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Steve Carney: Changes needed in Minnesota after 2024 waterfowl season leaves much to be desired
Mercifully, for this hunter, anyway, the duck season has ended in Minnesota.
I have thought a lot about this year’s season and the lack of ducks, so here are some observations that have been on my mind.
Stop with all the early seasons
I’m not a fan of the early waterfowl seasons. I believe the pressure put on local birds weeks before the regular opener is detrimental to the cause and is unfair to the people who hunt the traditional opener.
Putting pressure on ducks in early September pushes those birds out of the sloughs and they go elsewhere. Many of these birds are young-of-the-year with little color, and in early September it’s hard to distinguish bird species.
I’m certainly in favor of getting our youth involved in the sport, but they can hunt the traditional opener with the rest of us – just like in decades past.
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I also saw a dearth of wood ducks from the opener forward. This was the fewest woodies I have seen in my 55 years of waterfowling.
I chalk that up to them being disturbed in early September, making them leave the state prior to the regular opener. I believe the teal also migrated early because of the two early seasons (early teal and the youth hunt).
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The Dakota effect
Parts of North Dakota and South Dakota had a lot of rain and lots of water for ducks, while Minnesota suffered through a drought after the wet spring and early summer.
Common sense says the birds stayed west of Minnesota because of the wetter conditions there. Maybe.
Many of my cronies struggled in North Dakota, too.
Is there a fix?
While talking to one of my friends, he mentioned he was wearing shorts under his waders in September and was swatting mosquitoes most of the weekend.
How about starting the traditional opener later by a couple of weeks, which would provide better late-season shooting? The warm autumns we have been experiencing have kept the migrants north, and it’s common to see a diver-duck push after Thanksgiving and early December when the duck season is over.
Let’s eliminate the two early seasons and have everyone on the same playing field.
And how about bringing back the 4 p.m. daily end to shooting hours? This would allow birds to successfully roost and keep them around longer. If you disturb them in a roosting area, you might as well wave goodbye.
I’m on river systems, private sloughs, and public lakes during all of the duck-hunting season, but now it’s time to make the transition to ice fishing. Gladly.
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21 thoughts on “Steve Carney: Changes needed in Minnesota after 2024 waterfowl season leaves much to be desired”
I agree completely with Steve’s comments.
I live in the Duluth area me and my hunting buddy have over 80 plus years of duck hunting experience between us. We had one of the best first 3 weeks of hunting ducks this year shooting 6 wood ducks between us was no problem .with the lack of rice this year we found the ducks to be more scattered .still had 2000 birds on the lake we found it was a lack of hunters to keep the birds moving later in the year. Those 2000 birds left the lake December 1 st .it was a lack of pressure in our area we did manage to shoot all the ducks that are common in Minnesota with a few long tails also even 4 speckled belly first time we ever shot them in Minnesota
I live in Massachusetts. I have a retention pond next to my house. I had at least 120 or more in my yard. Ducks all young couldn’t tell male from female but time went by you could tell. Right now here it’s winter I have 20 Ducks male and female I think they forgot migrate. Mallards ducks
I saw as many birds this year as the last 5 years and it takes alot of time and energy in some places to find birds in large numbers and each year you have to adapt. I think the early teal season is a good hunt but shortening it to three days maybe and a october start to the reguler season i think would be a better option with the seaon going into mid December. I hunt solo and on at least 15 occasions this year ive seen 1000+ mallards a day and lots of woodys even on the last day. With the later migration and more ducks wintering here a later season is what we need maybe even just a MN resident only late season to combat guides shipping in people and put more pressure on the best part of the waterfowl season here this great state! At the end of the day there needs to be changes across the board here for multible game animals.
I hunted Iowa this year and while there was quite a a few ducks late it was no where near as good 4 or 5 years ago. I believe warm weather late into the year does not help. Where I was it rained a total of an inch from Sept to the end of Nov.
I totally disagree with Steve the fishing guide, early Teal is great for all, it’s warm and those good tasting teal are abound. If you wait till the 1st Saturday in October to open the duck season 75% of the Bluewing teal are gone south. Back then we could only shoot 3 ducks and had a double limit in possession.
The 60 day season could be split more but then you would miss the calendar ducks and the divers, woodducks and Gadwalls.
I agree entirety!
I don’t know about you guys, but I doubled my season total here in Michigan compared to 2023. I got two.
Steve is absolutely correct. I worked as a waterfowl biologist in Minnesota for 25 years. Minnesota wrote a “Long Range Duck Recovery Plan” back in 2006. The plan called for a state waterfowl breeding population of 1 million breeding ducks. Last year the Minnesota State Duck Breeding population was estimated at 350,000, or 1/3 of the goal. In the long range plan, one of the strategies was to not have teal seasons or remove the 4 pm closure until we met our population goals. That has all gone away!! I believe to attempt to increase our breeding populations, and to improve duck hunting, we should eliminate all early seasons, open the season in early October, and go to a shorter season with a lower bag limit. Opening in early October would make identifying ducks easier and picking drakes an actual possibility. As Steve says, early season ducks are hard to tell apart – and when you have sex and species restrictions – it asks hunters to do the impossible!
Not to mention, early goose over water. I’ve watch that push the ducks out of our area. Warm falls past 7 years. We may need to think about a 2nd split to aline us with all the divers and mallards that migrate thru our state yet our season is closed.
I
I have preach about it for years. Open it first Saturday in October. No early BS
Everyone would have a blast.
100% AGREE!!!
Make Duck Season Late Again! I agree with Steve. I wrote an article for Outdoor News a few years back advocating for the early teal season ONLY so we could push back the opener. We got the early teal and then had the earliest opening day we could this past season.
When those ducks get pressured from hunters, they move. Once the local birds get enough harassment, they’re gone. Then you have to wait for migrators and they are coming later and later. This fall, all our geese and mallards came the last week of the season and a lot are still around long after closure.
The northern zone may be okay, but I hear from a lot of hunters who spend time on bigger water that they miss out on a lot of opportunities because of the earlier dates.
Open in October or at least give us a longer split since many times we’re staring at empty skies and 80-90 degree temps during the first couple weeks of the season.
The southern states don’t need to shoot all the mallards that we don’t get to!
Theres fewer hunters and fewer places to hunt.
I belive our DNR would just as soon see all hunting gone!
Why not have the early seasons and a later closing?
In addition raise the limit to 10 ducks in possion.
I’ve hunted 60 years from the Bearing straits to Mexico to florida and all points in between and very times is a 6 bird limit fill for every hunter in the blind.
So once twice maybe 3 times a season you limit out? Whose counting.
Cross the border and kill more ducks in 3 days than we will kill all season.
We can’t control drought, rain, cold or wind. If you hunt long enough, you will face all of those conditions and they will change your hunting each and every time.
Watch 100 woodies land in a favorite pond only to wake up to 28 degrees and not one wood duck.
We could have 100 day seasons and it wouldn’t make a difference because most duck hunters morph into bow hunters, pheasant and quail shooters or kids sports supporters. Real hard core duck hunters are far and few after the 3rd week.
When was the last time you saw the DNR intenionally build a duck slough? Bet you can’t name one that was first private and sold or donated.
Give me 20 shallow sloughs/ponds and keep the 500 acres.
Don’t give up on the kids!
They need to move all seasons duck deer bear 2 to 3 weeks later. The winter weather isn’t coming as early as it used to. So the northern birds have no reason to move south until the mn duck season is almost over. The bears aren’t out moving as much during their season either no cold days to make them look for food. Unless you hunt private fields the deer just bed down now after the first day of rifle season. No snow to get them up and moving.
I couldn’t agree more! Absolute worst season I’ve had in my 20 years of duck hunting in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I’ve definitely noticed it progressively getting worse since they started the early teal season and I know many of people that have mistaken young mallards and wood ducks for teal. The DNR keeps using the phrase “we want to create hunter opportunity” which basically means they just want more money. The DNR has never cared about numbers, they care about the money and I don’t want to hear “they use the money for habitat to create more birds” either. That money goes straight to all these made up positions that the feel needs to be there…. which they don’t. If they cared about the numbers they would lower bag limits and push back seasons. I harvest the same amount of blue wings in October as I have in September so I believe the “wanting to harvest teal before the leave” line if a load of bologna. And all these so called “guide” services coming out of the wood work every where and going out shooting hundreds of birds each season needs to come to an end as well. There should be special tax since you’re making a profit off a FEDERAL BIRD that goes straight towards habitat conservation.
Theres fewer hunters and fewer places to hunt.
I belive our DNR would just as soon see all hunting gone!
Why not have the early seasons and a later closing?
In addition raise the limit to 10 ducks in possion.
I’ve hunted 60 years from the Bearing straits to Mexico to florida and all points in between and very times is a 6 bird limit fill for every hunter in the blind.
So once twice maybe 3 times a season you limit out? Whose counting.
Cross the border and kill more ducks in 3 days than we will kill all season.
We can’t control drought, rain, cold or wind. If you hunt long enough, you will face all of those conditions and they will change your hunting each and every time.
Watch 100 woodies land in a favorite pond only to wake up to 28 degrees and not one wood duck.
We could have 100 day seasons and it wouldn’t make a difference because most duck hunters morph into bow hunters, pheasant and quail shooters or kids sports supporters. Real hard core duck hunters are far and few after the 3rd week.
When was the last time you saw the DNR intenionally build a duck slough? Bet you can’t name one that was first private and sold or donated.
Give me 20 shallow sloughs/ponds and keep the 500 acres.
Don’t give up on the kids!
The DNR is totally to blame for our lack of ducks for a multiple of reasons.
#1 – Money, Money and more money. Mn DNR does not manage our wildlife for no other reason than for money. Waterfowl hunting participants in MN has been on the decline for years which puts us close to the bottom of the totem pole as far as priorities. The number 1 priority is fishing. Can you all remember the last time you had any fresh water shrimp on your decoy strings? But now you may be able to catch a Walleye in that old Mallard honey hole because the DNR stocked fry in it. Well the fry have to eat and the shrimp are on the menu. If you hunt a pond that still has shrimp, kudos to the land owners for not allowing stocking and the other main reason, not allowing a bait dealer in it to stock fatheads because once fatheads get in, the shrimp will all be gone. Food for the ducks is absolutely necessary for a large brooding hatch.
#2 – I’ve had multiple DNR enforcement officers, I used to work with them, tell me the main reason why they changed opening weekend to September is because of the “Fair Weather Hunters”. Many years ago there was a chance of my honey holes freezing up in October but because our Fall extends into December most years now, opening weekend should be the 2nd weekend in October. Fair weather hunters and us die hards will still enjoy decent weather but if they can’t improve our food for the ducks we should be able to enjoy the migrating birds. The reason it’s not is because of declining funds (more money) from the “Fair Weather” hunters. Which shouldn’t be an issue these days.
#3 – Early Teal should be stopped! I’ve never done it but if only Teal are being shot or harassed it would be a miracle!
In my opinion early Teal was started for one reason, you guessed it, money, money and more money. No other real reason.
#4 – Not the last reason but this is getting long. DNR enforcement with interaction with teenage waterfowl hunters should never write a ticket unless it’s outrageous. I hunt with a lot of kids and the attitudes of some enforcement towards these kids is scary. You’d think they just shot someone and not forgot to put the plug in their gun. The DNR is responsible for these kids not wanting to hunt again because of the way they’ve were treated. DNR wants more money but they are contributing to the reason people don’t want to waterfowl hunt.
This years duck population was pretty poor, avian flu? We hunt youth season, two days, and then hunt the same spots on opener and the population is about exactly the same. They should add in more splits and move al the seasons back a week. But we still had the primary migration about the first weekend of deer season. There just wasn’t many ducks in this year’s fall flight. Most Minnesota wetlands are seriously degraded. On our trips to the Dakotas we had decoy covered in shrimp and I haven’t seen that in Minnesota for a decade. We had really good shrimp in our slough until the neighbors tiled the fields and then applied neonics right before a heavy rain, the minnows from the bait guys, then walleye from the private growers, now invasive cattails covered all the shallow dabbling area. That slough sees 10% of historical use.
no ducks