Welp...this is my PSA. A lot of people are going to take offense to this but oh well... This is the feeling from everyone around here that I know. This is directed to all non residents that don't have a clue.
#1 Leave them duck boats at home. Yeah yeah.... your favorite memory growing up was sittin on this little boat shooting ducks off of some slough back home... I get it. Just don't do that here... stay home. ND is so dry right now that any slough you will duck hunt is gunna be a roost and more times than not the waters hunted are roosts to some extent. You're here for 3 days and don't care... We get that... thats why you are hated on when you are in ND. When you shoot any of these waters the ducks get messed up and leave. That ruins everything for the residents.
#2 GET OFF THE ROAD! You, yeah you! When you do go put in your silly little boat or park and go walk to a slough to sit on the edge find an approach! Get off the road.... Don't get me wrong... some of the most fun i have is watching a farmer go get a tractor to move someones truck so they can get their combine and header through the road to get to the next field. Be nice to them... Hate this post if you must but that this away at the very least... Just get out of the farmers way. Even when you pass them... do more than just pull over a little bit. Pull into an approach and get out of the way. Means a lot to the farmers up here so they dont have to slow down and deal with you when they are in the middle of their busy time. Maybe he will remember what truck did that and you happen to pull into his yard later to ask for permission to hunt and he lets you cuz you did him a favor. You never know... these guys control your hunting a lot.
#3 Stop with the shady stuff. Last year we had a few different times where we pulled into the field and a truck was sitting out there and some of the posters we stuck in corners were "gone". They just so happened to only check those spots for posters and went in there. We even had a group drive through a ditch, up and over a set of RR tracks, down another ditch and into a field so they could say "we never saw a poster the way we came in". I'll tell ya what... I don't want to call that landowner at 4:30 am but I will. I will because I know how mad he is going to be. And it won't be at me since he told me to post it. He will be mad at you and it won't be pretty. I will even go out of the way to take pictures of that truck and send it to the surrounding farmers and let them know that his vehicle was doing shady stuff and they likely won't want you on their land either.
For the most part... ND resident farmers and duck hunters don't care for non-resident hunters and their BS. And its not everyone. I've seen and know a few guys from out of state that show up here with a trailer full of decoys, gas money, and buy a county PLAT map (that shows every piece of land, who owns it, and a phone number) and go put in the work that we all do too to hunt these ducks. THAT IS THE WAY TO DO IT. I have zero problem with these guys. I have a problem with the disrespectful, arrogant, shoeless people that show up here and ruin the weekend hunt for the rest of us because they snuck into somehwere that they shouldnt be, they busted the roost thats been building for 2 weeks and they guys from 10 miles around have been successfully shooting them out of the fields because they are safe at the roosts, or they pissed off some farmer so much that he went and posted every piece of land and won't let ANYONE hunt it anymore because he is mad.
Waterfowl hunting is like baseball. Tough, rewarding, and a grind. They both have some unwritten rules. If you were aware of any of the unwritten rules of ND waterfowl hunting... this was a little insight.
-TIP
stick with deer hunting buddy!
