There’s a point every August where summer starts losing its grip on us.

The boat is still getting used. There are bass to catch and plenty of summer left on the calendar. But mentally? We’re already standing in a marsh somewhere.

Calls start getting picked up more often. Decoys mysteriously migrate out of storage. Ember gets a few more retrieves. I start driving past every little piece of water at about half speed because maybe there are ducks on it.

And this year, early teal is becoming one of the hunts we’re most excited about.

Minnesota’s 2026 early teal season runs September 5–9, with a six-bird combined daily limit of blue-winged, green-winged and cinnamon teal. Unlike the regular duck season, shooting during early teal doesn’t begin until sunrise.

That means we’re getting close.

And our plan for this season is pretty simple:

Stop treating early teal like a miniature version of regular duck season.

Teal Hunting Doesn’t Need to Be Complicated

Waterfowl hunting has a funny way of becoming an equipment competition. We’re as guilty of it as anybody. More decoys, more motion, bigger boats, better blinds and another bag of something we apparently absolutely cannot hunt without.

Then September teal show up and remind you how little of that stuff actually matters.

They’re small birds making fast movements through relatively small pieces of water. When you’re on the right spot, you usually don’t need six dozen decoys and a floating garage sale. You need to be where the teal want to be, hide well and give them a reason to finish.

For us, the goal this year is mobility.

Our early teal setup will probably center around roughly 2½ dozen teal decoys, including ten with swimming attachments. Depending on the water we’re hunting, I also like the idea of mixing in our six early-season mallards and six wood ducks.

That might seem unnecessary for a teal hunt, but think about what an actual Minnesota wetland looks like in early September. It isn’t occupied exclusively by teal. Wood ducks, mallards and teal are naturally mingling together. A few larger ducks add size and color to the spread, which can help make it more visible without making it look unnatural.

The important part is that we’re not hauling half the trailer into the marsh.

I want the entire spread to fit comfortably into a medium sled, get pulled in once, get deployed quickly and be just as easy to pick up if our scouting tells us we need to move.

Because finding teal matters infinitely more than owning teal decoys.

Hunt Current Information, Not Last Year’s Memories

This is one of those lessons that applies to almost every kind of hunting and fishing we do.

We remember where something worked.

There’s a little pothole where we hammered teal two years ago. A marsh that was covered in birds last September. A shallow corner where they always seemed to pile in.

So naturally, we go back.

Sometimes that works. Sometimes we spend an entire morning staring at empty water because we’re hunting a memory instead of birds.

Early-season wetlands can change dramatically from one year to another. Water levels change. Vegetation changes. Food changes. Pressure changes. A phenomenal teal hole can become nearly worthless, while some insignificant cattle pond or shallow flooded corner suddenly becomes the place to be.

We’re trying to become much more disciplined about scouting right up until the hunt.

Even better, I like scouting during roughly the same time of day that we’ll actually be hunting. Seeing forty teal somewhere at six o’clock in the evening tells me they use that water. Watching forty teal pile into it shortly after sunrise tells me considerably more about what our hunt might actually look like.

That’s the information I want.

Don’t Ignore the Water That Looks Too Small

One of my favorite things about teal hunting is that productive water doesn’t necessarily look impressive.

Sometimes it barely looks huntable.

A shallow cattle pond, a tiny marsh pocket, a muddy corner surrounded by grass, a flooded depression or a little patch of sheet water can be exactly what teal want.

Teal don’t care whether a spot looks good in a picture. They care about shallow water, available food and feeling secure.

Small water can actually make our job easier because it limits the number of decisions the birds have to make. On a massive marsh, teal can approach and land in a hundred different places. On a small pocket, there might only be a few natural openings and travel lanes.

Now we can position the decoys around what the birds are naturally going to do instead of trying to overpower the entire wetland with numbers.

That’s exactly the kind of hunt where I want a smaller spread.

Give Them Somewhere Obvious to Land

Teal don’t exactly give you much time to think.

A group can appear out of nowhere, buzz the spread, hook around and disappear before you’ve completely processed what happened.

That’s part of what makes hunting them so much fun.

Because everything happens quickly, I want the spread itself to be incredibly simple. I’m not worried about creating a perfect J-hook or some elaborate pattern we drew on a piece of paper the night before.

I want the birds to see ducks, see movement and immediately see an obvious place to land.

That might mean putting twelve or fifteen teal on one side of an opening and another smaller group on the other. The exact number doesn’t really matter. The important part is creating open water close to where we’re hidden.

Think less about the shape of the decoys and more about the shape of the empty space between them.

That’s where we want the teal.

And because these birds often come screaming in low, I don’t want unnecessary clutter surrounding that pocket. Give them a runway and let them make the final decision.

I’ll Take Motion Over Another Dozen Decoys

Early September can bring some brutally calm mornings.

No wind means no ripples, no bobbing decoys and a spread that can look painfully dead.

That’s where I think motion becomes more valuable than simply adding another bag of stationary decoys.

Ten of our teal have swimming attachments, and I think those could be extremely useful in the right situation. I also like having a couple power kickers available and potentially a pair of spinning-wing mallards for visibility.

But I don’t necessarily want everything running all the time.

There’s a difference between attracting birds and making birds comfortable enough to finish.

Flash can help teal locate a spread from a distance. Once they’re interested, subtle water movement may be more valuable. Even a basic jerk rig can make an entire spread look alive because the ripples spread well beyond the few decoys actually attached to it.

That’s something we’ll be experimenting with this season.

How much motion do we actually need?

Do two spinners work better than one? Do we shut them off once birds start working? Are swimming decoys enough on smaller water?

I don’t know that there’s one answer.

That’s part of why I’m excited to test it.

They’re Teal. They’re Not Blind.

Teal have a reputation for being easy to fool, and compared with a flock of late-season mallards that has been shot at from Canada to southern Minnesota, that’s probably fair.

That doesn’t mean we can sit in the open.

We still want to disappear.

Early-season vegetation gives us a lot to work with, and I’d much rather use what’s already there than build some giant artificial fortress. Keep the profile low, break up our outlines and hide anything shiny.

Most importantly, stop moving when somebody sees birds.

Teal move so quickly that hunters have a tendency to panic.

Someone whispers, “Birds.”

Three heads immediately snap around.

Someone grabs the shotgun.

Another person turns completely around trying to find them.

The dog knows something is happening and starts moving.

And somewhere during that entire circus, the teal already saw us.

Let them come.

There will be plenty of time to move when it’s time to shoot.

This Season Means Something Different With Ember

This year also adds another variable for us.

Ember.

Every hunt with a young dog really has two goals. There’s the hunt you want to have, and there’s the hunt the dog needs to have.

Sometimes those line up perfectly.

Sometimes they don’t.

Early teal could give Ember some fantastic experience. The water is warm, retrieves are often relatively manageable, and if we scout correctly there can be enough bird contacts to get meaningful repetitions.

But September heat also means we need to be smart.

A motivated retriever isn’t necessarily going to tell you she’s getting too hot. If birds keep falling and we keep sending her, she’ll probably keep going.

That’s on us.

I’m much more interested in getting a handful of really good, positive retrieves than forcing a young dog through an entire morning because we want another bird on the strap.

Mark the bird. Stay steady. Get sent. Make the retrieve. Bring it back. Reset.

Those are the repetitions that matter.

If Ember makes two or three beautiful retrieves and the temperature starts climbing, I’m perfectly okay with deciding we’ve accomplished what we came to accomplish.

We’re trying to build a dog for years of hunting, not just September 2026.

Sunrise Gives Us Time to Settle In

One thing anyone hunting Minnesota’s early teal season needs to remember is that shooting starts at sunrise, not a half hour before sunrise like we’re accustomed to during much of the regular waterfowl season.

I actually don’t mind that.

Those extra thirty minutes give us time to get settled without feeling rushed. We can watch the marsh wake up, listen to what’s happening around us, let Ember settle into her spot and start seeing where birds are moving.

It also gives us time to identify what we’re looking at.

Early-season duck identification matters. Plenty of other ducks are moving around Minnesota wetlands at the same time, and the early season is specifically for teal.

If we’re not certain what we’re looking at, the answer is pretty simple.

Don’t shoot.

There will be another group.

Keep the Whole System Light

That’s really the theme for us this September.

Keep it simple.

I don’t want an early teal hunt that requires a convoy to get everything from the truck to the water.

Give me the medium sled, roughly 2½ dozen teal, maybe the six mallards and six wood ducks depending on the spot, a couple motion options, lightweight concealment, dog gear, calls, shells and our camera equipment.

Done.

If three people each need two trips back to the truck, we’ve probably missed the point.

The faster we can get in and out, the more willing we’ll be to explore little pieces of water. And if we show up somewhere and realize the birds aren’t doing what we expected, moving shouldn’t feel like such a massive undertaking that we decide to sit there anyway.

Mobility gives us options.

Options kill birds.

September Is Our Dress Rehearsal

That’s probably what I’m looking forward to most about early teal this year.

Yes, I want to shoot ducks.

Of course I do.

But this is also our first real systems check before the regular season begins.

Did all that trailer organization actually make things easier? Did we remember everything? Does our motion setup work the way we imagined? How does Ember handle real birds? Is our concealment system quick enough? Does the camera setup work when everything happens in five seconds instead of giving us time to prepare?

You can organize gear in the garage all summer and convince yourself you’ve created the perfect system.

Then you actually hunt with it.

That’s when you learn.

I’d much rather discover those little problems during a warm September teal hunt than on a cold regular-season morning when we’re already trying to manage more decoys, more equipment and potentially more hunters.

By the time the regular season arrives, I want the little things to feel automatic.

Maybe Less Really Is More

We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about waterfowl gear this summer.

Probably too much.

Decoys. Blinds. Motion systems. Calls. Bags. Trailers. Sleds. Dog equipment.

I love that stuff, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.

But early teal might be exactly the reminder we need before the rest of the season begins.

At the end of the day, the formula is still incredibly simple.

Find the birds.

Get where they want to be.

Hide.

Give them somewhere to land.

Add enough life to the spread to make it believable.

Then stay out of your own way.

A medium sled. A couple dozen decoys. Ember sitting beside us. A little piece of Minnesota water with steam rolling off it as the sun starts coming up.

Then somebody catches movement over the cattails.

“Teal. Left side.”

After an entire offseason of waiting, I don’t think we’re going to need much more than that.

– Max & Danielle
Burley Outdoors