It's on like Donkey Kong

Goodbye Texas! We're North Dakota bound, boys. Those mallards aren't even gonna know what hit em

be careful- we just got back chasing ditch chickens in SD- 870 miles- broke it up in 2 days stayed in York NE on way. good luck post some good pics!

Good luck, flare them all this way.

*long whistle*....Damn that's a long haul.

Lucky!

Never hunted ND but SD is worth the drive, good luck. Wish I was with y'all

Good luck.. post pics

Jealous of this trip. Looking forward to some pics.

I'll definitely let yall know how it goes. Hunting Saturday-Tuesday. Reports are looking pretty good right now. Hopefully we can put something together. My bud and his dad that are with me are from Corpus Christi and have never hunted out of the state or shot a mallard or Canada goose. I grew up in MN and spent 2 years in NoDak and am meeting my buddy that lives there, so I'm thinking we'll be able to find a few

Y'all gonna try and hunt some pheasant in the afternoon?

No sir. Not much at all for roosters in this part of the state and we've only got a few days, so we'll be focusing solely on ducks and geese

Best wishes and good luck!

Well, here the report thus far. Yup, there's ducks and snows. Not much for honkers. If you put in the road time, you'll find plenty of birds to kill. You better hunt smart though cuz dang it are they stale.
Here's my personal report. Left Three Rivers, TX at 0545 Friday, got here at 0530 Saturday. We figured we'd kill reliable birds and spend the rest of the day scouting. Went to a reliable pass shooting spot and shot 14 assorted puddlers and divers in about 1.5 hours, including a drake bwt...yeah, on November 12th. Man this fall sucks. As we were shooting we noticed a huge grind in a field behind us about 1.5 miles with 10-15k mallards and around 1k geese. They were roosting on the bay we were hunting and grinding in the field. Figured we'd set there the next morning and crush em, so we drove around most of the rest of the day trying to find the property owner. Finally found him around 1800. Sat and watched the slough in the evening and watched flock after flock of 1k+ mallards tornado down. Quite the sight!
Here comes the fun part. Let me back up a bit. We didn't take ANY gear (dekes, blinds, etc) because I was going to be meeting a buddy up there who has everything we'd need. He was supposed to meet us there Saturday am. He called and told me he had found a big feed of snows by his buddy's place in Crosby and asked if I would mind if he showed up Saturday evening. No biggy. Saturday evening rolls around and I haven't heard from him. I text him around 1800 to let him know we secured the field. No text back. Text him at 2145 and tell him I'm going to bed and give him the address. Thankfully, the owner that gave us permission also gave permission to another group of three, and I was smart enough to get their contact info. Got a hold of them and said our buddy May of stood us up. He texts me back at 0410, telling me he's in Devils (bulogne) and waiting in his truck. I text him back, nothing. I call him 5x, nothing. Thankfully the guys we were meeting up with had extra layouts and were generous enough to let us use them (faith in humanity restored!!) but the birds had been feeding all night under the full moon and didn't really even leave the slough. Ended up with 5 mallards. Since we didn't have any decoys or gear, we went into town, bought a dozen floaters and jumped a few ponds with no success. Tonight, we were chatting with the guys staying next to us, and they graciously loaned us 2 dozen floaters to use tomorrow (faith in humanity restored again!!). Plan tomorrow is to set up on the channel that feeds the bay the mallards were using since we saw quite a few landing in that area and see what we can scrounge up. Oh, and we still haven't heard back from the guy that was supposed to join us. All in all, we have seen an incredible number of mallards (there's easily 50k in that slough) and if we actually had the right gear, we'd be absolutely crushing birds. Most guys that we've talked to that are putting in the seat time are doing ok to outstanding.
Wow, that turned into a book

Sounds like an adventure! Good for you for making the most out of it and bringing it out. Cool of those guys to help you out, too.

How close of a buddy is the guy that stood you up?

If I drove 24 hours to meet a buddy and he stood me up I would be more than furious...

WOW, I'm speechless....glad you are getting to hunt and making the best of a bad situation.

He was actually a good friend. He was planning on coming down to the coast for a diver/pintail/teal hunt this January. I'm gonna let him come and leave him hanging once he gets here. See how he likes a taste of his own medicine

Here's the report for the final day. It was tough, but we made it happen. A lot of birds left that roost but there were still a few thousand milling around. We set up in a spot about a mile off the roost and pulled traffic. If you've ever hunted highly pressured, stale North Dakota mallards that have been chased and shot at since September, you know how cagey those birds can be. Man alive did it take some perfect calling to get em cupped up. They'd circle 7-10x, and if you miss a note, they are GONE. Thankfully my call game was strong yesterday and we had quite a few birds in the decoys. Had we been shooting better we woulda had a full strap of greenheads, but apparently some of our barrels got bent on the drive down haha We were set up with a 15mph crosswind so I set the Texas boys on the downwind side so the birds would be landing in their face. I barely shouldered the shotgun all day but that's fine by me. I enjoy calling birds in more than I do actually pulling the trigger
Coolest thing that happened all trip happened in the last couple seconds of legal shooting light. The boys had been itching to kill a big greater, but since we didn't have goose decoys, the chances were slim-none. At 16:58 (yes, I looked at my phone to check the time and sunset was 1701) a few geese came off the pond behind us about 500 yards away. They gained a little altitude, then caught the wind and just drifted, sidestepping their way right towards us. I'm sitting there thinking "God, are you really gonna make this happen?!" They kept coming until they were 40yds above us, straight up. I was shooting #3s and bounced BBs off their breasts, but Josh slid some BB shot into his gun that he had sitting in his bag and was able to knock down his first greater. What a special end to the trip!!! All in all, we made the best out of a worst-case scenario, the guys got to see what North Dakota is capable of, and we got to see some incredible generosity of two separate groups of awesome guys that let us use their decoys & gear. Next year, we're Saskatchewan bound...with a much more reliable buddy

I did some work up at Devils Lake several years ago. Really cool area and looked like it would be a duck shooter's dream.

It really is. The number of birds in that whole state is just unreal. Every waterfowler needs to experience it

That's the kinda trip I would to make.