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2011 Waterfowl Opener By: Adam Andrus For many of us waterfowlers, the past five years has been a little tough finding the ducks, especially if you rely on public hunting land to do your hunting on. Getting up at 3:45 am to ensure you are the first one on the marsh all the time gets a bit grueling, what makes it even worse is the lack of ducks that frequent these hunting areas. My story begins opening day of the 2011 Minnesota Waterfowl opener. It's 4 am and the Minnesota Flyway crew consisting of Dave, Josh and myself are already on the road. Josh, our videographer, is about to embark on his first trip into a duck blind. Our destination this particular morning is the Indian Lake Wildlife Management Area and the good news is we were the first to arrive. We had our pick as to were we wanted to set up on the lake. After we loaded the boats and set sail we were excited for a variety of reasons. First, duck opener was opening a week earlier than it usually does which meant more local birds. Some of the birds that normally migrate early, like teal and wood ducks, might still be around. That was our hope anyway. Our second reason for optimism were all the reports from national and local wildlife agencies declaring that most, if not all, species were up in population this year. Finally, we had first choice on the lake and that is always an awesome position to be in. We settled into our blind after putting out some brand new decoys. Our spread looked great and we had both the sun and wind at our back. Josh had a great angle to capture some great footage, we knew this was going to be a great day in the marsh. As legal shooting time got closer I kept telling Dave and Josh how great our hunt was going to be and how all the stars finally aligned for us. Today was going to be our day, I could feel it! It was an unusual amount of optimism coming from a glass half empty guy like myself. Shooting time arrived and we loaded our Benelli's with some four shot, we were ready to begin. Within seconds after shooting time had arrived we kept hearing shots in the distance, followed by more and more from all around us. Shots were being fired everywhere by everyone, except for us. Ten minutes into the season and we had yet to see a bird, immediately thoughts of last years opener creeped into my mind. I didn't shoot my gun on opening day last year. Thirty minutes into our hunt and prime time has come and gone, not one duck within calling range. An hour passed and we finally got our first shot, Dave got a shot off at what appeared to be a nice merganser but it was difficult to determine what kind it was at that distance. After two hours had passed us by we had seen four ducks and a handful of geese. That is pathetic by most waterfowlers standards. We had one come in somewhat close and fired off a grand total of one shot, that was the merganser Dave took a chance on. This was the second year in a row that I failed to shoot my gun on opening day. As we pack up I begin to have serious doubts if duck hunting is a hobby that I still want to invest time and money into. There is always tomorrow, tomorrow will be a better day, it's a phrase Dave uses all the time. So, we will try it again tomorrow. To be continued
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