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!