Waterfowl rules the same as last year except...

This is good news you can take two Pintail ducks this season.

BISMARCK — North Dakota’s 2010 duck season will be similar to last year, although the Game and Fish Department has increased the limit on pintails and eliminated a waterfowl rest area.

Opening day for North Dakota residents is Sept. 25 for ducks, geese, coots and mergansers. Nonresidents can hunt waterfowl in North Dakota beginning Oct. 2.

Hunters can take six ducks per day with the following restrictions: five mallards of which two may be hens, three wood ducks, two scaup, two redheads, two pintails — an increase of one from last year — and one canvasback. For ducks, the possession limit is twice the daily limit.

Huniting Ducks in late October.

Last week I decided to go out hunting on Wednesday the 24th of October. On my way out to the field I didn't see a lot of ducks and no geese, to be honest with you it wasn't looking really good for bagging any ducks.

I decided to try out my old faith full hunting spot, there will be no directions or GPS reading on this one. Too many people seem to know about his place now. I thought God I hope no one is hunting there already. Obviously it's not out of the ordinary for someone to be there already and it was already 2:30pm in the afternoon. So I pulled into my usual place and there was already someone out there parked and standing by his vehicle. I thought ah crap, but I decided to find out what this guy plans for the evening hunting was going to be. I asked him what area he was planning on hunting.

The guy said, "it is a long story; I was on my way up to hunt in Canada but ended up getting turned away at the Canadian border because I had gotten a charge on my record when I was in college" This guy went on to tell me how he was going to go back to Maryland and fly out of Grand Forks, ND today. But after consoling with some buddies of his back home and destinations unknown, he decided why not go hunting in North Dakota because he was already in some of the best duck hunting country. I wish everyone didn't know that. That is for another discussion.

To speed the story up; I ended up hunting with Dave from Maryland. It ended up being a really positive experience. Dave turned out to be one of the more knowledgeable duck hunters that I had ever had the pleasure to hunt with. Basically I just sat back and learned a few things about the trade. The guy was crazy about diving ducks, and I explained how the duck of choice in ND was Green Head Mallards.

We also discussed the web page that he frequents, Duck Boat Net I checked it out the other day and it is just the opposite of duck hunting in North Dakota. The locals in the state are very anti-duck boats. Which most of us in North Dakota knows, always ends up being the discussion about how in North Dakota people don't hunt with duck boats that much and refer to it as the yearly fall boat parade, and blue license plate syndrome. I told him about how there is not a lot of love for guys that come to North Dakota pulling duck boats. I am totally against the idea. I have actually started to look at boats and may purchase one in the future my biggest game stopper is I don't have a place to store one...

Here is a pictures of some of Daves work as he turned out to be a decoy artist and he paints and carves cork decoys. I don't know about you but I would never want to take them hunting because I would be affraid to scare them.

Bagged some Divers

On the day we ended up shooting a blue bill, golden eye, shoveler and a red head. Talk about a mixed bag. That is the first time that I have ever been on a hunt that a bag included a golden eye, talk about a beautiful duck.

Linkorama: More Hunting pictures and a new blog

I shot this sharptail grouse while coming out of the field after hunting ducks south of Michigan North Dakota. A buddy and I had jumped this slough the day before and we saw some ducks sitting on the same slough so we decided to get out jump the slough again. While we were parking my truck we scared up a bunch/covey of sharptails.

Frist; We went and jumped the ducks sitting on the slough with no luck. My buddy said we should go see if we can scare up the sharpies. I wasn't up for the idea at first because I wasn't keen on the idea of walking trough knee high CRP wearing chest waders, but I thought what the heck, if your not trying your not shooting. My buddy and I walked the field that the sharptails flew into, my dog got birdy and it was off to the races. I found out this year that Sharpies like run but they are not as fast as pheasants, thank God. I must say that it was a beautiful shot, 45 yards on a windy day with 3 1/2 steel shot number 2's.

The other day when I was taking my decoys out of the water a sharptail flew over my head. I didn't have my shot gun because it was sitting on shore, kind of makes a guy wonder if he shouldn't have his shot gun strapped to his back.


A new Blog

Check out this blog its a friend of mine that I know from college ND Outdoorsman I am sure you might see that there is some pretty good hunting going on up here in North Dakota.

Hunting Pictures

I would have to admit that this fall has been pretty good to me. I had quite a few people asking me how life has been treating me in my absence. Well I can say that my computer is back up and running and I will get around to posting a few blog article as time permits. I think a few of these pictures will probably clear things up for the folks that were wondering how things were going.

Incidentally; my dog Dakota is beat up from all the hunting he has been doing the past few weeks. Actually think I heard him say yesterday that he needed a few days off. I guess he deserves a day off after all of the hunting he has been doing. You tell me if you think his schedule looks tough. Here is my lab's schedule this past week, we went duck hunting on Friday (got skunked by the way), duck hunting on Saturday and pheasant hunting yesterday. Rewind one more week. We went hunting 5 days in a row. That is a lot of retrieves (I am not the only one shooting) and a lot of miles following me around the country side. I won't be hunting anytime soon or I might be looking for a coach to sleep on.


This past Saturday morning there was a really heavy fog and you couldn't see the duck very well as they went flying past the decoys. On Saturday I shot my first ever Bufflehead duck. Talk about a beautiful duck I don't know if there is a more colorful duck. My buddy Trin said, "that I shot two of them with one shot. I guess it is better to be lucky than good. Typical Trin he shoots all the ducks and gives everyone else the credit.

A couple of Pictures from the duck hunting Season

Here are some pictures from the North Dakota waterfowl hunting season. I would say that it hasn't been a banner season by North Dakota standards; I mean who am I to complain, the Hunting wasn't bad but it's not the best season I have seen. I thought there would have been more water than there is. That being said I think we are spoiled in ND.

Duck Hunting Opener coming early?

This article was in the Sunday Grand Forks Herald. It would appear that North Dakota Duck hunting season is going to be a little earlier that last season. Now I am going to have to adjust my work schedule to get out and hunt before all the out of state hunters get here. Last season there was little if any water due to the drough like conditions and that put a lot of pressure on the local ducks. As the pressure grew to hunt what little water there was in the state, the extra hunting pressure basically pushed the local ducks out of the state after the second week of the season.

N.D. resident opener

According to Mike Johnson, migratory game bird supervisor for Game and Fish in Bismarck, the agency is proposing that this year's duck season open Sept. 22 for residents and Sept. 29 or nonresidents.

North Dakota was one of five Central Flyway states to implement Hunter's Choice last year as part of a three-year experiment aimed at reducing the harvest of less-abundant duck species such as pintails and canvasbacks.

Hunter's Choice gives hunters the choice of one mallard hen, one pintail or one canvasback in their five-bird bag. As with last year, there's a two-bird limit on scaup and wood ducks in the Hunter's Choice bag, while hunters can shoot five birds among more abundant species such as teal, wigeon and mallards - as long as only one of those mallards is a hen.

In addition to the 74-day duck season, Game and Fish again is proposing a 23-day late goose season in the western High Plains unit.

Game and Fish will publish its final waterfowl proclamation later this month, Johnson said.

Six and 60

In the Mississippi Flyway, which includes Minnesota, the liberal package gives states the option of a 60-day season beginning as early as Sept. 22 and ending as late as Jan. 27. The proposed daily bag is six, and may include no more than four mallards (two hens), three mottled ducks, two scaup, two wood ducks, two redheads, one black duck, one pintail and two canvasbacks, the service said.

Record populations prompted the service to offer the two-canvasback limit in the Atlantic, Mississippi and Pacific flyways. The canvasback limit stayed at one in the Central Flyway because of the ongoing “Hunters' Choice” experiment.

According to Steve Cordts, waterfowl specialist for the Department of Natural Resources in Bemidji, managers in Minnesota will meet with DNR Commissioner Mark Holsten on Monday to finalize this fall's duck season regulations.

Minnesota last year offered a four-duck limit, but Cordts on Thursday said he couldn't confirm whether the bag would be four birds or six, which is allowed under the federal frameworks.

The DNR is mandated by the Legislature to open duck season on the Saturday closest to Oct. 1, which this year is Sept. 29, Cordts said. A 60-day season similar to last year also is likely.

This should get you in the Mood

I know it's only April but I was surfing around youtube when I found this one. Hockey season is over and I am already thinking about hunting some ducks and geese.

Just to put things into perspective; there are less that 5 months till early good hunting starts, there are only 5 months till Sharp Tail Grouse hunting and there are just over 5 1/2 months till water Fowl hunting. My dog Dakota has been training hard is ready to go already.