[recker]

Headed out to western minn for the late goose season on saturday. This is the first year I have ever tried this season. I certainly was not disappointed with the numbers of geese. Probably twice as many as a few weeks ago when you could not shoot them. They were everyhwere.Missed my alarm on saturday morning and probably missed the best hunting I would assume.Did some pheasant hunting and actually got a few shots at some geese that were flying over. I put out the dekes on the ice saturday night but they would not come in. They would look and I did get some shooting at a few flocks that were low enough. The big news was though that saturday evening I watched mallards come out to feed for 45 minutes straight. I think they were coming from big stone lake. They were not in the area two weeks ago at all so must have just shown up. You could have had some good mallard shooting if you found the right field I believe.Usually the mallards show up in the area in force right at freeze up which was basically right around when the season closed. It seems that is the past few years they are holding in canada until the last possible second. Maybe we do need to look at a split season?I still think numbers are way down but it does seem that ducks show up here after alot of water is frozen. I remember a few years ago going to a boat lauch on the miss about an hour south of the cities in the middle of december. As far as the eye could see in the main channel it was loaded with divers of all kinds. The temps were really cold but the ducks were thick. Anyway on to sunday. This is the type of thing that really gets me. The geese came really good for about an hour starting at 9am and I got some pass shooting as I was right in the flyway. There were probably 20 or 30 thousand sitting on a slough and using it as the roost. All of a sudden I look over and the whole swarm gets up and leaves at once. I figured somebody tried to sneak up on them and shoot. Well i ended up getting checked by the dnr when i walked out and this was confirmed. He saw a car parked in that area and had noticed the guys walking out towards the geese. He had not checked them yet since they had not come back but I assume they blasted at them and that was it.That kind of thing makes no sense and just blows the geese out of the area. I guess some people will never learn. He went on to say some people were getting a few geese but having to work for them. It is amazing how smart they are even though this area had been closed on geese since oct 31 until the late season.Oh well it was at least nice to get some shooting since the last few weeks of the ducks season were a complete bust.