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.
Good luck tomorrow.
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