Fargo, ND

...Where it's so cold that even the outdoor Living section of Walmart is totally

indoors!

Wrap-up pheasant hunt

We concluded the trip a few minutes ago with an abbreviated, windy pheasant hunt. Winnie went for the first hour and 15 minutes, getting birdy a few times but never producing a bird. Given the 20+ mile-per-hour wind, she did a nice job, and I don't think the lack of bird production was her fault.

At that point, we switched out Winnie for the father-son duo and hunted Gunner with Jackson for 30 minutes. Despite their best efforts, there were no birds to be found today.

We are now all headed East and look forward to sleeping in our own beds at the conclusion of our short little drive from here to home.

I never got to finish my coffee...

We decided yesterday that today will be our last day here. We're heading home a day early since we didn't take a day off in the middle if the week, and we're both content with our trip. 

This am we shot 2 limits at the Goven pond. The one problem was that every time I poured coffee, I had to put it down to shoot at a duck. By the end of the morning, it was a joke between me and Dan. Finally, I did get to finish 1 cup while still hot, then the final group came in and we finished our shooting. The pond was totally iced-over so we broke a hole in our front and set our 12 decoys, and that was enough to bring birds within shooting range. We got 2 GW Teal and the remainder were Gadwall. Almost all were passing shots, so it took us a little longer to fill our limits than if the ducks were committing to our dekes... Of interest, all the ducks were content to land on the ice, as close as 30yds from our open water. I've maybe not hunted enough cold-weather ducks, but this was something I'd not seen before. I expected them to be drawn to land in our open hole.

Mag did a great job and battled ice on virtually every retrieve, with me having to wade out to help her get unstuck on a couple. We wrapped-up at 9:45 and are now heading to the hotel for lunch, packing, and bird cleaning. 

After all that and we check out of the hotel, we'll hunt pheasants for a couple hours, then hit the road for home.

Wednesday evening duck hunting

We hunted ducks this evening on a private pond south of Turtle Lake. It was partly cloudy and 35° with a 10 mile-per-hour wind out of the Southwest. We hunted from 2 until 630. In total, we shot 4 ducks. One ringneck duck, one shoveler, and 2 gadwall. The spot we were in should have produced great duck hunting, but for some reason it didn't. When we entered the pond, somewhere between 100 and 200 ducks flushed from the spot where we set up - they just never came back!

Gunner did a good job retrieving the 4 that we did shoot and handled each of the routine retrieves with his newfound unhurried and unexcited attitude. He seems (to me) like he's enjoying himself, he's just developed a more businesslike attitude vs. the excitement of younger years.

Tomorrow morning, we are heading back to the private pond near Lake Brekken for ducks. After lunch, we will go back to the same areas for pheasant we have hunted the last two days, and hope to have similar success!

Another good day of pheasant hunting

We hunted pheasants this morning at the same spot as last night. We hunted from 8:45AM until 12:15p.m. We killed four roosters, but only were able to recover three. The one that got away was trailed by Winnie for 500 yards (yardage determined by GPS), then we lost the trail of it. The best part of this trail was that Dan actually saw the bird running and trying to fly somewhere between the 400 and 500 yard area, but it was quicker then he could get a safe shot off with Winnie nearby.

For the days total, we flushed five roosters and six hens. Of those, Winnie had four or five points. Winnie hunted the first hour alone, then Mag joined her for the next two hours.

Today's first rooster was a total team effort and will be one we'll remember for a long, long time. Winnie had a beautiful point, followed by a good shot by Dan. At that time, Winnie was hunting solo. The teamwork part came into play because the bird was pointed and flushed on the edge of a large lake and flew out to sea as Dan shot it. After he shot it, it continued to sail away from us. When it finally spiraled and splashed down, it was between 200 and 300 yards off shore. Oh, did I mention that it was extremely foggy and you could barely see as far as the bird fell. Making a valiant attempt at a retrieve, Winnie got into the water (which is about 33° right now) and swam all the way out as far as the bird before Dan tried to handle her to it because she was about 50 yards on the wrong side of the wind. As the handling was unsuccessful, I dropped my pack and ran back (about 800 yards) to the truck to get Maggie. While I was gone, Dan did his best to keep an eye on the bird in the fog while also trying to warm up Winnie by taking off his coat and wrapping her in it. After Maggie and I ran back, she executed the blind retrieve in a manner befitting a GMHR...

The two of them hunted together for the next couple hours, and produced three more roosters and several hens. Of today's roosters, two of them came from the scrubby, brushy vegetation along the lake shore. Maggie put one up out of the cattails. The fourth was someone else's wounded bird that Maggie trailed for 50 or so yards and then caught while it was running away (saving me the cost of a shotgun shell). The other bird came from a grassy area interspersed with small trees.

 I know the attached pictures will not do justice to the difficulty of the water retrieve, but I'll include them anyway...

That's what I'm talking about!

This afternoon, it was around 40° with a five mile-per-hour wind. We hunted at Lake Brekken, just North of the town of Turtle Lake. Because we were a little late getting out of the hotel and then we were putting in some time thanking landowners, we got a little over two hours of pheasant hunting in tonight.

During that two hours, we put up 15 birds, around half of which were roosters. We killed two of them and hit a third, but not hard enough to bring it down. There was a fourth that we both shot-at and missed cleanly. Additionally, Dan shot at and missed one more. Winnie registered 11 solid points. Of the 15 birds we put up, she found almost all of them. For the first hour, we hunted Winnie and Gunner together. For the second hour we hunted her with Jackson.

Dan said that without a doubt, today was the greatest performance of Winnie's  life, and I wholeheartedly agree! It was also very heartwarming and a little emotional to watch Gunner hunt as well, considering he's not even supposed to be here. Jackson did a good job too and registered his first point ever, and also got his first true flush on a wild bird that he worked all by himself!

As you can imagine, it was two hours of nonstop action. This is the type of pheasant hunting that we envisioned here and are willing to drive 1500 miles for! We don't know really what else to say other then we are f'ing psyched right now!

 

Tuesday's icy duck hunting

This morning, we hunted ducks at a new spot near Lake Brekken owned by the Goven's. Our plan went awry when we arrived to discover the pond 60% iced over. The overnight low the previous night was 20 with the temperature at sunrise being 22° with five mile-per-hour wind out of the Southeast.

We managed, by being mobile and flexible (because we planned to be flexible) to scratch out seven ducks. We took a pair of GW Teal, three Gadwalls, one Widgeon, and one Buffelhead.

We also could have easily shot a pheasant who flushed 5 yards in front of us as we headed to the truck, but we did not have permission to hunt pheasants on this property.

Below is a picture of Maggie with most of the ducks. Also pictured is the fabulous sleeping arrangement that I have each night. It's a wonder that I get any sleep at all!

 

No stinking pheasants

This evening we hunted two different locations on the Douglas Creek WMA, West of Garrison. We started around 315 and ended around six. Weather was chilly, 27° and wind was around 8 mph. Both areas looked promising, with nice diversity of cover ranging from fence lines to woody rows to grassy fields, to also include some thick stuff like phragmites and cattails. We hunted all of this. Both areas had adjacent row crops of wheat and corn. One area had some small (100yd x100yd square) cornfields that were standing and we hunted those as well with no success.

In total, we flushed three hens and one rooster. Two of the hens came from the grass, one came from a woody row, and the rooster came out of a small fenceline. Winnie successfully pointed 2 hens with the third hen flushing in front of me and the rooster flushing wild about 20 yards in front of Winnie, who was about 40 yards in front of us. Her second point was especially nice, establishing point after trailing for a little while and pointing approximately 15 yards from the bird. It held tight for a few seconds, then flushed wild before we could get near it. Let's hope tomorrow is a better day than today for both pheasants and ducks!

The one thing we know for certain is that we are headed to the hotel to enjoy another excellent dinner prepared for us by our wives. Lori's lasagna and Jennifer's chicken dish have both been excellent and are very much appreciated.

Beautiful sunrise

That's about all we got out of this morning's duck hunting. Temperature at legal shooting time of 7:52 AM was 25° and we had a 15 mile-per-hour wind out of the northeast. The spot we had located on Coal Lake that held hundreds of ducks and a few thousand geese three days ago was devoid of all activity this morning. We believe that is attributable to the change in wind direction and 20° drop in temperature. Gunner was very happy to remain curled in his mutt hut for the hour and a half we spent there.

With the lack of activity, we called it quits early and spent the last two hours driving around scouting for new spots for both pheasant and duck. We located what appears to be decent spots for each and obtained permission for the Duck location, which is on private property. The pheasant location is at Lake Brekken, housing a good amount of woody cover and grassy ditches.

Sunday night ducks

Tonight we hunted at Jerry's place from four to 6:30 PM. Wind was 25mph out of the north. We set a small spread of six decoys to mimic the birds that have been using that spot and hid ourselves in the adjacent cattails with the wind at our back. To start, we had Mag on the retriever stand, but decided to move her and she was very content to then reside in her dog blind at the ground level, protected from the wind. 

Shooting was minimal, with us taking three mallards, two of which were Drakes, on 3 shots. We got those as we snuck into the spot to start the evening. On those birds, Maggie made the second triple marked retrieve of the trip!

We are very pleased with our new decoys from decoyflocker.com. They are so realistic that Dan was almost tricked into shooting one yesterday. After watching it from 15 yards away for a few seconds, he was nearly convinced that it was a live duck that had swam into our spread. 

As he was walking on the property to look for other ducks near the end of the day today, Dan flushed three pheasants and nearly baged a rooster. That would have been the second duck hunt in a row where we took a pheasant!

Sunday lack of pheasant shooting

We hunted from 8:15 AM until 11:45 AM today at Wolf Creek WMA. We flushed a total of 17 pheasants and one Sharptail grouse. However, we never fired a shot. Winnie hunted the first and last hour and Jackson hunted the middle hour. Both of them did a very good job. Winnie pointed three or four birds that ran on her, with her trailing them until they flushed in front of her. She also pointed four birds that held tight until we flushed them. The problem was, they were all hens. There is a possibility that one was a juvenile rooster, but we were not sure so we held our fire. Jackson flushed for birds during his hour. Two were flushed together, with one being a rooster. We were in a woody area and were not able to shoot though. The other two flushed at the end of significant trailing opportunities and I had made the decision not to keep him within range while he trailed, to give him the learning experience of trailing wild birds. The remaining pheasants that were flushed were all hens and flushed at various intervals, some in front of the dogs and some by us as we walked. The Sharptail flushed in front of Winnie after she had established point, but before we were able to get close enough to shoot.

Below is a picture of Winnie's first point of the day. It was even prettier a moment before I snapped the picture, with her having one front paw in the air. The second picture will show you what Gunner and Maggie were up to in the hotel while we were hunting...

Saturday pheasants

Did a little bit of mid-day scouting and then hunted those spots, about 40 minutes south of our hotel. We ended up killing two more pheasants, for a daily total of three. We also hit one additional rooster, but it was lightly wounded and ran into a cornfield and we were not able to recover it. 

We principally targeted field edges, fence lines, and some cut cornfields. Winnie and Maggie handled the pheasant hunting tonight and both did a good job. Winnie did very good job pinning a running pheasant in a field of standing sunflowers. She first pointed, then it ran, then she circled around it and cut it off and repointed - causing it to hold long enough for Dan to come in and flush it - but it was a hen...

We are now headed back to the hotel for a shower and dinner. I am anxious for both! Tomorrow we plan to hunt ducks on the same private property we hunted on Thursday with our pheasant location TBD.

Ducks, ducks, ducks

This morning turned out just about how we had hoped. Dan and I took two very nice limits and a bonus bird on top of that! Now, you may wonder how we were able to shoot more than two limits... While Gunner was picking up a cripple on the other side of the pond, Dan shot rooster pheasant!

Our bag today consisted of mallards, redheads, and gadwall - and the pheasant. Gunner had another very good day, retrieving all 13 birds we shot. Of them, he picked up two cripples in the cattails across the pond, two fairly long blind retrieves into open water, and one honest to goodness triple marked retrieve that he did all by himself. I'm sure he will sleep well tonight and enjoy his day off tomorrow.

Our plan now is to get our ducks and pheasant cleaned, eat some lunch, and then head out for pheasant scouting and pheasant hunting at some new places that have been recommended by local contacts.

Somewhere in Minnesota

Somehow, I didn't realize this didn't post on the drive, so here it is... Sorry for the confusing flashback...

Dan got us as far as Minnesota, then we traded responsibilities. As you would expect, we are right on schedule to arrive at our destination on time. We will be driving directly to our duck hunting spot, planning to arrive there about 45 minutes before legal shooting time.

Dan traded spots with Maggie and he is currently cuddled with Jackson and Winnie, getting some rest in the backseat. Gunner appears to be enjoying the peace and quiet of his kennel in the back of the truck.

Friday Pheasants

Really windy this afternoon with sustained winds of 25 and gusts to 40. We targeted woody strips and sheltered areas but came up with no birds in the bag. Winnie hunted well, as usual, but we came up with only one hen flush for her efforts. Jackson got his first taste of real hunting and did a nice job. He trailed several birds out of the woody areas into an adjacent standing cornfield, but I had to whistle him to a stop and let the birds go from there, so as to not lose him in the cornfield. We also had two roosters flush in our area, but did not have a shot at either due to the standing brush and trees. 

Let's all hope that tomorrow is a more productive hunting day than today! With a total of no pheasants, no ducks, and one goose, we agreed that those kinds of totals can be achieved without driving 1500 miles. Tomorrow's forecast is for moderate morning wind with decreased wind in the afternoon, so we have decided to hunt ducks in the morning and give ourselves the least windy time of day for pheasants.

Friday morning

Our Friday duck hunting unfortunately turned into Friday duck scouting. The good news is we found an area with enough birds that I was content to sit and watch them and drink coffee for an hour. We had planned to hunt that spot, but Murphy's Law intervened and we found ourselves sitting along the bank of a lake with no decoys- hence, we just watched the birds and made a plan for a future day. Another piece of good news is that we found a small farm pond and obtained permission to hunt it tomorrow. There were good numbers of birds on it and good concealment around the edges, so we should be in for a productive hunt tomorrow morning. We plan to return to today's main scouting location for a hunt on Sunday. We got yesterday's birds cleaned, ate some lunch, and we are now off to kill some pheasants.

Thursday Pheasants

Thursday afternoon we hunted a WMA (Wildlife Management Area) just off lake Sakakawea (Missouri River) that was recommended to us by one of our new North Dakota friends from PF . We mostly targeted brushy draws and small woody tree clumps and thicker areas. We went from 3:30 to 6:45. Winnie hunted the first hour, Mag the second, and Winnie finished out the evening. Winnie hunted great and registered several points. Some were on hens and one was a excellent staunch point on our first rooster of the trip that Dan promptly dispatched it on his 3rd shot. Bill also shot a rooster that flushed wild in front of him later in the evening. After driving straight through then hunting all day, we quickly ate some dinner and went to bed, hence I am just posting yesterday's results at 10:30 this morning!

Thursday ducks

We totaled seven ducks this morning, hunting from 8 AM until 1045 on private property owned by a friendly landowner who we met last year. We shot 2 Bluewing Teal, a drake gadwall, and a couple shovelers. Gunner did a nice job and was able to recover everything we shot. His handling left a little to be desired (but isn't that the norm?) and he was steady throughout. All in all, I am pleased with his performance, rolling out of the truck directly into the marsh after a 25 hour ride... We are now heading to check into our hotel and then meet a local Pheasants Forever contact for lunch to get some Intel. Winnie kept Maggie and Jackson in-line waiting in the truck while we shot our ducks. Way to go Winnie! After our lunch meeting, we plan to scout a little bit, then hunt Winnie & Maggie this afternoon.

On the Road Again...

Left Dan's house about 40 minutes ago heading Underwood, North Dakota. We're expecting to arrive sometime around 6:30 AM central time tomorrow. The plan is to drive around 65 mph to maximize fuel economy, so we will see if Dan is able to stick to that plan! I'm betting that he will, so anyone who wants to take some of that action, feel free to leave your bet in the comments section...

As you can see from the attached picture, we are packing light this year. You got me and Dan, Gunner, Maggie, Winnie, and Jackson along with all of our stuff (to include a weeks worth of food and drinks) in Dan's truck and still have visibility through the rear window! Now, the big question is: what did we forget?