Specks

dean nelson · Oct 5, 2017

So what are you guys seeing for them in your area? They suddenly appeared in my area over the last two days and now are the most numerous type of goose in the area I was checking out. No huge flocks by any stretch but multiple flocks of hundreds. Probably saw around 3,000 this morning vs around 1,500 Canadas. Also surprisingly large numbers of ducks... again no mass concentrations but numerous areas with easily huntable concentrations of mallards, gadwalls, pintails and redheads along with around 300 swans.....
oh and can't leave out THE pheasant and his apparently now extinct little buddy mr. Sharptail that I have yet to see a single one of.

Duckslayer100 · Oct 5, 2017

I'd shit a brick if I saw that number of specks in my area. After NR opener, I'll just be happy to shoot a limit of spoonies this weekend.

dean nelson · Oct 5, 2017

Other then the one fall a few years ago this is the most I've ever seen in that area.

FishinRN · Oct 5, 2017

Is it possible the snowstorm in Montana pushed them further east?

Ponyroper · Oct 5, 2017

dean nelson said:
So what are you guys seeing for them in your area? They suddenly appeared in my area over the last two days and now are the most numerous type of goose in the area I was checking out. No huge flocks by any stretch but multiple flocks of hundreds. Probably saw around 3,000 this morning vs around 1,500 Canadas. Also surprisingly large numbers of ducks... again no mass concentrations but numerous areas with easily huntable concentrations of mallards, gadwalls, pintails and redheads along with around 300 swans.....
oh and can't leave out THE pheasant and his apparently now extinct little buddy mr. Sharptail that I have yet to see a single one of.

Been out doing land inspections for about 6 weeks now and have seen a fair number of sharpies. Mostly small flocks of 4-7 birds but they look as big as turkeys. Inspecting in Morton, Grant, Sioux, Mercer and Oliver counties. I suspect I have only seen a small number of the birds out there because they were so tame I literally had to drive right over them with the pickup or ATV to get them to flush. Pheasants on the other hand just started showing up the last 2 weeks. I had thought they were extinct until a couple of cool wet days and I saw several coveys trying to dry out and sun themselves in the road ditches along side some corn fields. I suspect there will be more than we thought when some of the row crops get cut but my suspicion is the population will still be down tremendously from past years. The young roosters started changing colors about 2 weeks ago when the weather cooled off but there are a lot of brown birds out there yet so look close before you shoot. Some of the old roosters are just getting colored up good now too which seems kind of late to me. Tail feathers will be pretty short this opening weekend. Also saw a clutch of very young turkeys yesterday. Looked to be just a little bigger than rooster pheasants. That surprised me as I've never seen turkeys that small this late before. Only saw 2 coveys of Huns so far and they seemed to be smaller than in the past.

NodakBuckeye · Oct 5, 2017

Had my son and daughter out for a bit on opening morning and we saw 1 small group, saw a large group of a hundred-ish headed south-southeast yesterday while working. This was south of Sak and seems like when I see birds moving like that on the west end they have pulled stakes and are moving down the line.

dean nelson · Oct 6, 2017

Went out for a hardcore hunt this morning...OK so maybe not hardcore since I went in at shooting time into a damn hayed CRP field (that's a first) with a whopping 12 silos and walked out a half hour later with my three specks. No blind, (nice uncut slough) no huge amount of decoys to deal with and no extra bull shit....damn it was nice to get away unnecessary extras sometimes. For what ever the reason the fifteen hundred or so ducks and the fair numbers of Canadas that were there yesterday never came back but the specks came wave after wave and we're a foregone conclusion very early into the hunt. But all I really cared but we're the specks so I definitely was disappointed. Only bad part was the very high number of juveniles and the difficulty in seeing which ones had good color.

This is what it looked like yesterday note the ducks.

And today along with my full spread...at lest one was good looking. Bars actually wrapped all the way around and onto its back. In all had steady speck flights the whole time I was there and they out numbered the Canadas 10 to 1 so unless my area is a fluke you definitely might want to check if they are in your area.

shorthairsrus · Oct 6, 2017

Seen specks every day

- - - Updated - - -

Jk have a good hunt boys!!!!!

dean nelson · Oct 12, 2017

Well didn't see near as many specks today out scouting but did see the first couple "real" groups of Snows. Probably 150 or so in each group. Didn't stop to glass them but it was obvious with the naked eye at highway speeds a couple hundred yards out that there were a TON of juvies in there.

Kurtr · Oct 12, 2017

Had a flock fly over the other morning seems early for here. Every year we get about two good weeks of shooting specks on a big slew east of town

tikkalover · Oct 12, 2017

Geese must be flying over us at night, because I've been up in the Newburg/ Souris area the last 2 days and hardly seen any Canadian geese and 0 snows.

dean nelson · Oct 13, 2017

tikkalover said:
Geese must be flying over us at night, because I've been up in the Newburg/ Souris area the last 2 days and hardly seen any Canadian geese and 0 snows.

Oh your probably not missing too much just yet although the Snows do seem to be over flying the northern part of the state a bit more each year but this aint that. As a whole the area I was hunting has lost about 3/4'rs of the geese it had a week ago with no Specks seen yesterday. but the group of Snows on the other hand is now pushing 500 with a piss pile of young birds. Can't quite say it's 50% young birds but it's a solid 35 to 40% in the flocks I glassed

dean nelson · Oct 15, 2017

Multiple flocks of Snows now it the 1,500 to 2,500 range today so going up surprisingly fast at this point.

Specks

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