Minnesota duck hunters await fresh birds as warm weather lingers

If you spoke with enough waterfowlers and waterfowl managers across Minnesota in the last handful of days, the message you heard was as clear as moonshine: The duck hunting has gotten a little stale.
Some early-season local birds have left the state, or have dispersed to other parts of Minnesota, many avoiding heavily hunted public lands and finding sanctuary in those “out-of-the-way places,” as one hunter on social media put it. A stiff northwest wind last Friday did push some new birds (ducks and geese) into the state, state officials say, but it wasn’t anything significant.