Since my divorce this past spring I've been slowly accumulating decoys and blinds and stuff to try out field hunting some geese this year.  We have an August/September early management season in ND for Canada geese, so I figured I would give it a shot this morning.  The regular season opens next weekend for both ducks and geese.

I set up in one of my neighbors wheat fields where I have seen geese sitting in the evenings.  The migration hasn't started yet, so these are mostly just local geese right now.
There was one group of 5 that came in to land in the decoys right at sunrise and I dropped 2 of them.  There was a couple other pairs that flew over but landed in the next field over.  The wind started picking up out of the south and it warmed up real quick, so that seemed like it shut the geese off as it got hot.

Needless to say it looks like I'm hooked on another expensive hobby, and looking forward to when the weather cools off and birds really start flying.

Congrats Op, good hunting.

That's great!

If at all possible, find someone or a few someones to go with you.  The camaraderie makes the hunt that much better.  Nothing like someone to share that great shot with, or give you grief about a miss.

Nice little shoot.
Are those windsocks the new divebomb S3 socks?

Early season canadas is like rubbing a little cocaine on your teeth.  Just wait until you finish that first flock of 500 mallards or 1000 snows at your feet.  Then you're injecting meth.  Snow spread, field mallard spread, trailer, otter sleds, atv, extra blinds for your buddies; next thing you know you're selling your 6x12 enclosed trailer and shopping for a 7x18 so you can fit even more gear.  :)

Take care of your land owner neighbors.  ND is one of the best states in the nation for waterfowling, and land owner relationships are more important than ever.  The area I hunted in college barely had a posted sign anywhere.  15 years later, there's barely an unposted field now.  I'm lucky in that a handful of my college roomates are farmers with large operations, so I still maintain access to really good land in the north central part of the state.  Depending on the migration I might be up there 1st or 2nd week in november if our birds in better dakota are stale.  

I normally hunt with a buddy or two, but they live in town and I'm 35 miles out in the middle of nowhere.  Plus I'm single, so I have a little more leeway for a spur of the moment hunt like this one.  I decided at about sunset on Saturday night that I would go out in the morning.  I have some vacation to burn soon, so I think I'll be taking the first week of October off to hunt with a couple of much more knowledgeable guys than I am.  Hopefully they can teach me how to work a goose call.

Yeah, I had a dozen of the S3F socks with flocked heads out and 3 dozen of the V2 Silhouettes between the regular and sleepers.  I think they look pretty realistic, but I'm also not a goose...  I've been trying to stick with what I can carry out in one or two trips when I can't drive into the field.  There is quite a bit of PLOTS land around me to hunt, but we can't drive out there like I can with the neighbors.

I did stick a dozen of my buddies snow socks in the front yard last spring and sat on the porch and pass shot geese as they flew over the house to land in the field next door.  The decoys would get them to swing down low enough over the yard to be in range.  The perks of living in the country!

This was  before the rest of the flock spiraled down into the field, but pretty typical for the very brief late migration we had through this area last spring.


I grew up in better Dakota hunting pheasants, so I didn't get started on the waterfowl hunting until a couple of years ago when we moved to ND.  I think I like it just as much or more than pheasants!  I just enjoy the variety of different types of ducks and geese we get to see (and shoot).

I went out with a friend yesterday morning for the regular season opener for ducks & geese.  We set up in a field that I have been watching for a few days & ended up with 5 geese and 4 mallards.  We thought we had 4 hen mallards which would have been our limit for the day, but when we looked closer before we cleaned them two were young drakes .  We went back out in the evening but it had warmed up quite a bit and the geese weren't really interested in landing in the field to eat.

About 40 minutes before sunset some clouds rolled in and the wind picked up from the north and dropped the temp be about 15 degrees.  The ducks started coming in then and we ended up with 4 more mallards, 3 drakes and a hen, and I got one wood duck that came in to the decoys right before sunset.  And of course once we started picking up decoys the geese started coming in and wanting to land in the field.



I took my buddy Goose out for his first field hunt in the evening.  He did really well, we just need to work on him staying until I say to go instead of taking off at the first shot.  That's why he's on a leash.  He's young though, so he'll get it.



First Wood Duck

It's finally time to recover for a little while after 6 days of hunting, scouting, hunting and more scouting.  Some friends came to stay with me for the week to hunt.  We had some really good days early and now as the weather is coming in the birds are getting a bit more scarce.

Saturday: 4 guys, 10 geese and 8 ducks

Sunday: 5 guys, 6 Canadas, 1 Snow, 2 Blues, limit of 30 ducks (mallard hens and drakes and pintails)


A couple of the geese were monsters, the dog had to work for this one.


Monday: 4 guys, another limit of ducks plus a few bonus honkers.  Lucky Duck wing took a direct hit from about 10 yards...not by me though at least :P


Tuesday: Kind of a bust, set up on the X from the night before but the geese didn't show.  Ended up with 2 geese.  At least it was a nice morning to be out though.


Wednesday: 3 of us hunted a corn field that got combined the day before.  We had never been in the field before, so our setup could have been better location wise.  The wind ended up being opposite of what was predicted once the sun came up, so we ended up moving the blinds and decoys at about 8:30.  Still got 9 geese and 5 ducks though.  Should have had a limit of ducks but we were passing on them and holding out for the geese.  It was foggy and rainy, so they were dropping right into our faces, one hen almost took out the Lucky Duck.


Thursday: Down to just 2 of us left since everyone else had to go back to work.  Had rain and 40mph winds yesterday evening so there wasn't anything in the air or fields when we were scouting.  Ended up sitting on a slough with some floaters out.  Still nothing flying though and only ended up knocking down one duck.  Still a nice morning to be out and way better than a day at work!

Overall a pretty good week, and the migrating birds haven't even started showing up yet.   We mostly hunted over 3 dozen flocked Dakota full bodies and 3 dozen flocked head Big Foot's with a few of my silhouettes mixed in sometimes.  It will be interesting to see how my full silhouette spread does compared to the nice full bodies.

After you get a taste for field hunting mallards its the only way to do it. So much easier than fighting people on the lake & fucking with the boat @ the ass crack of dawn

@SDeadeye, what percentage of fields are you finding posted vs. not posted up there this fall?  That's a pretty decent run of field hunts for the first week or two of the season.
I missed SD duck opener for a family wedding in MN; was able to sneak out and dust a few wood ducks and teal on our land back home before the wedding though.
First scouting trip of the year tomorrow night here in SD; we got a push of fresh birds in this morning according to buddies that were out hunting.  Hoping some of the specks that showed up stick around a few days.

I think it kind of depends on the area.  I'm NE of Jamestown, and around here I would say probably 30-40% unposted, although some of the unposted stuff isn't really worth hunting anyways.  I did notice more signs had gone up this week though and probably will as we get closer to deer season.  All of the fields that we hunted on we talked to the landowners anyways even if they weren't posted, just to get permission to drive the truck & trailer out.  I wasn't with them on all of the scouting trips but I don't think they had anyone tell them no.

From what I've heard though, west of Jamestown there is a lot more land posted.  I haven't been over that way yet but that's kind of how it was last year too.

My twin pack of Lucky Duck's just showed up from Rogers today, so I'm looking forward to some new birds getting pushed down out of Canada with this weather that's coming in.

The birds have been pretty hit and miss lately.  Our early shot of winter and 10" of snow put the harvest way behind and also pushed a lot of birds out of the area.  We haven't really seen any big numbers of new birds migrating in yet, at least in my area.  Some smaller flocks of snows and blues, but nothing to get too excited about yet.  It doesn't seem like many new canada's have started moving in yet either.

The mallards are getting a little better, I finally got a couple with some nice color on them this weekend.  Still getting some decent days in, but no limits yet.  The pup is starting to figure out his job at least.  He's getting a lot better about staying in his dog blind and just chilling until the birds show up.

@SDeadeye, fresh birds are coming your way.  Got some buddies hunting the ND/SK border and reported good numbers of new birds over the last couple days.  TONS of snows moving in.  Mallards as well as little geese too.

@tornadochaser, that's good to hear.  I'm hoping to get at least one more good weekend in before deer season opens on the 9th.  With all of the shooting going on that first couple days of rifle season, I'm not sure I'll want to be hanging out in a layout blind.  Might be a good weekend to go to Scheels and fondle some new shotguns...