Upduck Podcast

The divers have arrived in Wisconsin. Bluebills, canvasbacks, redheads, buffleheads and even scoters are showing up on Green Bay and the big inland lakes, while puddle ducks across the state are getting stale in warm, calm weather.

This week's Wisconsin duck hunting report covers waterfowl migration, green-winged teal, mallards, goose numbers, low water and the north winds coming midweek across Northwest, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast Wisconsin, plus a North Zone closing reminder.

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Wisconsin Waterfowl Association: https://wisducks.org

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Warm, calm weather left stale ducks across Wisconsin this week, and every region is waiting on a cold front. This Migration Report covers Wisconsin duck hunting in the Northwest, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast: mallards holding tight, wood ducks and teal thinning out, divers and bluebills building on big water, and Canada geese stacking up on fresh-cut corn. Plus the late-October waterfowl migration outlook.

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Wisconsin Waterfowl Association

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Ever wondered what it actually takes to get on a hunting pro staff or why your out-of-state duck trip keeps coming up short? Jon Braun, Drake Waterfowl's Regional Pro Staff Coordinator for the northern Mississippi Flyway, has answers for both.

Jon oversees about 40 pro staffers across Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota and has made DIY North Dakota duck trips since 2003. He explains how his group scouts 3–4 hours every day, how to get permission on private land in North Dakota and Canada, what Drake looks for in pro staff (and what gets you cut), and the waterfowl gear new hunters should buy first. Plus: tundra swans , a lab with 1,500 retrieves, and North vs. South hunting culture.

For more on Drake Waterfowl, check out:
Website · Jon Braun on Instagram · BMF Waders · Non-Typical Whitetail Gear

For more on Spoonie by Drake (sold at Walmart), check out:
Spoonie Waders

For more on Soggy Acres Retrievers, check out:
Website

For more on the Waterfowl Hunters Expo, check out:
Website

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The cold front brought the first real migrators into Wisconsin, but the hunting was hit or miss. Canvasbacks, ringnecks, wigeon and gadwall pushed in, wood ducks thinned out, and Canada geese are everywhere in the south. We cover the Southern Zone reopener, the Open Water opener on Green Bay, the Mississippi River and the Northwoods across Northwest, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast Wisconsin.

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Wisconsin Waterfowl Association

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hy is day two of duck season always slower than opening day? Tyler and Matt grade Wisconsin's first duck split and break down how fast opening weekend pressure changes the birds.

From a three-man teal limit in under an hour to a Sunday bust after the ground around it got hunted, they dig into how hunting pressure moves ducks on public land, why downed ducks vanish in small timber holes, and a real-world poison-bird drill on a crippled green-winged teal. Plus: why you shouldn't shoot over a breaking dog, keeping a four-year-old happy in a layout blind for five hours, and motion decoys for light walk-in spreads.

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Heat stalled Wisconsin's duck hunting before the Southern Zone split, but the first divers are showing up. This week's Migration Report covers Northwest, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast Wisconsin: ringnecks, bluebills and buffleheads in the Northwoods, wary local mallards and wood ducks, building Canada geese and low water from the Mississippi River east. Plus a cold front arriving just in time for the October 17th reopener.

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Wisconsin Waterfowl Association: https://wisducks.org

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Upland seasons are opening, so we're bringing back one of our best-performing episodes. Eric Forrester of Ghost Point Wirehairs is a self-taught Indiana bird hunter who breeds German Wirehaired Pointers, runs NSTRA field trials, and lives out of his truck chasing sharptails, Huns, chukar and quail across the West.

We get into:

• How one lunch conversation turned into a wirehair kennel
• NSTRA field trials explained: braces, scoring and breaking on the flush
• Why breeding matters more than training
• DIY upland hunting out West: where to start, in-person scouting, snakes and porcupines
• Filming solo hunts and keeping it real with sponsors

For more on Ghost Point Wirehairs check out:

Ghost Point Wirehairs website

Eric Forrester on YouTube

Ghost Point Wirehairs on Instagram

Ghost Point Wirehairs on Facebook

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Get more bird dog content every Monday in the Upduck Newsletter.

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Wisconsin's duck opener belonged to the wood ducks.

In this week's Migration Report, hunters from Northwest, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast Wisconsin break down opening weekend: woodie limits, scattered teal, building numbers of Canada geese and heavy pressure, even away from the big marshes. Plus what warm weather means for fresh birds, and a reminder that the Southern Duck Zone closes after October 11 for the split.

Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association.

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Wisconsin Waterfowl Association: https://wisducks.org

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Duck season is upon us here in Wisconsin and various seasons are open or opening across the country. We are just a little excited over here. We went back through the last 18 months of Upduck and pulled some of the best advice our guests have given us into one 20-minute episode.

You'll hear Wisconsin DNR game bird ecologist Taylor Finger explain why hunters who scout three or more times a year shoot three times as many birds. Rusty Creasey discusses rest areas, and Chance Gotsch says to hunt every front this season. Then it's duck calling mistakes, overhead concealment for boat blinds, spinner decoy strategy, and patterning your shotgun at 20, 30 and 40 yards. Plus: why most misses are behind the bird, and getting kids into the marsh.

Featured guests: Taylor Finger (WI DNR), Brian Halbleib (Migration Waterfowl), Rusty Creasey, Chance Gotsch, Braden Shull, Phil Kahnke, George Parker (Bluebird Waterfowl), Ryan (Pattern Pros), Phillip Jones (GAIM) and Michael Hagerty (Outdoor Dad Life). Every full episode is in the feed.

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Tired of scrolling past piles of dead ducks on Instagram while your own season comes up short? Brian Halbleib, host of The Migration Waterfowl Podcast, has a fix: hunt your own hunt.

Brian hunts half of Pennsylvania's duck season plus six road trips a year, mostly on public land. He explains why your hide matters more than your duck calling, how scouting seven hours for one hour of hunting produced 3 limits of blue-winged teal, and why open water holds mallards late in the season. Plus: river gauges for scouting, real expectations for weekend warriors, and what duck hunting social media never shows you.

For more on Migration Waterfowl, check out:
Website · YouTube · Instagram · The Migration Waterfowl Podcast

For more on The Gear Roost, check out:
The Gear Roost™ Foundation Pack

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Should a new caller buy the $110 acrylic or the $39 polycarbonate? Braden Shull, co-owner of IHP Call Co. , says it starts with one question: how good do you want to be? Tyler and Matt dig into choosing duck and goose calls that fit your skill, why you should blow every call at a show before buying, and what call makers mean by "hold." Braden also shares the story behind Man's Best Friend memorial calls, cast with a dog's ashes, and why his 95-pound lab Earl, steady through 100 North Dakota duck hunts, got tied up whenever honkers were around. Recorded the night before Wisconsin's regular goose season opened.

IHP Call Co.: Website · Man's Best Friend Calls · Instagram · TikTok · Facebook

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Chance GMeteorologist Chance Gotsch breaks down what the strongest El Niño since 1950 means for the 2026–27 duck season. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center has it at a greater than 90% chance of going "very strong." Chance reads the seasonal outlook maps — warmer across the Great Lakes, the Dakotas and western Canada, drier through Missouri, Arkansas and the Atlantic Flyway — and answers what every waterfowler is asking: does El Niño stall the duck migration? Also in this episode: why snow moves mallards and cold doesn't, how to read wind direction straight off a pressure system, what barometric pressure actually tells you, why your weather app is solid on temperature and unreliable on rain, and how to spot a clickbait polar vortex forecast.

Chance's show: Chance of Storms Outdoors on First Alert 4 (also on Roku, FireTV and AppleTV)
Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, the conservation group Chance asked us to link

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Matt and Tyler dig into the numbers the US Fish & Wildlife Service just dropped: the 2026 Waterfowl Breeding Population Survey. Mallards, teal, and pintail are all down from last year, but the pond count is up 14% and North Dakota broods jumped 55% — so what does it actually mean for this fall's hunting? Plus: a recap of the Waterfowl Hunters Expo in Oshkosh (including a fan-girl moment with retriever training legends Pat Burns and Mike Lardy), a debate on whether hunting regulations should change, and a heat-safety reminder for anyone still chasing teal this week.

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Tyler flies solo this week (Matt's out) to talk pheasant season with Anne Byers: an NRCS employee, Osceola County Conservation Board member, and a landowner who's spent 25+ years managing 200 acres of her family's Iowa ground specifically for pheasants.

They dig into what this year's pheasant numbers are actually looking like across Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota (spoiler: the signs point to another strong season), the exact habitat mix Anne plants to hold birds through winter and protect nesting hens in spring, how she handles predator control and invasive trees on her property, and why she'd rather protect pheasant season than deer season these days. Plus: her annual public-land camping trips to the South Dakota grasslands for sharptails and prairie chickens, the Mossberg 500 she won at a Ducks Unlimited banquet 20 years ago, and — yes — the pack goats that carry her birds out of the field.

Guest: Anne Byers — Anne Byers Instagram (dogs, hunting, and the goats). For Osceola County and other Iowa county conservation area info, check out My County Parks

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Most duck hunters never test the one thing that decides whether their shot connects: the shell. This week Tyler and Matt sit down with Ryan, co-founder of Pattern Pros, to talk about why patterning your shotgun matters as much for waterfowl as it does for turkey season — how a few dollars and twenty minutes at 20/30/40 yards can save you money on shells, put more birds in the bag, and mean fewer crippled ducks for your dog to chase down. Ryan breaks down point of aim vs. point of impact, walks through Pattern Pros' variety boxes and new choke tube rental program, and makes the case that applies to waterfowl, upland, turkey, and rifle hunters alike: just pattern it.

Pattern Pros: https://patternprosusa.com — use code DUCK10 for 10% off

Pattern Pros on Facebook: Pattern Pros USA

Pattern Pros on Instagram: @patternpros

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Duck season is closing in fast — is your retriever actually ready? On this episode of the Upduck Podcast, Tyler breaks down the training advice pulled straight from three professional gun dog trainers to get your dog field-ready before opening day. We cover conditioning your dog physically for long days in the blind, locking in obedience and steadiness around gunfire, running real marked retrieves (not just backyard bumpers), building mock hunt scenarios that mimic the real thing, and sharpening memory work for multiple falls. Whether you're running a young pup on its first season or tuning up a veteran retriever, these are the fundamentals the pros actually use.

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Brad Heidel, executive director of the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association, joins the UpDuck Podcast to preview the 2026 Waterfowl Hunters Expo and explain how WWA supports Wisconsin ducks and duck hunters.

Brad shares his path through the conservation industry, the three pillars guiding WWA's work and what hunters can expect at this year's expo—including retriever demonstrations, calling contests, firearms you can try before buying, seminars, youth activities, vendors and wild-game cooking.

The Waterfowl Hunters Expo takes place August 21–22 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Learn more at ⁠waterfowlhuntersexpo.com⁠ and support the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association at ⁠wisducks.org⁠.

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What happens when you hunt upland birds with both flushing Labs and a pointing dog?

Coleton Johnson of Prairie Upland joins the Upduck Podcast to share how a fully trained British Lab from a Catholic priest introduced his family to bird hunting—and eventually led them to an unconventional team of British Labs and a German wirehaired pointer. We discuss how the dogs work together, hunting pheasants, sharp-tailed grouse, Hungarian partridge and ruffed grouse across Alberta and Saskatchewan, and the habitat challenges facing Canada’s upland birds.

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Jeff returns to the Upduck Podcast to catch up on everything that has happened since stepping away from the show. He shares updates from Shot Shell Hunting, the improvements he has made to his waterfowl and turkey decoy motion systems, and why he traded his long-tail mud motor for a surface drive.

Then the conversation takes an unexpected turn as Jeff explains his plan to hunt ducks and geese with a compound bow, flu-flu arrows, and oversized broadheads. The guys also discuss new puppies, aging gun dogs, retriever training, hunting-season plans, and the chaos of balancing work, family, dogs, and the outdoors.

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Southern Flight Podcast host Robby Nelson joins the Upduck Podcast to talk Southern duck hunting, waterfowl travel, changing migration patterns, habitat loss, flooded corn, and the growing criticism of conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl.

Robby shares how he became a duck hunter, why Southern hunters are seeing fewer birds, and why habitat loss, warmer winters, hunting pressure, and changing agriculture cannot be reduced to one convenient villain. They also discuss social media, unrealistic hunting expectations, respect for wildlife, and the responsibility waterfowl creators have to the next generation.

We also talked a lot about this wonderful organization: Second Chance Flight

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