Trip Recap

Shooting RecDan Upland Hunting: 6 birds bagged on 12 attempts. Missed 3 "lay-ups", 1 fairly easy one, and 2 difficult shots. 2 of the birds bagged were on a covey of Hungarian partriDan Upland Hunting:

Hunting Recap:

Dan Upland Hunting:

16 birds bagged on 27 shells (59%), killing 16 of the 19 pheasants shot at (84%).

Bill Upland Hunting: 12 birds bagged on 18 shells (70%) - though 2 of those were taken by Maggie, which nicely inflates my numbers. A pure shooting percentage would be 10 birds on 18 shots (60%). I killed 10 of the 14 pheasants I shot at (71%).

This year presented different types of hunting scenarios (we were able to walk closer together with clear fields of vision much of the time) & different results than previous years. One way this manifested itself was that of our overall 21 pheasants, one-third of them were joint kills. In quickly reviewing a couple of the video clips, we noted that many of these joint kills occur under one second from the time the bird flushes until it starts to fall out of the sky, succumbing to simultaneous hits. I guess if you want to hunt with the Everly's, you have to be both fast and accurate (Rich...). We also noted that we hunted many less hours than in previous trips. Overall, for the nine days we hunted pheasants, we logged only a total of 19 hours in the field. This was due to a couple unique scenarios as a result of automotive issues combined with more miles to get to and from our hunting spots.

Dan Waterfowl Hunting: Much like last year, Dan's shooting percentage for waterfowl was dismal on the first day. Unfortunately, this year, the first day was also the only day of shooting. His official stats were one duck on seven shots (14%).

Bill Waterfowl Hunting: 2 ducks on 2 shots. What more can I say...

Dog Recap:

Our dogs are awesome.

They combined to flush 56 pheasants in gun range, 24 of which were roosters.

Winnie pointed 17 of those 27 roosters. Additionally, she pointed 14 hens. We noted a significant change in her trailing method, now having learned to trail at a fast pace which allowed her to catch up and re-point many of the running roosters - providing additional shooting opportunities for us. She also increased her range, routinely getting out to 100+ yards, but checking back in with us appropriately. During this time, she only bumped 1 bird that we can remember. Her marking of downed birds was excellent and her retrieving was certainly adequate, but Dan is still desirous of improvement.

Maggie's upland performance was again excellent as expected. She consistently hunted in range and found, trailed, and flushed any birds that were in front of her. The luck of the draw was that she did not have an abundance of action, getting only four flushes. While hunting in the same area as Winnie, she did a good job of recognizing when Winnie was on point and quickly moving in her direction to assist in trailing or flushing the bird, as needed. She had 2 honest-to-goodness points (which is a new thing for her) on and also saved me a shell by catching one on the ground on a different occasion.

On waterfowl, Mag didn't get any retrieves, but did a nice job in an area of concern for me heading into the trip, which was her steadiness. On a couple different occasions, we had birds close-by before shooting time and on another day we had Coot swimming in the decoys. She was good in all these situations. It was nice to see her get back to doing the right things, after having some issues last year.

Jackson had an excellent trip. His waterfowl hunting was brief but effective and he got lots of practice sitting and waiting while exhibiting good behavior on the other duck hunting days.

In the upland field, he continued to develop more confidence and ability to focus. We noticed that he quartered very nicely in front of me, but didn't do such a good job extending that to get over in front of Dan. This tells me that I need to work with him on hunting the entire gun line in training scenarios. He had lots of action for the week, getting a total of 16 flushes. Four of these came in a single event, along the Missouri River and seven others were today – when we had lots of action. His retrieving for the week was excellent, with the caveat that his steadiness was virtually nonexistent. In several scenarios, I contributed to this delinquency by allowing him to make the retrieve. This is definitely something for us to work on in the coming year. We again enjoyed observing his inconsistent attitude towards jumping up into the truck. Sometimes, he would leap in without hesitation while other times, he would balk repeatedly, as if he did not have the ability to make it.

Final Hunting Post

We left the house this morning & headed Eastward to hunt North of Alexandria, at the same spot where we saw many birds earlier in the trip. From our experience that first time, we knew that the water level was too shallow to be able to use decoys. This lead us to a very low effort hunt today, just walking in with our guns and chairs. We were surprised to find the water frozen when we arrived, although it didn't really make a difference. There were a few ducks nearby and a pair flew in front of us just before legal shooting time. Once we were legal, there was nothing anywhere close so we sat and talked for two hours, before calling it a morning and heading for the truck. Maggie was not very happy about the lack of work, considering she didn't get to retrieve a single duck on the trip.

After getting back to the truck and changing clothes, it was still before 10 AM (which is legal shooting time here for pheasants), so we drove an additional 25 minutes East before finding a spot to hunt. We ended up at two separate spots in an area called Tuschen Slough that were about a mile apart, between Spencer and Salem, SD. Winnie and Jackson were in the starting lineup for pheasants today. Winnie pointed and Dan shot one rooster at the first spot while Jackson hunted nicely with me and found hens on 4 separate occasions. It turned into good training, because he was not very steady on The last 2 flushes. Also of note, he really seemed to know what he was doing (as far as the hunting portion of the exercise) and was very focused during this time. He was working very well and took it upon himself to stay down in & hunt a slough that was 15 yards across and 100 yards long without my direction or even having to get down in there with him. His work was very enjoyable to watch today.

At the second spot, we jointly shot a rooster out of the cattails. This was an interesting turn of events. We had both dogs at heel because we were walking around the lake to be able to begin the hunt with the wind in our face.  We were walking in a field just far enough away from the water to be outside the cattails. During this walk, Winnie stopped & froze on point, looking into the cattails. We sent Jackson in and 10 seconds later a rooster erupted. The rooster's crash landing site can be seen below. The skidmark is where Jackson came to an abrupt stop as he made the retrieve. Jax was down in the cattails so I couldn't see exactly what he did, but he was not steady on this bird either...

As we continued to hunt the cattails along the edge, there were other hunters on the opposite side of the lake that shot and missed a rooster & we watched it fly into the cover a couple hundred yards in front of us. We proceeded to hunt up to that area, where Winnie pointed the bird solidly. Dan kicked around in front of her and then released her from point to trail the bird and she refused – insisting it was there. It turned out that she was right and Dan was eventually able to dislodge it from the thick grass it had buried itself under and had to chase it for about 10 yards to get it airborne (I do have this on video and will be happy to share it with anyone who wants to see it, once I have time to get the editing done). After skidding to a stop, he made a good shot and dropped the bird with a single shot.

We cleaned the birds and changed clothes and are now just out of South Dakota, having just crossed the border into Iowa. After we stop and get something to eat, we plan to tally up the week's statistics and will post a summary.

Friday Pheasants

This afternoon we hunted pheasants at three different spots for a total of 3.5 hours. The first hour was spent at a Fame Production Area about 10 miles East of the Hoover GPA that we have been to several times - which was also our second stop. The first place was a spot we had scouted earlier in the week and thought could be good, but had not hunted it yet. Upon seeing it again, we agreed that it looked good. The problem was, it produced only one hen.

At the Hoover GPA, we spent two hours and did a couple miles of walking. Winnie and Mag continued their excellent work and we bagged one rooster off a nice point from Winnie at the end of our time there. She also made a good retrieve of about 60 yards. We both fired simultaneously at the bird, so we're not sure who gets credit. In addition to that rooster, we also flushed three or four hens, one off a joint trail by both dogs that was probably around 500 yards in duration.

The last spot we went to today was the same spot where we finished the day yesterday. We had only 30 minutes there, but made the most of it, with Dan taking a rooster that Winnie again did a very nice job of marking and then trailing as a cripple.

We're getting gas now and then heading back to finish packing. Tomorrow, we are hunting ducks about an hour East of here and then will hunt pheasants in that area too, after changing clothes in the truck midmorning between ducks and pheasants. When we're done with our pheasant hunt, we'll head for home and have an hour head start...

The Definition of Insanity...

To again use a very overused cliché, we continue to do the same thing we have done and hope to get different results. I really don't like using that cliché since it is seems to be a favorite of the Clintons, but it fits in this case...

Today we hunted from 645 until 730 on the west shore of Crystal Lake. It's a little chilly here today, around 30, with a 15–20 mph wind. Probably because of our low expectations of birds, we got a little lackadaisical in our set up this morning and situated ourselves with that wind directly in our face, which wasn't that much fun. With no birds flying or anywhere apparently in our area, we decided to pack up and head back to the house to get a head start on packing for home. 

Our plan for this afternoon is to hunt the Hoover GPA from 1–3:30 and then hit the spot we finished up yesterday for the last 45 minutes of the day. That will give us 3+ hours of pheasant hunting and conclude our day 10 minutes from the house. This will allow us maximum time this evening to finish packing for home. 

Jackson will hunt pheasants tomorrow, so he will apparently finish the trip with just two ducks. A positive note would be that we were very well camouflaged today, as you can barely see Dan just behind me in this picture...

Quick Thursday Night Pheasant

In another crazy sequence of events, while test driving Dan's truck after the repairs were completed, Keith identified a particular sound it has made for the last several years that no mechanic or Ford dealer that Dan's had it to in the last five years could diagnose or repair. It was the middle U-joint in the driveshaft. He said he had time to do the repair so we figured it would be smart to let him do it; since he obviously knew what he's doing with this truck. That however, necessitated another two hour stay at the repair shop.

With the $1,000+ repair bill paid, we tested out how well the truck would drive getting back to the house to change clothes and out into the fields as fast as possible. All is well! 

We had 45 minutes to hunt and made the best of it, heading to 2 separate WPA's within 10 minutes of the house. Both Jackson and Winnie were birdy a couple times at the first spot, but produced no pheasants. With 15 minutes remaining, we drove 2 miles and hit the other spot that was a field and dried up pond. With one minute to go before shooting time ended, Jackson flushed a hen, followed immediately by a rooster. It offered me a challenging but makeable shot. It took me both barrels, but I was able to put it down. He was not steady, but my desire for hunting overrode my desire for training so I let him make the retrieve without correction - not wanting to take a chance of losing the bird if it was not dead on the ground. It provided him with a challenging, 75 yard mark in high grass that he handled perfectly. 

All in all, it was a crazy day but a productive one, with Dan feeling better about the status of his truck then he has in the last five years. Also, making me happy was Jackson having the opportunity to put the whole scenario together of pursuit, flush, & retrieve. A dozen more of those and he will be on his way to being a seasoned pheasant dog.

Truck Repairs

We are still at the garage in Plankinton owned by Kyle Overweg. He turned out to be a very nice and apparently very competent mechanic. It also helped that his personal vehicle is also a Ford F-250, so there wasn't much about Dan's truck that he didn't know, right off the top of his head.

It turns out the the ABS light that has been on for the last couple weeks (Dan had it looked-at at the Ford dealership in Clarksburg before we left and they told him it was no big deal - I guess they were  wrong) was an indicator of work that really needed done. 

While waiting for the parts to arrive to replace the front driver's side rotor & hub assembly, Kyle was looking around and saw that the automatic 4WD control had been jury-rigged to render it inoperable (before Dan bought the truck), so the 3 of us took a ride around the corner to the hardware store to get a couple basic things to fix it so that we'll no longer have to exit the vehicle to manually lock the hubs each time we want to change from 2WD to 4WD (or vice versa).

After we got back & the parts arrived so he could begin to install the new rotor and hub assembly, Kyle realized that the U joint was also bad - so that is getting replaced too. Now, you may be thinking (like I was, because I'm naturally a distrustful person) that Dan is getting hosed. However, as soon as he pulled the truck into the shop, Kyle invited Dan in to observe and/or help him through the whole process. Dan has been happy to learn new mechanical things & I have used the time to take a nap and read a book on my phone. With this guy's super nice demeanor and with Dan there as the assistant mechanic, I doubt that anything shady is happening.

While the nap and pleasure reading were both enjoyable, I just realized that between the truck issues last year, the trailer problems on the way out, and now the trouble today, we have lost 2.5-3 days of hunting over the last 2 trips. That sucks...

It's around 12:30 now and we have until 5:30 to hunt. I'm still hoping the we can get out of here soon enough to get into the pheasant field for an hour or so later. As the truck is still up on the lift, we'll have to wait and see.

This is Getting a Little Tiresome

It's 8:45 AM and we are back in the truck heading for the Maas'house. The picture below shows you the most action Maggie got all day. It was a beautifully 'ducky' day, with temperatures in the low 40s with wind at 10 mph from the North and light rain. We were set up 30 minutes before shooting time and enjoyed relaxing and talking in the dark, with some positive anticipation because of the weather.

We did have one teal in shooting range, but it was just before legal shooting time. Other than that, we saw a few groups of ducks, but nothing anywhere close. 

The truck developed a unnatural sound in the driver's side front tire area on our way home from pheasant hunting last night, so at 7:30 this morning, Dan called a local garage and got us an appointment for 10 AM today. We're going to make a very brief stop now to drop off our wet clothes and let Maggie get dry and comfortable and we will head out get the truck looked at. Keep your fingers crossed that this is just a minor issue.

Wednesday Pheasants

Since we decided to skip ducks today, we left the house around nine and drove to some public hunting areas near the Ft. Pierre National Grasslands. We hunted two separate pieces of cover, totaling two hours, that were very similar. Both were intermittent, waist-high grasses that were adjacent to cornfields - some cut some not. We expected them to be dynamite for roosters. The third spot contained tree rows planted for shelterbelts, small food plots of Milo, knee-high grass, and a small amount of cattails. We hunted in this area for around 45 minutes. The weather today was a change from previous days. It was cooler (40–45°) with fog and intermittent misty precipitation all morning.

We fired as many shots at pheasants as we did at ducks the last three days. Despite this surprising and perplexing fact, we had a thoroughly enjoyable morning. We hunted all three dogs, in pairs, through these spots and couldn't ask anymore from any of them then what they gave us. This was one of the factors that contributed to our high level of satisfaction.

We then drove eastward, stopping at the Pizza Hut in Chamberlain for lunch. Below is the view out the window from our booth at Pizza Hut. A couple things of note here: The landscape in the background is the Missouri River and the interstate 90 bridge across it. In the foreground of the picture is the South Dakota Hall of Fame. You may ask yourself, who's in the South Dakota Hall of Fame? A couple answers to that question would be: Mr. Bull, Chief Sitting - Mr. Horse, Chief Crazy - & Mr. Barker, Bob.

At the Hoover GPA this afternoon, Maggie and Winnie continued to provide us with excellent dog work. Both hunted essentially without correction (or direction) for the entire 90 minutes. We put up five hens and two roosters. Dan killed both roosters, only requiring three shots to do so. Mag found & retrieved the first rooster on a 'hunt dead' command in very tall, thick grass and Winnie retrieved the second bird in a cut cornfield. Good job by both dogs in both instances.

We hope that the change in weather will change our luck for duck hunting tomorrow morning. Our plan is to return to the White Lake WPA and cross our fingers.

Wednesday Supplemental Post

A couple interesting, unrelated bits of information we've accumulated over the last week in this area:

The terrain is so flat here that they find it necessary to post the sign shown below every time there is a grade slight enough that you can't see for at least 25 miles. We commented to one another that if this same signage criteria was applied at home, all of our taxes would have to be raised substantially.

We found it odd that when they harvest their corn, they dump it on to the ground in these enormous piles. Not sure what this corn is going to be used for or how they get it back up off the ground, but i'm sure they know what they're doing.

Christopher was right to be concerned that we could run into an animal like a wolf or coyote... However, this one's name is Jada and she is a very friendly and very pretty Husky that is a pet of Larry and Dori Maas, our hosts.

Tuesday Pheasants

We just finished up our pheasant hunting for today and ended with a total of three roosters. We jointly shot 2 and I shot the other one. Additionally, we flushed 2 other roosters in range that escaped. 

Today was my turn to shoot poorly, with Dan hitting two birds on 4 shots. I fired seven shots, hitting three birds with three shots and missing two times with both barrels at other birds. One of our three birds that we are counting as killed was not recovered. We both shot it & it appeared to fold cleanly in the cattails, but when Jackson got to the fall there was no bird and neither dog could find it. That was our first bird of the day and touched off a bit of a dog fiasco. For a period of about 15 minutes after that bird was shot, both Winnie & Jackson generally acted like idiots, not listening to commands and running around like they were bird crazy. During this time, when she was trailing an apparently running hen (Jackson later found and flushed it) she ran face first into a Barbwire fence. She cut her tongue, but it is merely a flesh wound and she will be fine. After a rest for a few minutes to check her out thoroughly and ensure she was OK, both dogs got their head screwed on straight and were excellent for the remainder of the day. Tomorrow morning's forecast is for another warm and sunny day. Given our experience the last three days, we have decided to abandon duck hunting altogether tomorrow and are going to sleep in some and then hunt pheasants a little after first legal shooting time (which is 10 AM here) about 100 miles West of here near the Fort Pierre National Grasslands. 

Thursday's weather forecast is cooler and windy with potential rain, so we are hoping to change our luck with the ducks with the change in weather.

Another Morning of Ammo Conservation

We hunted at Crystal Lake WPA this morning from 6:40–8:30, without firing a shot or having a duck anywhere near us. There were however, an abundance of coot which provided me with an opportunity for some trash talk to Dan about shooting coot in Missouri. On a more serious note, there were several hundred puddle ducks on the opposite shore of the lake that just sat there all morning. We heard Mallard, Gadwall, & Widgeon, & also thought we saw a couple Redheads through the binoculars.

This was our first easy spot to hunt, being able to drive the truck nearly to the edge of the water to unload and also finding the water depth to be favorable (about 3') and having a hard bottom (easy walking, with my feet not sinking knee deep into the mud at every step). These conveniences, combined with the fact that we were sitting in our ghillie suits on the dry land, made for a very comfortable hunt.

After getting things picked up, we spent about an hour scouting and surveying the  WPA (it's about 2 square miles in size) to get some ideas for hunting it in the future.

Pheasant shot by both

We are working on getting video posted directly to the blog, but in the meantime we've created this work around... So, click the link below to see a quick 10 second video of today's hunt. You will notice that only 1 shot can be heard in the video, because we shot simultaneously. This is one of the joint kills mentioned in the earlier post.

If this link doesn't work, please comment to let us know and we will try again another way.

https://www.facebook.com/dan.everly/videos/10153684767409197/

Pheasant Scunting & Hunting

For anyone that doesn't know what scunting it is, please refer to today's earlier post.

Through the late morning and afternoon today we checked out 5 spots that were all a few miles west of Plankinton. One looked promising enough for us to exit the truck and do a little scunting. Winnie and Mag hunted that grassy field like a couple professionals. Winnie was ranging out between 50 and 75 yards and covering a lot of ground while Mag quartered within easy shooting range between me & Dan, all with very minimal commands. After about 10 minutes they both got birdy and Winnie registered a beautiful point that produced a very lengthy trail (10 minutes of hard trailing by both dogs with another point by Winnie in the middle) that ultimately resulted in a flushed and shot rooster. 

We also flushed one hen (that Mag pointed-I have no idea why) and one additional rooster. We both missed long shots on the rooster - long shots because I had broken off to follow Winnie in a slightly different direction and Dan was supposed to be keeping an eye on Mag. He wasn't, and didn't notice her get birdy & flush the rooster & therefore was not in good position for the shot. After a total of 30 minutes, we were satisfied that this would be a good spot to hunt in the future so we packed up, got the dogs some water, and headed for the next place to investigate.

This afternoon (from 3:30–5:30) we hunted the Hoover GPA, 15 miles south-southeast of Chamberlain. It was one of our targeted locations for scunting and It turned out to be an excellent spot. After doing a quick recon from the truck, we decided to spend the rest of the day hunting the area. In total, we got four more roosters, and missed shots at two more. Both dogs continued their performance from earlier and were phenomenal. 

On two separate occasions, spaced over an hour apart, Winnie pointed and trailed with several stops to re-point and then continue to trail, eventually pinning a rooster for Dan to flush and shoot at overall distances (in both cases) easily greater than 700 yards. One thing that we noticed is that she has apparently learned about running birds and has begun trailing at a high rate of speed and is willing to break off her points when released and continue to trail. We are sure that she's learning because two separate times today while she was pointing, Dan released her from her point and even physically moved her off point and she refused to do so. On both occasions, there was a rooster in front of her. This tells us that she's learning the difference between the bird actually being there and a strong scent pocket from the bird very recently being there.

Similarly, but somewhat less spectacularly, Maggie trailed one rooster a couple hundred yards and eventually dug it out of some very thick grass under which it had buried itself. That made for an easy bird to clean and I won't have to worry about biting down on any pellets!

Overall, it was a warm, but great day. We thoroughly enjoyed it and shared several high-fives. Two of our five birds today were joint kills and one Mag got on her own.. For those of you keeping score at home, Bill fired four shots and dropped two birds. Dan fired 11 shots and dropped 4 birds.

Duckless Monday

With weather conditions of 60°, sunny, & no wind, it's not a surprise that we were skunked this morning. We hunted the same spot as Saturday morning but saw many fewer birds and had nothing come in range. With the writing clearly on the wall, we quit after one hour. Jackson was a very good boy, sitting quietly on his stand for that hour, but that's all I can really say because that is all that was asked of him. With the lack of bird action, I did have time to snap a couple decent pictures.

We were back at home base by 9 and spent the next two hours cleaning the mud off our gear and prepping for tomorrow's duck hunting. We also talked to Larry and learned that his customer leases the hunting rights for pheasants to others, so we will not be able to go there – except that we may be able to hunt ducks on that property. We are waiting to get word on that. 

We spent a fair amount of time looking at satellite imagery of some additional pheasant hunting spots and cross-referencing them with the hunting atlas that shows private land hunting availability; then made a plan for "scunting"all afternoon. This is a new word that Jennifer coined that is a combination of scouting and hunting.
When scunting, we find places that look promising then get out of the truck and hunt them for a short period of time to make a final determination. If they are good, we will come back and hunt it another day.

Sunday Pheasants

This afternoon we hunted pheasants from 3 to 5 at Boyer GPA just south of Chamberlain, along the Missouri River. As you can see, it is a beautiful area and very unlike anything in our neck of the woods. While Maggie is back at the house resting this afternoon, Winnie and Jax had the pheasant hunting duties. Unfortunately, we came up empty here too. This means we went the entire day without firing a shot... Winnie had several nice points that turned out to be hen birds and we also had multiple other hen flushes in our proximity, but no roosters. I did get some video of one of her points and will upload it later if possible.

It didn't help that it was 67° here and very dry, which caused both dogs and hunters to overheat quickly. We were giving them (the dogs) lots of water and were careful not to push them. This caused the early part of our hunting to be in short bursts with many stops and rest periods.

During the last part of the day, we crossed to the West side of the river to find the boat ramp we were planning to use for our pheasant hunting later in the week. Due to the drought conditions here, the Missouri River is very low and we will not be able to use the boat. This is disappointing on several fronts, as we were looking forward to hunting those 'across the river spots' that are off the beaten path and also because that means we have less available places to hunt for the rest of the week.

On a positive note, while talking to Larry (our host) at lunchtime, he suggested that we hunt a piece of private land South of Chamberlain that is owned by a former customer of his. He called to request permission for us and is waiting for a return phone call. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

Sunday Morning

This morning we hunted the WPA that we scouted yesterday that is about 15 miles north of Alexandria. We got a great show, getting to watch several hundred ducks fly all around us for the first 30 minutes of legal shooting time. With as many birds as were around us, we were not willing to take marginal crossing/passing shots, so we held our fire to wait for something to decoy in. Nothing did. We're not sure exactly why, but it could be attributed to the fact that our decoys were sitting in only 1 inch of water and there were clumps of mud from our walking around setting decoys sticking above the water everywhere, making the general area look unnatural. 

We did have a couple opportunities for easy shots when singles would land nearby or swim near enough to us, but again, we did not want to disturb 150 ducks in order to shoot one – so we didn't shoot.

After 30 minutes, we moved away from our decoys to a spot where we had seen many ducks land previously and that spot was also unproductive. We then moved another hundred yards down the shoreline with the same intent. That was again unproductive. In total, we hunted from 6:45–8:45 without firing a shot. That being said, we are not unhappy with the morning, as it was really fun being that close to so many ducks - hearing the air rip through their wings making it sound like fighter jets passing overhead is something you don't soon forget.

We've come to the realization & agreement that (like my golf game) the duck hunting this trip is going to be subpar. Because of that, we are going to concentrate mostly on pheasant hunting for the remainder of the trip. We will hunt ducks in spots close to our base of operations that have some chance of success (like yesterday), but will not spend much more time scouting for new areas.

Below are a couple more pictures of our sleeping accommodations. You can see that the dogs have each claimed a bed for themselves. The general set-up is that Winnie sleeps with Dan, Mag sleeps with me, and Jax sleeps in a bed by himself. Not what I would have predicted, but it seems to be working well...