# Fish Point 2021



## BumpRacerX (Dec 31, 2009)

Trip report from our opening day. Feel free to add on your own FP trip reports and keep the thread going. I think we'll be back for the Nov 6th youth hunt. TBD. 

Rolled into the area about 9am to do a little pre-game scouting. Talked to quite a few groups that picked up early and called it quits. Was pretty slow from what we were told and could see. Kinda amazed that guys would draw opening morning AM and quit before noon. Spectated from the tower a bit, timing it perfectly to watch a guy play a Goose and drop it. The tower is in a pretty sweet location, and really turns waterfowl hunting into a spectator sport. Lawn chairs. Campers. It's like the infield at a NASCAR race without the drunk middle aged women collecting beads.

Draw time. Broadcast over the radio which I kinda like vs being jammed in the office. The speech about sky busting happens. Then a flock of geese work into the field by the office and are cut into a little too high, sending a couple geese sailing into what I would guess ended up being zone 5. And we get the skybusting speech again with the shooting zone being used as a specific reference of what not to do. In typical fashion, we draw poorly yet still end up with a zone that everyone feels good about.

DU has an area setup with donuts and water. They gave away hats, water bottles and posters for the kids as well as signing them up for memberships. Very cool spread and if someone has the address for the local chapter, please PM me. I'd like to make a donation.

Shooting time starts. No one is quite ready for the mallard that gives us a look early on. Zone behind us shoots and we get shot rained on us. They collect the bird. An hour or so passes and we work a Mallard. I can't hit anything and empty out before FishFighter drops it. We start to see and work Geese, but can't get anything down low enough. MWW I'd call the shot all day long but not here. Work a flock down to questionable, a zone upwind/behind us cuts into them. Sigh. But wait, here's one solo goose doing it right for us.

I shoot, and hear the kid shoot along with an almost slightly bewildered "I hit that Goose" from him. All while Fish and I continue to shoot until *click. And then he proclaims in a little more firm manner "I shot that Goose!". This thing has shot from all three shooters.

When the kid declares he shot the Goose (his first ever) on a youth reserved hunt, he gets the Goose.









We miss a little bit, including one spectacular miss where I fall over backwards and swim. Shift our hide and the shooters slightly based on something I was seeing. Fish questions it. But then I think he was good with it after he collects a couple more birds.

Two Geese, two Mallards for us.










We ended up as good or better than everyone we talked to both from AM and PM. I'm sure there were zones that did better somewhere. I'm guessing opening weekend this year is waaaaaaaaaay down from last year there (2.4 ducks per hunter trip last year). The unit/fields are in great shape right now.

Feel free to add on your own FP reports. Intended to do a "live from the field" but didn't pull it off. Maybe next time.


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## BucksandDucks (May 25, 2010)

26 parties showed up this morning and I managed to draw dead last! Ended up in a field that isn't typically great but not terrible either. Not one shot fired from any of us. 

Saw very few flying and 90 percent of those were woodies. Least amount of shooting I can recall for a reserve hunt. Actually had to check shooting time really quick because I hadn't heard anyone shoot by 710. Yep shooting time was 701. 

Hopefully it gets better, weird year. 

On a side note the mosquitoes were horrible. I am pretty sure that they treated deet as an aphrodisiac 

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## BumpRacerX (Dec 31, 2009)

BucksandDucks said:


> 26 parties showed up this morning and I managed to draw dead last! Ended up in a field that isn't typically great but not terrible either. Not one shot fired from any of us.
> 
> Saw very few flying and 90 percent of those were woodies. Least amount of shooting I can recall for a reserve hunt. Actually had to check shooting time really quick because I hadn't heard anyone shoot by 710. Yep shooting time was 701.
> 
> ...


The mosquitoes at NQP were insane on September 1st in our zone. I got pretty sick as a result and just started feeling better a few days ago. Suspected West Nile, but I never did do the follow up appointment for the testing. There is no real treatment for it, other than managing the symptoms. And when they mentioned something about spinal fluid I said F that.


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## midknight (Oct 22, 2003)

Hunted Sunday am drew 13th and got field 17...shot 2 hen woodys and lost a drake and most of the blood in our bodies....had buddies in 46 that never shot their guns... heard maybe 70 shots all morning....thinking the early teal and goose season has these birds a bit educated already


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## Sea Nags (Dec 26, 2001)

midknight said:


> Hunted Sunday am drew 13th and got field 17...shot 2 hen woodys and lost a drake and most of the blood in our bodies....had buddies in 46 that never shot their guns... heard maybe 70 shots all morning....thinking the early teal and goose season has these birds a bit educated already


That's why I would love to see them do away with ALL of the early seasons on the managed areas ! Opening weekend was great before they started the early hunts !!!

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## BumpRacerX (Dec 31, 2009)

midknight said:


> Hunted Sunday am drew 13th and got field XX...shot 2 hen woodys and lost a drake and most of the blood in our bodies....had buddies in XX that never shot their guns... heard maybe 70 shots all morning....thinking the early teal and goose season has these birds a bit educated already


There are a lot of wood ducks around there for sure. Might be something to the "education" bit. Eventually fresh dumb birds will come. We didn't have any trouble getting at least a look out of the few mallards we saw. The geese had definitely seen the game before. The adjustment that I made was in response to that. Fishfighter's Goose did what I was hoping they would do shortly after. Was it the adjustment or coincidence? No clue. 

Also, you may or may not want to edit out the zone numbers in your post. Makes little difference to me being 150 miles away, but there are lots of cyber scouters for the managed areas. Some people get pretty upset over zone numbers being posted.


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## fsamie1 (Mar 8, 2008)

There are youth hunt, veteran hunt, early teal and early goose. we should have senior hunt too before all these hunt. We seniors do not have many hunts left in us.😂


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## BucksandDucks (May 25, 2010)

Had a couple friends goose hunt in a flooded zone the Sunday before the opener and said they were covered up in mallards, lots of them. I probably only saw 6 mallards this Sunday so not sure what happened. They either left weren't leaving the refuge. 

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## Urriah (Jul 26, 2013)

BucksandDucks said:


> Had a couple friends goose hunt in a flooded zone the Sunday before the opener and said they were covered up in mallards, lots of them. I probably only saw 6 mallards this Sunday so not sure what happened. They either left weren't leaving the refuge.
> 
> Sent from my SM-A526U using Michigan Sportsman mobile app


About a 20 degree temperature difference will do that.


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## daddyduck (Nov 2, 2001)

30+ years of openers at FP and never had no birds like this?????


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## Tunaman (Apr 17, 2006)

I was their tonight. It was dead for ducks. 3 off us managed to get 5 geese


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## slammer00 (Mar 7, 2002)

BumpRacerX said:


> Also, you may or may not want to edit out the zone numbers in your post. Makes little difference to me being 150 miles away, but there are lots of cyber scouters for the managed areas. Some people get pretty upset over zone numbers being posted.


There’s no need to edit his post was a honest report and not like they killed a 4 man just honest. I doubt anyone would give zone number if they hammered them anyways.

I could give away the zone that shot the most Sunday morning but won’t and definitely not a top zone for opening weekend but neither a horrible zone. And definitely wasn’t me. We never shot and was in the top 25😬

The draw seem to go rather very slow due to I guess a lot of people never hunting there( zones went in the top 15 that I was shocked was pick) Midknight said 70 shots total and that’s being generous. I killed three times more mosquitoes then shots in the area.

I will agree with the “education” somewhat but for opening weekend it was horrible. My top three would be 1. Lack of birds 2. Weather 3. Lack of water


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## Sea Nags (Dec 26, 2001)

fsamie1 said:


> There are youth hunt, veteran hunt, early teal and early goose. we should have senior hunt too before all these hunt. We seniors do not have many hunts left in us.


Yes !!! That offends me that they don't have a senior hunt !!! LOL....

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## everlast108 (Mar 30, 2012)

BucksandDucks said:


> 26 parties showed up this morning and I managed to draw dead last! Ended up in a field that isn't typically great but not terrible either. Not one shot fired from any of us.
> 
> Saw very few flying and 90 percent of those were woodies. Least amount of shooting I can recall for a reserve hunt. Actually had to check shooting time really quick because I hadn't heard anyone shoot by 710. Yep shooting time was 701.
> 
> ...


We drew 3rd from last. We only shot twice. One got a wood duck wearing a bracelet, his first! The other missed...but he was in the middle of relieving himself and was literally caught with his waders down!

We saw some flying in the distance, but none within shooting range. Overall it was just too warm and calm, then the fog rolled in and nothing was in the air. And the mosquitoes were insane. Once we left before the afternoon shift draw, birds started flying around more, but we still didn't see too many ducks.

Hopefully we get some better bad weather coming our way to get those ducks moving more.


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## goose schatt (Sep 11, 2012)

Should of left the lines like they were!


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## HopHead42 (Jun 27, 2019)

Amazed that there were only 14 parties this morning. Drew bad, sweated my a** off, donated blood to the skeeters, and learned why there were only 14 parties. Shot my 3 woodies and the dog enjoyed it. I seriously saw less than 10 ducks that weren't woodies.


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## goosehunter31 (Sep 22, 2009)

How many ducks do they claim are in the refuge?


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## Indybleck (Jun 7, 2006)

Going to be out there Sunday afternoon and possibly Monday morning. 

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## cruiseplanner1 (Aug 6, 2012)

We were there for the Sunday afternoon draw as brother had a permit. We drew third (excited!) and took the field we would have chosen if drawn first. None of the three of us fired our guns. We never had one bird work the field. We were in a prime spot next to the refuge and none of the four fields fired or had a bird work all evening except one shot in field across from us. Never seen such a dead opener


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## tkpolasek (Mar 4, 2002)

Can single parties get into the draw at Fish Point?


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## ih772 (Jan 28, 2003)

Only certain zones have blinds at FP.


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## LooksMoosey (Aug 29, 2015)

Not every zone has a blind. Some are fancier than others. At least one of them has a dog door/ramp.


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## West side shooter (Jan 22, 2015)

In the marsh zones you have to hunt out of the blind, in the field zones with blinds you can hunt out of the corn or the blind


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## Far Beyond Driven (Jan 23, 2006)

Never killed a bird hunting from a blind.

Killed limits hiding the gear bags and sleds in the blinds and hunting as far downwind from them as possible.


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## daddyduck (Nov 2, 2001)

JackAm said:


> So tell me about FP. A friend of mine said he hunted it. Everything was a walk out. Hunting blinds in each zone. I’m having trouble believing him. I hunted LongPoint Ontario once and they had blinds in each zone. I hadn’t heard that FP is like that too.
> If this is true - do the blinds have access doors for retrievers?


Not all zones have blinds. And yes blinds have retriever door and ramp


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## JackAm (Aug 25, 2007)

daddyduck said:


> Not all zones have blinds. And yes blinds have retriever door and ramp


 I don't have a jet sled (yet.) Would it be too much of a pain to walk in with a dozen and a half on your back (while carrying your shotgun?)


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## daddyduck (Nov 2, 2001)

That's the way we did it before sleds


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