On October 8th we will be en-route to Devils Lake North Dakota on our annual Waterfowl Hunting trip. Like last year we will be staying at Westbay Resort in Minnewaulkan and hunting with Curt Kenner owner of Kenner Farms and Kenner Guide Service (701-438-2451 Cell 701-866-4841). The long range weather forecast looks to be in our favor with sunny to partly sunny skies and temperatures in the 50's and 60's. If this forecast holds.

Like last year, we will be posting daily updates during the week. So check back often to see how things are going on this years hunt.

10-8-11 3:00PM EST- We left Grand Rapids about 4:00am and we are making great time with only 90 miles left before we get to North Dakota. Weather has been good with a mix of clouds and sun, temps have ranged from a high of 78 degrees but the further north we get the cooler it gets, the temp in Devils Lake is currently 58.

10-9-11 - Our first day has been rather slow, we scouted our favorite sloughs this morning and did not find much. After lunch we headed in a different direction and found a couple more without much success. Tomorrow the plan is to hunt geese in the morning and ducks in cut corn in the afternoon,

10-10-11 - Our plans for today changed overnight do to the storms that came through making the fields way to muddy to get around in without messing up the crops. So we waited this morning, for the rain to pass. At 9am we left the cabin and headed to a slough that we knew was holding a bunch of birds. We set up on the far west end to play the strong west wind. It took us a while to coax our 12 bird limit, but we waited them out and took 10 Gadwals a Bluebill and a Redhead. It's becoming apparent that the sloughs are at least a foot deeper than last year and a lot of the cattails are gone leaving just a little bit of grass to hide in. Its also making it hard to get the decoys out far enough away from shore to make the birds feel at ease to come into them, causing just a little extra work. The plan for the morning is to go after the geese, there seems to be plenty in the area.

10-11-11 - This morning our goose hunt went off as planned, we joined up with Kurt at 6:30am at his farm. He had already set out the decoys in a cut wheat field that had a lot of re-growth in it. At shooting time there were ducks moving and we managed to take 6 mallards before the geese began to fly. At about 9:15am 2 geese came right over the slough that we were using for cover and we took both, a few seconds later 2 more did almost the same thing and we could only managed one. At about 10am 2 more came straight over head and we downed both of them into the decoys and about 30 seconds later 2 more slipped the edge of our hide and we dropped them into the slough and once again Kodi our 10 year old lab did a great job of digging them out of the thick cattails. That was it for the morning 2 geese short of our 3 man limit, with some bonus mallards one great hunt. This afternoon we we will try and get the rest of duck limit. Tomorrow the plan is to shoot mallards in a bean field west of Kurt's farm

10-12-11 - In one word - 'SLOW' there is a lack of mallards in the area. The local Conservation Officer can't believe that two years in a row there has been a reverse migration due to warmer than normal weather. So warm in fact that this evening we were chased out of the field by a Thunder Storm.

10-13-11 - Back at it again this morning, hoping the front that came through last night would have brought some new ducks in. The decoys were set up in a harvested corn field next to a large slough, in a very thick fog for the first two hours. Unfortunately ducks never did work the decoys but we did manage to take seven birds that got to close. Three redheads, one mallard and three gadwals.That's it for another year, can't believe how fast this week goes by, seems like we just pulled up to the cabin, on the road home in the AM.

10-14-10 - 8:00AM EST - On the road home, currently we are about 110 miles north of St. Paul Mn, there are fair skies and cool temps, there wind may become an issue later with North West wind gusts to 40mph, hoping to arrive home at about 6:00PM.

Trip Wrap Up:
#1 - All our favorite sloughs, that we have hunted in the past had way to much water and the plant mass that attracts the ducks was not there, thus no ducks. Later in the week we did find a couple of new sloughs that where holding birds and we will hunt these in in the future.
#2 - Two years in a row we have been hit with above normal temperatures, that has caused the birds to head back north into Canada. Normally we see all kinds of ducks raffed on Devils Lake as we drive along Hwy 19 between Devils Lake and Minnewaulkan, not this year. We did see a few ducks but the migority of the birds we seen were Coots, these birds along with the local Giant Canada Geese had an exceptional nesting year . So next year we are going out a week later. Hopefully there will be better duck conditions.
#3 - A few words about our Black Lab Kodi, four years ago he was diagnosed with severe artheitis and at that time the vet also thought he most likley would not be able to hunt any longer. Our sponsor Black Gold dog food has a Field Trial Blend that has the suppliments Glucosamine and Chondroitin for joint health. Well over the last four years he has had some bad days, but we know that with out this food and these suppliments there would be no way he could have continued to hunt. This year he was in my opinion exceptional. On Monday he made several 100 plus yard swims to retreive birds that were blowing away in the strong winds. On Wednesday he made several great reteives on downed geese including digging two of them out of heavy cattails. As anyone who has done this, it is truly very hard work and on Thursday morning he was up and ready to go, all week he just never seem to slow and was always ready to go.