The sites of Underwood North Dakota

Throughout the week, we snapped a few pictures of the major attractions in the city of Underwood.

As you can see from the welcome sign, there is a golf course very close, so next year we plan to leave enough room in the truck so we can bring our clubs too!!

There were really only two places the eat in town: Snyder's cafe' and Grimsley's Fuel and Exhaust (where we actually did get pizza twice through the week).

We didn't get a picture of both of them, but here is one of the two bars in town, which happens to be co-located with the senior citizen center.

As you can tell from the pictures, the people here seem to be very good at multitasking. My favorite example of this can be seen in the picture of the chiropractic center / nail salon.

You may also notice the grain processing plant right in the middle of Main Street. This was across the parking lot from our hotel and had active train tracks that ran beside it for loading.

That pretty much wraps off all of the sites and attractions of Underwood, North Dakota.

Tired hunters

Here's a picture I took last night after we finished packing. It looks like the three dogs have Bill surrounded, making sure that he cannot get up to take them hunting, at least for a few more hours.

Yesterdays goose hunt

As you can see from the pictures below, our goose hunt was successful. While it didn't turn out exactly how we had hoped, with thousands of geese landing directly on top of us, we did have thousands of geese fly directly over us at low altitude and land approximately 300 yards from us. It was a very cool site to see. Between the two of us we were able to kill two lesser Canada Geese and one Specklebelly Goose. We could have killed more, but we only brought 10 shells with us - so we killed our 3 geese and called it a day since we knew we had a long night of packing ahead of us.

We were mostly packed by 11:30 PM. When we woke up to hunt pheasants today, winds were over 25 mph again which was not good conditions for pheasant hunting, as we learned the first two days here. So, we finished up our packing and hit the road to head back home.

We expect to hit Minneapolis around 7:30 PM, where we will be visiting with Craig Peterson and his wife Mary. Our ETA in Carmichaels is approximately 1 PM Friday. We are looking forward to hunting Pennsylvania state game lands Saturday morning and seeing how our dogs work East Coast pheasants.

Last big day

Well, duck hunting was a bust today. We were in early and set up (same spot as yesterday), and had about 50 ducks land on the pond in front of us out of range. One came into range and we shot and killed it. With no ducks in the air, we saw the writing on the wall and shut it down at 8:45.

We switched Gunner for Win and Mag and were pheasant hunting by 10:30. We flushed 7 today, 3 hens and 4 roosters. Too bad we came home with nothing. Of the roosters, 2 were behind trees or other obstacles that blocked our shot, Bill flat out missed a gimme that Mag had trailed for about 200yds, and the 4th flushed just out if range. Despite no kills, it was a good day.

I write this post from a cornfield, waiting for Dan's geese to arrive... We watched them hit this spot at 9:30am, so we are hopeful they will return tonight. If so, it will be a sight not soon forgotten!

Plan is to pack tonight, hunt pheasant tomorrow am, then hit the road around lunchtime.

Rainy pheasant hunt

Dan here... It's been 40° and raining all day. We started hunting pheasants at 12:30. We flushed, and I shot a rooster two minutes into the hunt. Two minutes later, Mag flushed a hen and a rooster out of range. We hunted for 2 1/2 hours more in the rain and saw no more pheasants. Winnie flushed and I made three solid hits on something Other Than a Pheasant. I will explain whenever I see any of you in person. Please remember to ask me, as this is an interesting story. This is the picture of some of the cover we hunted today. Specifically, this is where I shot the "Other Than Pheasant". The GPS totals for today's pheasant hunt were: Winnie 10.04 miles covered, Maggie 9.12 miles covered. There were several large expanses we had to cross to get from hunting spot to hunting spot, which is what inflated their miles on today's hunt. However, that means that we walked more today than other days, though the walking was a little easier at times.

It's 3:04 PM and we are now heading back to the hotel to change clothes one more time. We're both very tired, but we figure that we didn't drive 1500 miles to sit on a couch in a hotel. So, instead we will head out for what hope we hope to be an awesome goose hunt.

Most ducks I've ever seen

Well, I'm not sure what to say about our hunt today. The day started-out with about 700 Ducks (not exaggerating) land on the pond directly in front of us before legal shooting time. Once we were allowed to shoot, we probably shouldn't have since we couldn't hit anything all day long. After 2 1/2 hours of shooting, you might assume that we got our limits; However, we only came home with nine ducks. We finally ran out of shells. When I say ran out, I mean we shot 65 shells.

After about halfway through this fiasco, our shooting was so bad that Gunner stopped being irritated with us for missing, and didn't even bother to pay attention when we shot.

I guess our wives are again absolutely right in that we need to practice our shooting. To that end, we both agree that we will shoot lots more sporting clays over the next year.

While we are both immensely embarrassed at our shooting performance, even that cannot overshadow the spectacle that we were lucky enough to witness. It is truly hard to describe what we saw with accuracy. I hope the pictures will do it a little bit of justice.

Gunner did a very good job today, staying steady through all of the morning activity of ducks landing when we couldn't shoot. He also remained steady at the beginning of the morning as we were shooting and missing, then it became really easy for him to stay steady because he was operating under the assumption that we would miss every shot! He had to pick up a couple very long cripples, and one long blind through open water, but everything else were fairly simple retrieves for him.

We stopped to thank the landowner and ask permission to hunt there again tomorrow, and it was granted. We are now on our way back to the hotel to pick up Winnie and Maggie and continue North to the new pheasant grounds we scouted yesterday. We are hoping to be back to this area with enough time left for a goose hunt this evening, but I'm not sure that is going to materialize.

After skipping dinner last night because we were both too tired to eat, I am really looking forward to eating a sandwich in the truck while we drive to the pheasant hunting location.

PS- In other news, the brakes on the truck are again working properly. My thumb is painful but I'm still in stable condition.

So far on this trip our occupations have included: hunter, mechanic, doctor, dog trainer, salesman (schmoozing landowners to get permission to hunt) chef, and pack mules (waterfowl hunting requires one to carry a lot of gear).

Evening scouting and tomorrow's plan

Scouting was very productive, even though it was a bit abbreviated. We found several spots, all in close proximity to one another that looked good. We also watched several roosters running around this area, so that's a good sign... The dogs went for the ride with us and they saw them too. Winnie pointed one from the front seat of the truck - see picture below!

Tomorrow, we're going to hunt ducks first, at the pond where there were several hundred sitting today. After we limit there, we'll change to pheasant clothes and go kill 3 roosters each. Once that is done, we are going to do a layout hunt for Canada Geese in a field where we have observed them landing late afternoon/evening the last 2 days.

Now it is time to try our duck a'la orange and then hit the sack!

Wish us luck!

PS - Having an issue with the brakes on the truck, so let's hope it's nothing serious. We checked the fluid reservoir tonight and it was empty. We added 2 bottles of brake fluid and checked visually for leaks and found none, so we'll keep a close eye on it for the next 2 days - before the trip home...

I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holliday Inn express...

It's a good thing we have a nurse for a mother and that I was pre-med 2 semesters.
We also now know that we should leave the cooking to the professionals - Lori and Jennifer!

While cutting up oranges, apples, onion for our duck dinner, Dan sliced his thumb pretty bad. Unfortunately, it was at the tip of the thumb, so it can't be stitched - so it was Dr. Bill to the rescue. Thankfully, we were well-prepared with several first aid kits and had enough supplies to get it handled. I attached a couple pics that I took while the action was happening - multi-tasking at it's finest!

With the combination of direct pressure, military coagulant, athletic tape, and crazy glue - Dan is back in action!

Now that we're over this bump in the road, we are off to do some scouting.

Probably no additional posts for tonight, but I will be sure to check for comments later.

After scouting, we are looking forward to watching Romney wipe the floor with Obama, then we'll head to bed.

After seeing the ducks on the pond (and gaining permission) that we posted earlier, we are deciding if we want to hunt ducks or pheasants first tomorrow. We'll see...

Monday's duck hunt

Dan, Bill and gunner hunted a new spot for ducks today. We hunted from 8 to 11 and killed five ducks. One hen Pintail, one Shoveler, and three Gadwall. We are heading out to scout for pheasants this afternoon since we are giving the dogs a break. Let's hope our pheasant scouting pays off and we can put up enough roosters tomorrow to get our limits.

Here is a picture of the spot we plan to hunt tomorrow for ducks. The picture quality isn't the greatest because it was taken with the phone from 500 yards away. With that being said, we estimate 500+ ducks to be resting on the water. Every speck you see on the water is a duck. We looked at them through the spotting scope, and identified them as Mallards, Gadwall, and Wigeon. There is limited vegetation around the edge of the pond, so we expect hiding will be a problem. We have now realized that before next years trip, we need our wives to make us ghillie suits.

Sunday roosters!

After getting some advice about hunting the thick stuff, coupled with some intel from the landowner where we hunted ducks this morning, we did better this afternoon. Overall we found 5 roosters and 6 hens. However, the hunting was HARD. We covered about the same amount of ground as previous days, but 80% of it was in cattails, other similar high stuff, and phragmites that was about 9 feet tall. To say that it was tough on the dogs and on us is the biggest understatement of the year!

Winnie and Gunner hunted for 2.5 hours and then we switched Gunner for Mag because Gunner was totally tired after crashing thru cattails and thick stuff for 2 hours. Winnie and Mag hunted together for about 2 more hours. All 3 hunted superbly. Gunner registered 2 beautiful points, producing 1 bird - a hen. We are guessing that on the other point, the bird ran out and they just didn't find it because I've never seen him hold a point that long and NOT produce a bird... Other than that, he found and flushed a rooster in the cattails that I shot and Winnie made a nice retrieve, because he couldn't see it because the cattails were too high...

Winnie had a several good points on hens and 2 on roosters. On the first of the 2 roosters she pointed, she found and pointed it, then trailed the rooster for about 75 yards as it ran, was slowing to reset and point again when it flushed. It was a 25 yard shot for Dan - that he missed... The other point was excellent too. She was in the middle of phragmites and we heard her beeper go off, and then again, and then again, and then again... Finally a bird holding tight! Dan charged in and flushed it, and I shot it for Winnie to retrieve - which she did. Mag stayed steady while I shot and she honored while Winnie retrieved.

We had a passing rooster fly low enough to take a shot at, and we both missed - mostly me missing and Dan firing to back me up... A few minutes later, Dan flushed another rooster underfoot (independent of the dogs) and promptly missed that one too. At that point, he was getting (understandably) frustrated...

We concluded the day by stalking and killing a duck on the slough as we headed back to the truck. Mag was happy to swim across it to make the retrieve.

I included a few pictures here that I hope can do justice to the cover we were in today. It was enough to make even Dan decide that we are going to NOT hunt pheasants tomorrow and let the dogs (and our own legs) rest. We'll hunt ducks tomorrow morning and spend the afternoon scouting for some new pheasant spots for Tu-Wed-Thur. We're planning to hunt pheasants in the morning on Tuesday (and ducks in the afternoon) to maybe give us a better chance on the pheasants.

After such an exhausting afternoon, we were too tired to make dinner, so we splurged and  treated ourselves to a fancy dinner - takeout pizza from the gas station next to the hotel. It was really good!

Here's some background info on these pictures: The top one is the cover where Winnie pointed and held the rooster that I shot. She was in the middle of the tall stuff (phragmites). The cattails to the right were as tall as Dan.
The second pic is Mag running in front of some grasses that were not nearly as tall, but were super thick. We went through a good bit of this stuff, and all of it was really hard for us to walk through. No wonder the dogs are all so tired!
I twisted my ankle 2x (which has been about the daily norm) and fell down 3 or 4 times (which has also been the norm). It's just really tough going out here!!!
The last picture - well, can you look at it and tell us "what's wrong with this picture", or at least - what doesn't make sense?

Sunday ducks

This morning finished with six ducks. We huntred the same property where we limited-out on Thursday. One Wood Duck, one Mallard, one Shoveler, and three Gadwall. Mag made a couple excellent, difficult retrieves. We could have shot a little better, but all in all, it was a good morning.

Attached are a couple pictures I snapped earlier today.

We got some advice from a local landowner for new places to hunt pheasants, so we are eating lunch in the truck now and getting ready to hunt pheasants, probably starting by 1 PM.

Post for Saturday

FIRST - the most important thing - today is Gunner's birthday. He turned 8 today! What a great way for him to celebrate, and we kept the streak alive of hunting on his BD.

This post is going to be quick, because I'm tired... sorry.

We hunted ducks this am in a small pothole. After we shot 1 and had more than a dozen land on the other side, we picked-up and moved there. Problem was that by the time we did this and got settled, it was nearly time to quit for the day. Gunner hunted ducks for the morning and we totaled 3. A BW Teal, a hen Shovler, and a very nice drake Gadwall. I saved a wing from the teal and the gadwall for Christopher and AJ.

We were pheasant hunting by 12:30 and the girls went strong from 12:30 to 4. GPS collars said they covered about 7 miles each. We hunted a new spot (a Waterfowl Production Area) that had a lot of grassland surrounding a large marsh. We were super mindful to be quiet - and the girls couldn't have been better. We went with no bell on Mag and no beeper on Winnie to minimize sound and we didn't have to give them a single command for the first 30 minutes. They were hunting naturally and perfectly. Despite all 4 of our best efforts, we were only able to come home with 1 rooster. We found and flushed 2 hens and another rooster that Mag found and flushed 20 yards in front off me - but I missed 2x.

We talked to some guys here at the hotel tonight who said they have been only finding pheasants - and particularly roosters - in the cattails. Maybe we'll employ that strategy tomorrow.

Dinner and pheasant videos

Well, It appears that our culinary skills are genetically inherited.

Below are 2 videos. The first is a clip of Winnie and Gunner hunting at the outset of the afternoon. We were trying to take Lance's advice and only talk and direct the dogs when necessary. For the most part, they both hunted well all day, with very minimal intervention from us. This clip is representative of the first hour and a half of the hunt - after that, Gunner slowed down some, and was pretty tired by the 2.5 hour mark. Winnie went strong all day...
The second clip is Winnie's first point on a truly wild bird. Because it was filmed with my video glasses, and I was some distance away, allow me to explain what you will see (using the clock on the bottom-right of the video): at 3:26:42 Winnie has been on point long enough for her collar to register the point (beep), she holds it through the second beep (at 3:26:49) as Dan and Gunner are moving around behind/beside her. At 3:26:50 the bird flushes (though you cannot see the bird). Dan was a little unhappy that Winnie didn't sit on the flush. However, she did respond promptly to the whistle sit, so no harm done. For this video, you should probably enlarge it to full screen for viewing (so you can see the time stamp described above within the video...).

We were able to change the blog settings so that anyone can comment to us (you no longer need to have a gmail account).

Dogs did great pheasant hunting

Pheasant hunting went very well today, however we don't have anything to show for it. The wind was much lighter today and the birds were holding tight, very similar to how they behave when hunting in Pennsylvania. Winnie registered her first real point on a wild pheasant, but we couldn't shoot it because it was a hen. Winnie hunted very hard for about 3.5 hrs and Gunner went hard for about 2.5 hours. Together, they found 8 Pheasants, all within shooting range, but they were all hens. According to Winnie's GPS tracking collar Winnie has run about 15 miles in the last two days of hunting. Between the 2 of us, we think we have some good video footage of the hunt today, so check back in a couple hours to see that and also get an update on the culinary masterpiece that is going to be our duck dinner tonight!

PS - I got a text from Greg McCummings a little while ago showing Dixie (Gunner's daughter) retrieving a duck that he shot at home in PA. Good job Greg and Dixie!

Late morning ducks

Around 9am, we realized we had picked the wrong spot - big shock to everyone, I'm sure...
We quickly picked-up andd moved about 200 yards and hunted another hour there, bagging 4 ducks. 3 were Bluebill and 1 was a Shovler. Mag made a great blind retrieve on one of the cripples, handling out to 75 yards or so, then taking casts from Bill when the duck dove and resurfaced 40 yards away from her (and out of her sight). All that training and testing is paying off!!!! We stopped hunting at 10:45 to transition to pheasants.

Day 2 ducks

Slow morning so far for ducks. We are in a good-looking spot and the spread and layout boat look fine (tucked into cattails), but there is not much duck action in the sky. Dan shot one Ruddy Duck about 20 minutes ago, and Mag made a fine retrieve. A dead duck 30 yards in front of us was a nice, easy way for her to start her duck duties. We are going to give the duck hunting another hour and a half, then switch for some mid-day pheasants.

We have a crockpot of barbecue duck waiting for us when we get back tonight, and I'm sure you be waiting anxiously to hear if culinary skills rendered those ducks edible.

Day 1 Pheasants

Well, the pheasants were more affected by the wind than the ducks were today. In spite of the fact that Winnie and Maggie hunted great, we only scratched-out 1 bird. we saw about 50, but they were flushing wild WAY out in front of us and the dogs. It was not unusual to see birds flush 100 yards in front of the dogs. We missed 1 we should have nailed, and we didn't get off a shot at one that flushed pretty close because we were looking at each other and talking and didn't see it flush. We also flushed several hens that were within killing range, but they only served as sit-to-flush practice for the girls - which both were extremely steady all day. We wasted exactly 0 time, since our dogs never chased flushed birds...

We wrapped-up our pheasant hunt around 4 and spent a few hours scouting for additional ground to hunt. We just got back to the hotel and got birds cleaned and have ourselves packed for tomorrow morning - so that's why I'm just posting now... We still haven't eaten dinner yet, and bedtime is closing in fast!

Tomorrow we are going to hunt out of the boat at Lake Brekken - we saw mallards and pintails (as well as other species) in there the last 2 days. I need to find somewhere to shoot a Black Duck or AJ is not going to allow me to come home... We are also going to hunt pheasants at Brekken in the afternoon.

PS - I'll let you guess who shot the pheasant and who missed the one that should have been bagged...

Limits already

Well, to say that today was a good day of duck hunting would be an understatement. It didn't seem like optimal conditions, due to the 40+ mph winds, however, that didn't reduce our success. We had ducks landing in our spread before legal shooting time at 7:36... and it continued like that for the next hour until we both had our limits of Ducks (before 8:30). In today's bag are: 1 Blue Winged Teal, 1 Green Winged Teal, 2 Drake Mallards, 1 Drake Shoveler, 5 Drake Gadwall, and 2 Hen Gadwall. We hunted a small slough on private property that we scouted and got permission to hunt yesterday. Apparently our scouting time yesterday paid off, because we were exactly where the ducks wanted to be. Gunner was AWESOME and found everything that we sent him on, to include a beautiful 80 yard blind. At the end of the blind, Bill gave him the command to "Hunt it up". Gunner searched that area for about 30 seconds and returned with the wounded Drake. A picture of his return with that bird is attached.

We have switched out our gear to prep for pheasant hunting, just finished eating lunch, and are loading up "The Girls" (Winnie and Mag) to go try to find a few pheasants.

Other pics are: Gun sitting (with the obviously alive) duck in his mouth while looking over his shoulder as more ducks were incomming; The definitive image for the saying: "a pile of ducks"; and Gunner already enjoying some well-earned rest on the couch.

 

Scouting

So far we have seen 15 to 20 pheasants and hundreds of ducks. We have a few good places in mind for tomorrow. This is 19th Ave. along turtle Lake. Thank goodness we have four-wheel-drive.

Ready to stretch our legs

We are all unpacked and settled-in. We're heading out to scout and let the dogs run a little. Maybe we'll run into a couple birds... It's 45 degrees and 50mph wind right now, so not the best conditions. Forecast looks better starting tomorrow, so no worries...

Arrival in Underwood North Dakota

Although it will come as no surprise to you the reader, the Everly Brothers have arrived in Underwood exactly on time, which is to say that we have executed a 1370 Mile trip with a fully loaded truck, boat, and three dogs, with three pitstops in exactly 20 hours as prescribed by our itinerary.

Our average driving speed was 74 mph. Factoring in the 3, 30 minute stops, the average speed was 68.5 mph.

Next on the agenda is checking into the hotel and unpacking. After that we are going to spend the day scouting and will let the dogs stretch their legs.

Dan says if he could estimate cost as well as he estimates time, CJIS would be a lot better off...

While I have no idea what that means, I'm sure that some government workers out there will understand.

Attached is a picture of our hotel door. We're here!

North Dakota, at last

The picture below is the sign that I missed saying "welcome to North Dakota." Sorry you don't get to see the sign, you just get to see the black sky that was behind it.

We just completed our final fuel and bathroom stop before arriving Underwood North Dakota, our final destination. We have about 3 1/2 hours to go. Dan is still driving and going strong.

Somewhere in Minnesota

We're about an hour and a half from Minneapolis. Just stopped for refueling and bathroom break for people and dogs. Amazingly, we are just about on schedule! We were able to complete that stop in under 30 minutes.

I decided that I was getting tired of driving after 15 1/2 hours, so Dan decided to take a shift. I figure with him driving, we should be to North Dakota any minute now...

As you can see, all 3 dogs are content and enjoying the trip.

Chicago

Washington,PA to Chicago 6 1/2 hours. 25 minute stop in Indiana for bathroom, fill up, eat, and let the dogs run. Plan to stop east of Minneapolis at 1 AM for gas, food, and bathroom breaks for us and the dogs.

On the road

Fully loaded and leaving home. 7:15 AM.

Trip Planning

Here is what it the Everly boys think it takes to properly plan for a freelance out-of-state hunt... Our wives think we are crazy, but anything worth doing, is worth doing right - and to us, that means doing it in great detail...  Are we crazy, or does this seem like normal prep work?

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1jonFfr9WrPIOR9pLgiF35OQxujA8Rtb8D5dhmRVBFeY

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1WoPQtPCMEnFkUdVvZsGsz_zqruZ9JPduYIh3pPiOHP0

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1Z7DCBRVYBOIWWdMa5ehTqi7r-322ihdwDjzzXZ5UO3c