Well we've been praying for a cold front and we got one. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. -15 with the wind chill on Saturday. The cold temps moved a bunch of birds down from Alberta late last week. I hunted the Missouri river on Saturday morning just south of Great Falls and there were tremendous numbers of ducks and geese. Due to near white out conditions it took me twice as long to drive the 60 miles to the boat launch as it normally does. I jumped about 1000 mallards and 500 honkers on my way into the back water slough I hunt. Once I got set up the shooting was fast and furious for both ducks and geese. See the attached picture for results. I also attached a picture of my waders. You know it's cold when your waders stand up on their own after taking them off. LOL.
The latest forecast has temps well below zero for most of the coming week. Wind chill numbers will be dropping as low as -40 in places. As long as some of our rivers and spring creeks stay open we should be OK. We don't have a lot of snow on the ground so most of the grain fields should stay open to feeding birds moving south. I spoke with a good friend this afternoon and he did well hunting a spring creek in the southern part of the state this weekend. He also reported good numbers of birds available if you could find open water and were willing to bare the cold temps. I have also been hearing about good numbers of ducks holding on the Bighorn river in eastern Montana. In addition tremendous numbers of geese can usually be found anywhere along the Yellowstone river corridor this time of year. The trick is getting permission to hunt one of the many grain fields that border both sides of the river. This is much easier to do now that deer season is over. An afternoon spent scouting and knocking on doors usually pays big dividends.
Good hunting and be safe, Mark
1 comment:
Great report! Thanks for covering other areas around you as well!
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