and went to ND to hunt ducks.  

On Saturday we got 33

Sunday we got 37

Monday we got 8

Mostly Shovelers, Redheads and Blacks

Still slow in SE WI. Sat Monday morning until 9am (work) and only got 1 woodie. Geese have been AWOL since Sunday. Huge amounts of cranes though.

All the ducks we saw on Monday, were gone by Tuesday. Saw a few mallard "stragglers" (singles & pairs) that wouldn't decoy, and a ton of coots.

Saw no Mallards this weekend.  Shot one hen Woodie.  Got checked by the warden.  Wonderful times...

Myself and 2 friends hunted this morning. We saw ONE PAIR of woodies, out of range, from shooting time til 10am. Depressing.

Went out this am (6 Nov) and set up for a field hunt in cut corn. Had 2 groups of mallards buzz the decoys and continue on. Was watching a small buck chase a doe through the decoys (they actually knocked a couple over) when a couple more mallards came in and caught me sitting up to get a better look at the deer. About 250-300 geese landed on the wrong "X" about 600 yds away. Back at it on Fri.

I hunted last weekend, and Monday morning. We saw maybe 50 high-flyin mallards and one flock of bluebills in 3 days. We managed to get a pair of greenheads right at sunrise on Monday... two came in, none left, and that was it for the weekend... 3 shots fired in 3 days.

I drove 80+ miles today, scouting every lake, river, and "honeyhole" I know of that holds ducks - between Minocqua, Eagle River, Three Lakes and Sugar Camp. Had my best binocs too.... and never saw a single duck. Checked a bunch of potato fields also, nothing but turkeys ( potato farms are the only farms this far north). No tire tracks in the fresh 2" of snow (from last night) at almost every boat landing, at more than a dozen lakes, tells me no hunters were out this morning. Met a trapper at one spot... he's been out trapping everyday and hasn't seen a single duck either since Monday. There's no birds left here whatsoever, and from what I've heard, Ontario due north of WI is already froze up solid, and ducks left there 7-10 days ago. The snow cover map of Canada shows solid snow cover (6" plus) all the way down to the north shore of Lake Superior. So what I'm saying is this.... I don't think there's any more ducks coming your way, unless they're coming down the Lake Michigan shoreline, so hammer what you've got now because there ain't no more on the way from around here and northward. I was gonna hunt tomorrow, but after my dismall scouting trip today, and low temps in the teens tonight, I'm putting a fork in my season. I've hunted this area for 25 years, and I know the signs that it's over... and it's over. The forecast says we'll be below freezing from Sunday on. Water temps are already in low 30s... first windless night will start the ice-up, and it's game over when the lakes freeze up anyway. Time to scout for deer season.

(btw... saw your post on DU migration tracker. I tried posting on there, some of what I put here, but it "lost" all but my 1st sentence, and won't let me repost it. Whatever ).  

I think the middle of the state might be holding something. I have yet to see the vast "V's" that I am used to seeing (or maybe they went the long way round and skipped my area).
Sorry to hear about your season. I lived in Woodruff for a couple of years (on Hungry Lake) and went on a few duck hunts before I could hunt. With so much corn off the fields all at the same time, it's hard to get them to turn from thier given field. I think I will bring my floaters as well as the full bodies to try and make the field look more desirable to any passing by.

Those vast "V's" are something we haven't seen since the 2012 season, and when we'd see them, was last week Oct into 1st week of November, with Halloween being "prime time". It's like the puddle ducks and geese have changed their migration routes to the east or the west. As you likely know, this is where the WI River begins, and following that river down south was a migration route, and hunting was good. Read the reports on the WI River valley locations... everyone is not seeing much action.

If by "middle of the state" you mean from north to south, and along Lake Michigan, that's possible. But if you mean the middle from east to west, I seriously doubt it. They'd have to come through here first, and that hasn't happened (yet). And it's not likely that I just missed seeing them, as I've hunted on more days in 2013 & 2014 (thanks to semi-retirement) than ever before, and I can see a duck-less lake out my windows. I cannot go a half-mile in a straight line in any direction without hitting water. Ducks routinely fly low right over my house, going from lake to lake. Geese too... and I'd hear them going over long before seeing them. My wife would wonder why I don't put goose decoys in our front yard, as we'd see so many going right over the house. But not for the last 2 years, something has changed their habits.

You'd think I'd be seeing more birds, not less, with more time out hunting. Even the number of divers coming this way is down this year. We're used to seeing rafts of hundreds of redheads or bluebills sitting in the middle of the flowage, all day long, days on end. We'd joke about "sniping" them with our deer rifles because you can't get close enough with a shotgun. This year? None showed. Up to 2012, I'd go through about 3 boxes of shells in a season (including early goose), and hit about 60%. Last year I fired 15 shots, this year only a pitiful 6 shots fired (4 dead ducks) the entire season!!!!. That used to be an average morning!! I'm using the same box of Hevi Metal #3s I bought in 2012 for ducks, and Black Cloud BBs for geese that I bought in 2010. I haven't even shot at a goose in 2 years... 3 years ago, I got a daily limit of geese at least 4 times. WTF???

I did mean along the lake and inland a bit. We have Horicon and Theresa marshes north of us by 1/2 hr 45 mins. It is mostly farm country by me and with all the corn coming down the waterfowl can go anywhere their little hearts want to and get food. I did see 900-1000 geese this am but they were all feeding south of me. Ducks on the other hand are still in short supply.
Did you guys suffer from the drought like we did down here? Almost all my traditional ponds are dry or very close. I don't have a boat so I can't hunt the lakes or rivers, that is one reason I really started field hunting this year. I'm thinking of taking up dove hunting to try and pass the time sitting in the field as they seem to be thick down here. Don't know if my ego could take that kind of hit though (fast little bastards).

No drought... in fact, our problem is too much fricken water!!! My main hunting spot is the Rainbow Flowage, if for no other reasons, it's got a walkable sand bottom and 85% undeveloped/public shoreline. There's lots of lakes up here (and NO farm fields), but most are totally developed with summer homes and un-huntable... guess where the ducks go when the shooting starts. It's one thing to find ducks, a totally different thing to find them where you can legally hunt them. That's why we hunt the Rainbow, because we can.

We've got a 4' high, 10' long, 5' deep portable blind made from 3/4" PVC pipe and camo netting that 2 guys can set up in 5 minutes, and break down in 2. This year all the lakes are so full (Rainbow has been less than 6" from overflowing the dam since mid Sept) that ALL of our usual shoreline spots are under 3-4' of water, as is most of the vegetation that attracts ducks. The west shore has a steep drop off where the original river channel is (too deep for decoy anchors now and littered with ankle breaking driftwood piles too) and the east shoreline, where we usually hunt, is pushed back by the high water into boggy muck that you can't walk in, nor can you get a boat through it. We did find one area of dry land on the east side (willow covered sand bar about 20yds deep and 200yds long) that's ideal .... but there's been no ducks. We also hunt the WI River upstream from the Rainbow, as it's mostly state owned shoreline, but that's been the same "flood-stage" level as the flowage, and our blind locations there are submerged too. We could deal with all the excess water if there were ducks. But as strange as it sounds, the excess water has sent the ducks elsewhere because the vegetation that ducks feed on is under too much water.

What kind of goose decoys are you using? Do you flag them too? (That REALLY works). I've got 2 dozen Real Geese silohuettes and 2 dozen GHG magnum "Pro Series" shells that we usually set up at the waters edge, and a dozen Flambeau floaters that we stick in the water as well. That combo worked well, along with flagging, when there  was geese around.

I have 1/2 dz Bigfoot fullbody geese and 1 dz fullbody mallards. I can add my 1dz mallard floaters to the mix to make the set up look bigger. But if I add the floaters I am seriously out of room in the SUV. By the time I have my layout blind, shotgun, blind bag, and decoys I am seriously short of room and the time it takes to set this all up (I hunt alone) is a big factor. Setting up and putting the decoys out is not that bad, it's the brushing in the lay out blind that takes some time. I do have it brushed up with grass but I always use natural veg to finish it.
The few ponds and drainage ditch I hunt I can get away with tucking into the cat tails or grass with a stool. The soy bean fields give me fits though. There is no cover at all and I try and find low spots or the smallest rut and use the left over soybean chaff to cover up as best I can. Corn is a lot easier if they don't cut it at ground level. Just put the blind between two rows and hide with chaff. Just watch where you step as the stalks will jump up and trip you.
I have a black shirt that I zip tied to a pole and that really works but I am saving for a 12 slot full body decoy bag and a flag as I type this.

Full body decoys, as nice as they are, take up too much room, IMO (and cost too much too). Unless you've got a full size pick-up or a trailer, you can't haul enough to make a decent spread in a field. Shells are stackable, and a dozen will easily fit in the same space as a single full body, cost about 1/3 (so you can have 3 times as many for the same $), and work just as good. Silhouettes take up even less room, cost even less, but aren't as effective if that's all you have. But they're great as a "filler" amongst shells or full bodies.

As for brushing the laydown. If you're hunting the same spots day after day, here's a trick to save time. Buy some cheap netting, brush it, throw it over your laydown like a blanket, then leave it in the field (or at the edge where you enter) for the next time. We bought cheap cotton fish netting, in olive drab color, designed for decorative use (not real fishing) at Mills Fleet Farm. A 4'x 8' piece  was about $3. That was a few years ago, they might not still have it, but you can find something somewhere. We sometimes hunt a horse pasture for geese with laydowns, and that's what we do, using cut alfalfa hay.

I like the netting idea. That way I could set them up for different colors and just grab the one I need. Green for early in the year, tan for soybeans/grass, and that more yellow corn colour. I will do that for next year for sure.
My thinking as far as the full body decoys was to use them at the head of the landing area and use shells on the edges to make up the numbers. Until funds allow for the purchase of shells, my floaters will have to do. It's like when I'm hunt the ponds. The nice decoys get set at the head of the landing zone and the older ones get put around the edges.
Any recommendations on which shells are good and will last and which ones to avoid? Both duck and goose shells.

We use these. Bought 1 dozen at Gander Mountain in an "after-season" sale for $150, bought the other at Mills Fleet Farm in Antigo, same kind of sale, for $139 (both are Harvester Packs). They're awesome looking decoys.

Pros- Heavy guage plastic that won't break, fully flocked heads, we've been using them for 5 years now and no color fading or chipping, stack into real nice compact package that fits in a regular blind bag. We bought some of those black reusable  .99 cent shopping bags from Walmart to keep the heads in, and then stick them inside the bottom shell in the decoy bag.

Cons - the heavy guage plastic makes them heavy to carry, and when putting them on the stakes it can be difficult to line up the 1/4" stake into the 1/4" hole in the center of the back of the shell... especially in the dark before shooting time. But we've got a trick for that. We put a small circle of reflective bicycle tape on the top of the plastic disk on the top of the stake. We wear headlamps when setting up. It's amazing how easy it is to actually see that reflective tape through a 1/4" hole in the back of the shell. It guides them right on. It's now easier to put them up in the dark than at mid-day.

For brushing your laydown for hunting in picked corn, try one of those woven palm leaves blind covers, and use it as a blanket. You can also paint one green for hunting in grass.

ETA: out of curiosity, I googled those decoys to see who has them in WI. Found this. LOL... I just might buy another dozen. Read the reviews at the link... one is mine (8-25-2008).

Thanks for the info on the decoys. Now there is another $300 I need to save. Maybe more if I add some mallard shells to the deal.

Woke with a migraine this am so I didn't get out but my daughter reminded me that I promised to take her to the Horicon Marsh today. We drove around the marsh for a couple of hours and saw low numbers of ducks, geese, and swans. Although we did see many kinds of ducks, there were not large numbers of each. Mallards and teal being most numerous from what I saw from the road.

On the way home we saw two separate bucks chasing does. One had a rack that was clearly visible at 300ish yds. The other one made us stop while he crossed the road.

I went for the last time today. Hunted last 2 hours of daylight.... and saw nothing. Until I finished picking up decoys and was driving my boat back to the landing 20 mins after shooting time, when 4 mallards buzzed my boat. I swear one had a feather on a wing pointing at me like a big middle finger. IOW... a bird gave me "the bird". My buddy calls the ducks that come by after you've picked up your stuff and are heading out, the "fuck you flock". They see you leaving and fly by, saying "fuck you guys".

I saw no other hunters, heard NO shooting all day (I was working outside from 7:30 -10:45am, and heard no shooting then neither).

We've got a winter storm watch for Monday (8-12"), then 20 degrees below normal temps the rest of the week. IF there's any birds north of you, they'll be heading your way soon. Gonna be all hard water here in a few days.  

I'm used to seeing that big buck in the headlights as I drove out of the driveway where I bowhunted. The ones that really got me were the ones that just stood there as I drove by.

I did go out this am. We had a dusting of wet snow and a SW wind. The first 1/2 hour there was nothing moving...nothing. Then someone opened the barn door and let everyone out. It started with the geese, I don't even know how many I saw, and then then deer, then a ton of ducks, then deer again. I had some geese come in but I didn't have any geese decoys out and they just flew by at 60 yards out at 15-20' off the ground. The only group of mallards that were close enough came in when a couple of bow hunters came to see my "deer". They got within 100 yards when I got out to see what they wanted. They apologized for disturbing my hunt as they thought that brown blob (my layout blind) was a dead deer. Just as we were saying our good byes...some mallards came over the trees and started to drop the landing gear when they aaw us.

I fully plan on being out Monday morning and moving my set up over 100 yds to the little rise in the field. It was my first time hunting this spot and I thought I was on the rise but I was on a smaller one.

I just heard Geese flying over in the parking lot at work.  Can't see them with the snow and clouds, but I heard them.  I am convinced THE PLACE to hunt Geese is from the parking lot or roof where I work.  We are looking at 20-24" now in the forecast around Phillips so I guess Da birds are leaving now.

OK, for the 6th time this Nov I've had a buck come to the decoys. This morning it happened twice!! First guy came in around 0630 and actually sniffed the furthest decoy before wandering off. The second one walked up on me as I was packing up. I'm in the middle of a 70 acre corn field and they both walked right up to my set. If anything don't waste money on a deer decoy, just use Big Foot full body mallard decoys.
As far as the hunting went...zip. Didn't even hear the geese that use the fields around here. The drive home confirmed that there was nothing in any fields around my spot. When my daughter got home from school she said the same thing, nothing anywhere. Very very different from Sun morning.