- And this is one of the coolest things we've gotten to do on this show.

It's one of the most unique duck hunts you can do anywhere, let alone in Minnesota.

There's only a handful of places you can do this across the state.

It's open water, layout boat, duck hunting.

Stick around, we'll tell you where it is and how you can do it too.

For nearly a hundred years, open water duck hunting was restricted in Minnesota.

Despite strong traditions of this type of hunting in other parts of the country, our state chose to protect diving ducks, and kept hunters partially concealed in natural vegetation along the shoreline.

In 2013, waterfowl hunters and the DNR agreed to open up a few select locations to this tactic.

It was mostly border waters where this type of hunting was already allowed in the neighboring states or province.

One interior lake, Mille Lacs, was picked due to its size.

The other lakes and rivers that allowed include Superior, Pepin, portions of the Mississippi River, and Lake of the Woods.

(bright music) (gentle music) Dan Amundson and I would be hunting at the Northwest Angle, and to get there by vehicle, you have to go through Canada.

Just like that, we're through the border again and on our way to the Northwest Angle.

I've never gone this way by road.

I've never been up there when the water's been open.

I've only gone by snowmobile or by the ice road that they built a couple of years ago to go to the Northwest Angle, so I've always wanted to experience driving through Manitoba to see what it's like.

And you never know what you're gonna get when you go through the border, but I'll tell you what, that guy that we had there today was great.

In fact, we've gone to Canada a few times this year and every time we've gone through, the guys at the border have been great and we've gotten through without any issues.

So it was a quick stop through the Customs and now we're on our way.

We're gonna roll through Sprague and go up to the Angle and take a boat out to Flag Island.

Get ready for some duck hunting in the morning.

We crossed at Warroad and took the hour drive through Manitoba to Jim's Corner.

There are a number of ways you can check in with Customs when you do this, including through an app, but we wanted to do it the way it's been done for a number of years, and that's by stopping at this station.

(gentle music) Then it was on to Angle Inlet, where we'd be picked up by the crew from Flag Island.

(gentle music) After unpacking in our cabin, we decided to get a closer look at the layout boats we'd be using.

There's actually quite a bit of room in here, but it doesn't look like much and you're obviously so, so flat.

But you get under here and there's actually quite a bit of room on both sides here to throw your shells or whatever, probably have some camera gear under there but... (zipper zipping) And then you lay it, this is a headrest, right?

So you're gonna lay down as flat as you can.

This is gonna be wild being right at the surface of the water like this.

Eight inches off the surface of the water right here, and if it's anything like a layout blind, if it's nice and sunny and calm, I might take a little nap in here.

It's kind of comfortable already, but ducks come in, (Bret imitates gun firing) lay back down, take a nap, go in and have some lunch, maybe go fishing.

I like it.

I can't wait to do this.

I've wanted to do this for so long, and there are ducks everywhere.

We went out driving around and scouted some ducks out and these guys got us.

There's ducks right there, flying behind 'em right now, flying over.

They got a plan for us for the morning and we're gonna have great weather, lot of ducks around and a completely new duck hunting experience for us, so, (hands clapping) let's go!

(gentle music) - All right, so we mainly are shooting buffleheads.

We do get big, big runs of bluebills in later fall.

Every now and then we'll shoot some sea ducks or we shot a goldeneye here a couple days ago.

- Divers is kind of one of those things.

It's they're there and then they're gone and you have to make that split second decision on it if you have enough time to sit up and get there.

Now, when they do want to sit on on the ends of those lines, turn in and come right to you, then it's a show to behold, 'cause then you don't know what that duck's doing.

He doesn't know what he's doing.

He might sit down, he might turn left, he might turn right and get it outta there on you.

So as soon as they get into the decoys, it's one of those things, you gotta take your opportunities when they come and you'll get plenty of them but to get the ones where it's almost like feels like, a gimme a shot aren't gimmes.

- [Bret] We were looking forward to the challenge.

And after a good night's sleep, it was time to get set up.

♪ We could be in this cover, this cover ♪ All right, so there's, the first boat has been deployed.

Now these guys are gonna get the boats in the water first and then get the decoys set up around them.

Normally with the wind they'll just let the boats kind of drift down wind normally, but they're gonna set 'em just a little bit differently since we're filming.

So we'll have the sun a little bit more at our back.

So just a little bit different set up than normal but we'll get this second boat in the water then get some decoys in and then climb in.

(bright music) With just the two of us hunting, I grabbed the camera and let Dan shoot first.

(bright music) As birds are shot, Forrest and Andy bring the tender boat in with an anxious retriever named Grouse ready to jump in and grab the birds.

♪ This cover, this cover, this cover ♪ ♪ Please this cover, this cover, this cover ♪ ♪ This cover, this, this cover After a few opportunities for Dan, it was my turn.

I hear ducks everywhere right now.

Got ducks swimming in the decoys, ducks flying over.

(water plopping) (heavily exhales) (imitates duck squawking) Right here.

(water plopping) (clothes rustling) (duck wings flapping) Oh no!

(Bret laughing) (bright gentle music) (water sloshing) Oho.

(chuckles) Whoo!

(bright gentle music) ♪ This cover, this cover ♪ We could be in this cover ♪ This cover, this cover ♪ We could be in this cover - Right in front, three pack.

(water sloshing) (clothes rustling) (gun firing) ♪ This cover, we could be (water sloshing) (gun firing) - [Bret] (laughs) Oh!

(upbeat music) We sat here now all morning, we've had divers in your face and normally my diver hunting experience is sit on shore and hopefully get 'em to not wanna sit in the middle of the lake.

So to have 'em trying to land on your face is it's pretty fun, it's pretty cool.

(singers vocalizing) (clothes rustling) (Bret exhales) (water sloshing) Oh, right side, right side.

(water sloshing) (duck squawking) (singers vocalizing) Doggone it.

That first group came in and I'm not gonna lie, they were balled up.

Right side, right side, I don't have any shells in my gun.

(singers vocalizing) Doggone it.

(water sloshing) That was nutty right there.

It's 9:00, things were kind of slowing up just a hair.

All of a sudden a whole group of buffs came through and they balled up over the decoys.

They were going a hundred miles an hour.

Missed them, missed them all completely.

And then more ducks came through.

I ran outta shells, I didn't hit a thing.

That was crazy.

(singers vocalizing) (gentle music) - No, that's why we love the divers up here especially open water, you know.

Your playing field is 360 degrees that you just can't expect them to show up right in front of you like a mallard and come in nice and slow, and so you have time to prepare for 'em, pick out your drakes and whatnot and we see that all the time.

Guys come in with a lot of confidence, and they're shooting these puddle ducks, and shooting half a box and getting their limits.

They come up here and now they're shooting something that's flying a lot faster and they're used to it, different angles, directions, and you know put the element of the big water in.

You're moving with your wave and it's a whole different ballgame and- - I think the gimme birds are the ones that land.

- [Andy] Yes.

- But I'll tell you what, regardless of people's opinions on shooting birds on the wing or shooting 'em in the decoys, whatever on the water, I think that's the fun of this is shooting them on the wing.

- Yup.

- And shooting 'em when they're zipping through it a hundred miles an hour.

And there's a couple of times where they'd be coming straight on and I'd anticipate a turn to the right, my gun would start to swing that way and then they'd go left (chuckles), you know?

- Yep.

- You just never really know where they're gonna go.

Forrest and Andy have been guiding out of layout boats for a few years now.

- 2017 would've been our first year that Andy brought out the first one up.

- What was your first experience like?

- Three boxes of shells for six birds.

(both laughing) - It's not easy.

- It's not, it's a total adjustment and like you know, you get guys that come up here, "Yeah, I'm a pretty good shot," blah, blah, blah.

And then they get into the boat and they're through two boxes of shells and they only got two birds or three birds and next thing they're, "Oh, do you have more shells?"

And so we started in boxes of shells.

- [Bret] Before the fall, waterfowl season, the pair teams up to guide Anglers throughout the summer.

Limited buffleheads, 50-inch musky?

(laughs) - I'm probably on the musky side.

I know, I know Andy's answer will be different.

But this is a very, like it is a nice change in the fall to go shoot shoot ducks you know.

After grinding, you know, muskies for three, four months, it is a lot of fun to go do something else.

- And do guys, when they come up and do that do they do make it a cast and blast?

Is there a package for that?

- [Forrest] Yep, so we offer the whole cast and blast package.

We'll go out and we'll hunt till, you know we normally will be done by 11.

That way we have an hour, hour and a half to get back and pack up and you go out for four hours of fishing in the afternoon whether they want to go jigging for walleyes or we can go trolling or jigging for muskies.

So we kind of have have all the options.

We get guys that just come up for the hunts and we get guys that do the whole package.

- [Bret] Since they offer a cast and blast package, we had to spend a couple of hours at the Walleye Capital trying to catch dinner.

And while we did catch a nice assortment of fish, we were hoping to hook into a musky - Well, we were talking about all the different species you can catch up here, 'cause it's the Lake of the Woods, you just never know what's gonna bite your hook.

(fishing line whirring) - [Speaker 1] It is a musky.

(air whooshing) (water sloshing) (fishing line whirring) (air whooshing) (water sloshing) - [Speaker 2] Well, 40?

- [Speaker 1] Yeah, it's like 40 incher.

(fishing line whirring) - [Speaker 2] Getting closer, yep.

Look at that.

- Energy is out.

(chuckles) - Look at that.

(chuckles) Welcome to Lake of the Woods.

- [Bret] How often does that happen?

- Well, how often?

- Ah... - Sometimes more often than not.

- Yeah.

- Spring and fall when the walleye and the musky down deep together.

You know, you had a really good chance at this.

- [Bret] There's always been a uniqueness to the Northwest Angle.

(water sloshing) and adding layout boat, duck hunting just increase its appeal to those who love the other things.

- [Speaker 3] Ah dang.

- [Bret] And to experience waterfront into a challenge.

(person squeals) (person laughs) - [Speaker 3] This is it.

(upbeat music) (water sloshing) - Right in front.

(water sloshing) I hit one.

(upbeat music) (water sloshing) (gun firing) (chuckles) Had a shooting twice.

You ready?

You ready?

(body squeaking) Whoa, he just skirted the outside the spread with that duck right before it came in perfect, came in low centered up right in the middle of the spread right in front of me.

I shot once, knocked it down and hit the water.

I must have just bumped a wing or something 'cause it got up and started flying again.

I had to shoot it a second time and slowed it down just enough with the first shot that the second shot did the trick but, man, they come in so fast and sometimes they'll come from all directions.

You don't know where to look and all of a sudden you'll look up and they'll be ducks right coming at you in the decoys and you gotta be quick on the trigger.

But thankfully I've gone through a lot of shells today but thankfully there's been a lot of chances so I just need one more.

What an experience up here in lay boats at the Northwest Angle.

- It truly is a unique experience again that I think everybody needs to try.

Whether you're an avid duck hunter, which I'm not.

- [Bret] When people come up here and try for the first time, and then they come back in here to warm up or grab beer or whatever, what do they tell you?

- You know, Forrest and his team truly put on a good experience and, you know, some of them are laughing because they burn through a case of shells and get two ducks and others are limited out by 8:00 in the morning.

So it's fun hearing the camaraderie about that and those groups being able to connect and have that experience.

- On our second day we are joined by two of the workers at Flag Island.

- Thank, I went through a box without hitting a bird.

(Bret laughing) - On the second box it went a little bit better, but it was tough right away.

- It was pretty crazy.

I didn't think I'd be able to get the hang of it.

But I either got really lucky or I figured it out really quick.

- Why slow it all those ducks down for you?

- Yeah.

- First of all.

- Yeah.

- [Bret] 'Cause I missed them all and then you smashed them.

They probably didn't slow down at all.

But that was your first time in a lay boat?

- First time something I'd always wanted to try.

I've never done layout blinds or field- - Duck hunting.

- Field hunting.

Nope, just shore waterfowl hunting and... - [Bret] Left side.

- [Mitchel] It would be kind of unique to try.

(gun firing) - And there we go, I'm done, whoo.

- Nice drake buffy to finish off the day.

That was cool, he came in right in.

I picked him up right as he was going through the sun so I kind of lost him and then he was tracking, so I had to get way out in front of him.

Nine times out of 10 today I would've missed that shot.

(gun firing) (water sloshing) (duck squawking) Takes a little bit of time just to get used to these layout boats.

But, man, once you get it figured out and you get your timing down, especially these little buffies are so small it is so much fun.

And to be honest I thought I was gonna miss that shot, but, man, what a great way to end this trip to Leg of the Woods.

So much fun.

♪ This cover, this cover ♪ This cover, this cover ♪ This, this cover