2016 Trip Recap & Final Post

Final trip statistics:

9 days of pheasant hunting totaling 21 hours on the ground. Eight days of duck hunting totaling 16 hours of hunting time. Total of 22 birds killed: 7 pheasants and 16 ducks.


Dan got 4 1/2 pheasants (3 solo & 1 we both shot) & 13 ducks (12 solo & 2 we both shot), Bill shot a whopping 2 1/2 pheasants (2 solo & 1 we shot together) & 3 ducks (2 solo & 2 shot together). Counting shared birds for both of us (since we can't say that it would have required the 2nd person to bring down the bird), the shooting statistics were: 17 birds on 49 shots for Dan (35%) & 7 birds on 22 shots for Bill (32%). Dan was 13 birds on 36 shots for ducks (36%) & 4 birds on 13 shots for pheasants (31%). For Bill on ducks, it was 4 birds on 15 shots (27%) & 3 pheasants on 7 shots (43%). As always, Dan is a little quicker on the draw & a little (maybe a lot) more willing to shoot at birds that are "questionable" with regard to their range. He says that he's just more confident in his shooting abilities than I am in mine... He probably right - nobody has ever accused him of having a confidence deficiency!


Winnie pointed approximately 22 birds & had 4 of our 7 pheasants shot over her points. She retrieved 3 pheasants. Maggie flushed 3 roosters & 5 hens. She retrieved 12 ducks – 0 pheasants. Jackson flushed 8 roosters & 7 hens. He retrieved 2 ducks and 2 pheasants. 1 Pheasant & 2 ducks were killed, but not recovered.


Many of the pheasant flushes were combinations of Winnie pointing and Mag or Jax flushing off the point or picking up the trail and working it out to a flush. She ranged out more than I can remember in previous years (which is what Dan wanted her to do) and she learned through the course of the week a new command - when Dan would activate the tone on her collar, she would come back toward us. This was very handy and she picked it up quickly and without much effort or concern. She hunted like the veteran she has become and displayed both a great nose and the tenacity to use it on some of the long trails that the roosters laid in front of her. Both Maggie & Jackson hunted well - which is to say that they conducted themselves as I would expect them to do. Jax particularly busted into and stayed in the heavier cover (cattails & heavy/thick brush) without being instructed and was a real asset in those types of spots. One negative was that steadiness was an issue (again), particularly with Jackson. We used some hen flyaways to do a little training, but that would be 1 area that still needs some work. On an overall note, Dan reminded me that Jax is now 4 & that I should probably stop being surprised when he's doing the right things (which is most of the time) - he's a good / smart, well-trained dog, so stop being surprised when he does what is expected of him! Dan is right about that... Mag, despite being 9 years old, was always energetic and ready to go. Even on the final days of the trip, she was bouncing at the door of the house when it was time to leave. I don't know where she gets her energy, but I could have used some of it!

Dan retrieved one pheasant because neither dog (Jax nor Winnie) was steady & we were working on that from a training aspect. He did a nice job of marking the bird and delivering it all the way to hand for me.


Ducks shot were: 9 GW Teal, 1 Redhead hen, 3 Ringnecks (2 hens & 1 drake), 1 hen Canvasback, 1 hen Bufflehead, & 1 hen Shoveler. There were ducks in the area (in large numbers), but they didn't seem to be huntable - except maybe from field setups?. The weather was warm and kept the birds off pattern and provided seemingly little in the way of migrating birds. Although the water levels were lower than in recent years - some spots were dry and others that held water had sizeable stretches of mud between the cover and the water - the large amount of potholes, ponds, & lakes gave the ducks an abundance of choices - which also made hunting them difficult. We did set up 1 field hunt, which didn't produce, as the birds didn't fly anywhere off the roost that morning. 

The numbers of pheasants we saw was surprisingly low, as we thought we were in one of the best parts of the state (Aberdeen area) for pheasants. We hunted CREP and WIA properties, as well as a couple GPAs (not much different from our hunting places and habitat types last year). At this time, we're not sure what caused these low numbers, but we're going to try to find out...

Overall, we had a good time on the trip (especially with Dad along with us). Bringing the Suburban worked out fine. It was more comfortable for the ride out & back and didn't bring up any specific difficulties while we were there, although there were a couple fields we drove through that messed-up the underbody plastic pieces. On the downside, we only got 12-13 mpg, so the benefit we thought we'd get in that area didn't pan out. As always, we're going to do a thorough review of our trip and see what adjustments (minor and/or major) are needed before next year.

Final Pheasant Hunt

We cleaned-up and finished packing at the house, leaving Lilly at 10:10 AM. We drove south for about 2 hours to hunt pheasants at the Tuschen Slough GPA just outside Spencer, SD. This is the same spot we hit on the final day last year and had good success, so we figured we should try it again.

Maybe for the first time of the trip, our plan unfolded as we had hoped! We hunted for 2 hours there: 1 hour over Mag & Winnie and 1 hour over to Jax & Winnie. Winnie pointed a rooster that held long enough for Dan to kick it up. He knocked it down with his first shot and tried to anchor it quickly after it landed with a second shot. Unfortunately, it was still alive & ran into some thick grass. Winnie was trailing it & Jackson and I came over to assist, but all of our efforts at recovery proved unsuccessful.

Later in that first hour, Jackson flushed two roosters about 10 seconds apart. The first presented a beautiful shot for me and as I pulled the trigger I only heard a click instead of a bang. It was only then that I realized I had neglected to load any shells in my gun when we started the hunt... as the second bird flushed, Dan killed it cleanly with one shot and Jackson made the simple retrieve.

Winnie pointed what turned out to be a hen around this same time. Dan flushed it and she stayed nice and steady as it flew away.

During the second hour, we continued to hunt the cattails and similar brushy edges of the shallow lake in the GPA. Maggie flushed a group of birds which turned out to be two hens and one rooster. I was in very close proximity, but the sun prevented me from correctly identifying any of them as a rooster so I did not shoot. Dan took one shot at the rooster, but missed.


When we got back to the Suburban, we cleaned our one rooster, changed clothes, & fed the dogs. We hit the road headed for home at 3pm. All 3 of us are both surprised and impressed that Dad did not choose to take any days or even half-days off from hunting & still kept up with the overall pace of the trip without incurring any injuries! We're heading across southern MN now & expect to be home several hours ahead of schedule. I'll post a trip recap over the next couple days - when I have a chance.
I know it's a bit off topic, but we could help but marvel at the size of the farm equipment out here. I'm not sure the picture does it justice, but this thing seemed about twice the size of anything I see in the fields around my house...

More of the Same

This morning we set up a pass shoot on the point at the WPA along the north side of  Rt. 12 at the intersection of 430th Ave. We hunted from 6:55 until 8:15 & gave Maggie the opportunity to retrieve 1 hen Shoveler. It was finally more seasonably chilly, with wind blowing from the SW at 25 mph.

 

We had 2 birds in range just before legal shooting time, & the single Shoveler that Dan made a very nice shot to kill (with one shot), and 2 more pairs that were skirting the edge of reasonable shooting range. We figured we had nothing to lose, so we took shots at the questionable ranging birds & came up empty on all of them.

 

There were many ducks at the wetland complex we were hunting, probably well over 1000, in addition to 1 very large white pelican. It landed near us and Maggie had a hard time figuring out why we weren't shooting it. Overall, it was a fitting way to wrap up what has been a frustrating & lackluster week of duck hunting.

A Lot of Action

This evening we hunted the Casanova GPA SW of Aberdeen from 3 until 5:40. Jackson & Winnie were both afield during that time. We put up around a dozen hens within shooting range & 1 rooster at that distance. We also had 1 rooster flush slightly out of range that we shot at anyway.

 

The rooster that we killed was another display of teamwork with Winnie pointing & trailing it, then Jackson picking up the trail and going a little faster than Winnie & ultimately flushing the bird. I promptly & cleanly folded the bird with one nice shot at about 40 yards! It took me a little while to get my feet set and get on the bird, which is why it got out so far. I was lucky that from Dan's angle he couldn't identify if it was a rooster or hen - so he held his fire. Under normal circumstances, with the amount of time it took me to pull the trigger on that bird, Dan would have usually fired at least twice...

 

The out of range flush was Jackson's fault, as he was ranging too far and put up a rooster at about 50 yards. I hit it with the first barrel but not enough to bring it down and missed cleanly on my second. Dan fired 1 shot to try and help since it had been clearly hit already, but also came up empty.

 

Through the evening, Winnie registered many points. Some were on hens that held to be flushed & many others were birds that decided to run. For a large portion of the night, we were hunting a large field of 5' tall tumble weed plants that made it very easy for the birds to run, a little tougher for the dogs to get through, and really difficult for humans to try to keep up with the dogs who were trailing the pheasants.

Since we got most things packed during the late morning/middle of the day, we had only about an hour of work to do tonight when we got home. At this point, we are 98% packed. We're hunting a point tomorrow morning and not setting decoys, as we expect it to be purely a pass shooting spot. This also helps us move quicker tomorrow and get on the road a little earlier to head home. After ducks in the am, we'll stop at the house to pick up the boat and do a last walk-through. We'll then drive South toward home & stop just before Sioux Falls, SD to hunt pheasants. That will get us moving in the right direction & still hope to be able to put in a few more hours going after some roosters.

Almost a Great Duck Hunt

This morning, we hunted the cut cornfield on the east edge of Lake Lily (where Scott watched several thousand mallards drop in to feed at dusk last night) from legal shooting time until 9 AM. Hunting with us was our landlord, Scott Karlson, and his dog Lottie. Since we knew Scott was bringing a dog, Jackson was our companion as to avoid the dog fight that would have been started by Maggie, had she been there... Lottie is a very lovable and energetic 11 month old yellow lab.

Scott secured permission from the landowner on the private ground we were hunting and also provided a trailer full of full body goose & duck decoys. Although we had a great spread & were expertly camouflaged in our layout blinds, we still didn't kill a single bird.


We think that a combination of warm temperatures lately and a nearly full moon last night was the reason that no ducks showed up to feed this morning.


Through the morning, we had only 4 mallards nearby, & just 2 of them being potential shooting opportunities. With nothing really flying, we cleaned up early and headed back to the house to begin packing for our return trip.


We got things about 90% packed and ate lunch before heading out to the Casanova GPA for pheasant hunting.

No Evening Pheasants

It's a good thing we bagged one bird this morning. That saved us from getting skunked for the day. This afternoon, we hunted at the GPA near Faulkton from 2:45 - 4:15. This is the GPA that we hunted a few days ago but wanted to give another try because the habitat there looked so good. For whatever reason, after 90 minutes, we had flushed only 3 hens & 1 rooster - but it was out of range. Since we weren't finding birds in the numbers we were expecting, we decided to switch places and head to the Casanova GPA, closer to Aberdeen.


After the 45 minute drive to get there, we had only 35 minutes left to hunt & didn't find any birds to shoot during that time. Both Winnie and Mag were birdy a lot & Winnie pointed a couple times, but we only saw 1 bird - it was a hen that flushed about 70 yards ahead of us.

The most positive news I can report is that Scott (our landlord) came up here from Sioux Falls where he lives & spent the day scouting for waterfowl to hunt tomorrow. He sent me a text around 5pm saying that he found a field with 5000 mallards feeding in it & he has permission for us to hunt it tomorrow morning. I'm not sure if 1 spectacular hunt could salvage the trip, but it sure wouldn't hurt.

Below is a picture of one of the cattail sloughs at the Fulton GPA. In the foreground, you can see Dan (& 1 of the dogs -if you look closely).

Good Teamwork on Morning Pheasants

From 10-11:30 this morning we hit 2 pieces of small CREP (Conservation Reserve Easement Program) land about 8 miles N of the house. The first place was a bust, but the 2nd produced 2 hen flushes and a rooster that we killed (video below). The teamwork was that Winnie pointed the bird (you can hear the Hawk screech of her collar at the start of the video) and Jax ran to the sound of her point and flushed the bird. I'll let you decide who killed it... Dan fired a second shot simultaneously with my shot (you can hear his first shot and see that it missed). Jackson made the simple retrieve and delivered the bird to me.


We've just finished lunch and are now heading to the GPA near Faulkton (about 75 miles SW of here).

Should Have Went Golfing

Looking back at this morning, it seems we would've had a better chance at a birdie if we brought our golf clubs. We hunted at Teresa's slough just SW of Webster & were set up & ready to hunt 15 minutes before shooting time (6:50am).  At about 7:15am we had one duck fly across us well out of range. It landed 150 yards to our right and didn't swim back toward us or offer any further opportunities. Given the clear blue skies, 50° temperatures, & the fact that we hadn't seen a duck for an hour and a half, we decided to quit hunting at 8:45. This gives us time for a little bit of pheasant hunting this morning before lunch - in addition to our regular pheasant hunting this afternoon.  As you can see from the picture below, Jackson nearly fell asleep while sitting on his retriever stand... We're going to take him and Winnie out now and then hunt Winnie & Mag this afternoon.

A Scunting We Will Go

No pheasants killed is the report tonight.


We were at 4 different spots W & SW of Aberdeen. We didn't like the cover at the first place, so we didn't get out of the vehicle. At 2 other spots we scunted for 30 minutes each, producing no flushes of any kind.

Lastly, we went back to the Casanova GPA but had only 20 minutes of hunting light left when we arrived. During that 20 minutes, we saw a little over a half dozen wild flushes that were between 50 & 100 yards from us. We are not sure what caused these birds to flush like that, other than it's getting later into the season & any birds that have made it this long are very educated & weary. We did have 1 hen flush near us. It was 20-25 yards to the side of Winnie & in Dan's general vicinity. Although we are both getting a little trigger-happy, Dan identified it quickly enough as a hen to not shoot it. Jackson was birdy several times, but didn't produce any flushes.

While this was another day of less than stellar bird count, we're starting to chalk up this year to being in a new area & taking our lumps to learn that area. In doing that, we're taking more lumps then we're happy about - but that's the way goes sometimes. On a positive note, we're thinking that the Casanova GPA is a good spot to hunt. Given that we're getting late into the trip, and we would like to actually kill a few pheasants, we will probably go there the next 2 nights. We're planning to hit a pheasant spot along the route home on Saturday afternoon.

In the absence of any hunting pictures, here's a look at the dogs eating dinner. Winnie got to eat first, so she's watching the other 2. Both Maggie and Jax are looking a little too thin, so I upped their daily portions will continue that until we get home. Hopefully, I can fatten them back up & avoid the wrath of Jennifer & the boys for making them so skinny.

Change in Morning Plans & Other Updates

Last night, we stayed up until 3am watching the election returns - even though certain politicians didn't. Given the importance of the election & lackluster results so far hunting ducks, the decision to get some rest wasn't too hard.

As an update from Monday duck hunting: After watching the video, we realized that I also shot a duck (we thought that Dan shot 2 and me 0). The situation was that as the ducks came at us, we both stood to shoot as I called "Take 'em". As I acquired my target & just before I pulled the trigger, the bird folded (Dan shot it a split second before I pulled the trigger), so I adjusted to shoot at a different bird. I then fired at it (as he shot a 2nd & 3rd shot to bring down a different duck). I didn't think I hit it. About 15 minutes after Mag retrieved Dan's 2 birds, we saw an object floating out on the water about 75 yards away and getting farther (the wind was blowing from our backs). We wondered if I could have hit the bird I shot at & decided to walk around the pond to check it out once we were done for the day. I/we forgot to do that and didn't give it another thought until we were reviewing the video and saw that I did hit the bird and that it then circled back over the water. Although the film doesn't show it splashing down, we are pretty confident (based on all the circumstantial evidence) that the object we saw floating was that duck...


This afternoon, we're going to head out between 1 & 2 to go back to the Aberdeen area for pheasants. We're hopeful that we can turn around our performance in the pheasant fields.

Tough Night for Pheasants

This evening we hunted the last 3 hours of daylight about 20 miles West of Lily along the route 37 corridor between Groton and Conde, SD. Both Winnie & Maggie hunted well all the time, but we are coming home with only one rooster. That bird flushed just before the end of shooting time and about 10 yards in front of us while both dogs were birdy & working up to it. Dan dropped it with his second shot & Winnie made a nice retrieve in a stand of heavy cat tails.

Maggie found & flushed two hens earlier in the evening (both well within shooting range) but that doesn't help us put meat on the table! There was a considerable amount of time during our hunt this evening that one or both dogs were very birdy & trailing sent hard. It made for an exciting hunt, but it didn't produce the results we were looking for.
We are getting pretty frustrated with the lack of roosters. Not sure what we need to do differently (if anything), but we hope to be able to have better results to post over the next few days...

Tomorrow we are planning to hunt ducks at the place we shot the 9 GW Teal on Saturday and then heading back to the Aberdeen area for pheasants.

Hope everybody is enjoying watching the election returns. We are torn between getting to sleep & wanting to watch... I think we're all going to be very tired when our alarms go off at 4:15 tomorrow.

At Least We Got To See a Lot of Ducks...

We decided to wake up an extra 30 minutes early to ensure that no other hunters got to our planned spot before us. This turned out to be a good idea, as there was another truck that pulled in to the parking area as we were already setting our decoys. We had no trouble getting to our spot and getting set up off a nice point where we saw several hundred mallards and many pintails yesterday afternoon. 30 minutes before sunrise (at the beginning of legal shooting time), there were unquestionably more than 1000 birds flying all around us, over the lake, and landing on the lake.  The video below gives a brief look at it, although it doesn't nearly do it justice... That is when the positive aspects of the day ended.


Although these birds were so close that it was really fun to watch the spectacle of all of them flying, none were willing to land within shooting range (which is 25 yards for Bill and 35 yards for Dan). Watching all of these ducks land out in the middle of the water makes us believe that they are local birds and know enough to avoid the shoreline. It's warm enough that very few migrants are here yet. One of the pictures shows all the ducks on the water, but just out of range.

We did manage to shoot three ducks and recover 2 of them. These were pass shooting opportunities at birds that just happened to be flying by the point we were sitting on.

The unrecovered bird was a hen redhead (I think), the second was a Bufflehead Dan shot, and the 3rd was a hen Canvasback that I shot and Dan claims he also hit. :)  Jackson broke on the first bird of the day (which was the redhead that was lightly hit & far enough away that my experience told me would be futile to send any retriever after: a diver duck in open water that was still very much alive and strong). After this first bird faux pas, he was good from there on out. His two retrieves were both simple, single marks of under 50 yards.

Dan's First Rooster

Our hunt at the Casanova State game production area was a good one, even if it only produced one bird in the bag. We hunted from 2:45 PM until 5:45 PM, hitting various types of cover to include wind breaks of trees and Cedars, cattails, food plots, & native grass fields. Most of the birds we put up were in the thicker grass fields.

Winnie & Jackson both did an excellent job and have earned some rest. For the 3 hour hunt, the GPS collars registered that Winnie covered 8.45 miles and Jackson covered 5.49 miles.


Jackson put up 5 birds, 4 of which were roosters. I shot at 2 of them, hitting 1 - but not hard enough to bring it down. The 3rd rooster was flushed as he was trailing & I had chosen not to follow him because I stopped where Winnie was on point. Jax flushed the rooster too far away to shoot, but it was my fault (not his) that he was out of range on that one. His 4th rooster flushed into the sun and came up silently & I thought it was a hen, so I didn't shoot at it. After it was out of range, I realized it was a rooster...His last flush really was a hen.


Winnie got birdy multiple times & had several points, but we failed to find a bird on 2 of them. All in all, we think she had four points on the day, two of which produced birds – one being a hen and one being a rooster. We're not sure if the other 2 birds ran away & evaded us or if there was some other factor causing those points to not result in a flush. Her final point of the day (which was the rooster Dan shot) was a lesson in persistence. She trailed the bird for ~ 3/4 of a mile, based on the GPS data. She originally found it in the grassy field, trailed it into cattails, back out of the cattails into a food plot of Milo, and it finally held tight at the end of the food plot for Dan to kick it up and shoot it. All the while during the trail, it was circling back and cutting across its own tracks to try to confuse her, which obviously didn't work. It's a good thing he killed the bird, or I don't think he would have ever forgiven himself.

In addition to Winnie & Jackson, the 3 humans are also sufficiently tired & looking forward to bed tonight. We got back to the house around 7, & are hoping to be asleep by 9:30; because our 4:30 morning alarm will be here before we want it to be!

The video below is the rooster I missed (and 2 more flushing upon hearing my shot). I edited Jackson's trail (and me running) down to just the last few seconds - you're welcome...

Better Duck Hunting

Our duck hunting this morning was fairly slow and we started picking up decoys at 9 AM. Dan shot two female Ringneck ducks on three shots and I fired one shot at the same group but missed. The birds were flying at us and were shot when they were almost directly overhead, so both fell in the field behind us, making for easy retrieves for Maggie. As the birds were heading toward us I was tracking one and just as I got ready to pull the trigger, the bird was crushed by a shot from Dan that was just a little bit quicker than mine and I had to quickly adjust to a different bird - which I promptly missed.


There were around 60 ducks that came into the pond just as shooting time started before sunrise, but they landed on the other side and never gave us a shooting opportunity. They were mostly Shovelers, with some Ringneck ducks mixed in. We also had a group of 3 (Shovelers?) decoy in, but I accidentally flared them with movement. We didn't see them until they were almost on top of us and when Dan noticed them and alerted me to them. As I moved to drop the binoculars in my hand, they saw me & made a left turn to avoid us...

After getting back to the vehicle, we scouted for about an hour and checked out a spot that our neighbor Dave had suggested. There were a hundred+ Mallards and a few dozen Pintails there, so that is where we plan to hunt tomorrow morning. Right now we are heading out on our way to the Aberdeen area to hunt pheasants at the spot we had originally planned for yesterday morning. On the way, we are going to scout for the ducks around Lake Lily for a few minutes. With very little action this morning, there wasn't much to photograph. The picture below is our eating area in the house with two questionable characters sharing my lunch table.

Quick Post Because it is Late

Today was heavy on process and light on results. We drove about 175 miles round trip. We changed our mind as soon as we left the house this morning, and hunted pheasants at a State Game Production Area (GPA) about 25 miles SW of Aberdeen (instead of the Casanova GPA 5 mi. SW of Aberden). We figured that we had the time, & the area farther West was reported (by our neighbor and a PF contact) to have higher amounts of birds. If that was the case, we couldn't find them. The GPA looked like it should hold tons of birds, but 2.5 hours of hard hunting produced only 1 shootable bird - it flushed wild in front of Winnie as she trailed it. Dan took a shot & hit it, but it got away after hitting the ground running. In addition to that bird, Winnie had 1 other point and trail that produced a bird - but it was a hen. Maggie hunted very well, but didn't put up any birds for us to shoot either. It was pretty windy (~15-20 mph) and warm (~ 55 degrees). We hit CRP fields, milo/waist high corn food plots, and cattails on the GPA and just scratched our heads of where the birds could be hiding.


Our duck hunting spot was the place where we had seen thousands of geese and some ducks moving into on Thursday night when we were scouting. After setting up a dozen decoys and having 2 small groups of ducks go to a spot 150 yards away, we picked everything up and moved to that spot. We then didn't have another duck nearby until after sunset - go figure... Jax was a good boy and sat with us and probably would have commiserated and complained with us if he could talk.


Since we didn't have any birds to clean, the evening went rater quickly back here at the house and we are heading to bed soon. Alarms are set for 4:30 tomorrow and we are planning to hunt ducks about 30 min North of here and then head West in the afternoon (after a normal lunch here at the house) to the Aberdeen area to hit the GPA we had originally planned for today. I did have time to take some pictures tonight, so at least something somewhat productive happened.

The Sights & Sounds of Lily, SD

Last night, we decided to switch things up a little and hunt pheasants in the morning & ducks in the afternoon today. This was based on the wind being forecasted to build through the day (to around 25mph at sunset), the time change (we could get an extra hour of sleep from the time change if we hunted pheasants - since that hunting opens at 10am, not based on sunrise like ducks), using the time before 10am to drive about an hour West to get to the better pheasant area (without costing us hunting time), & the hope that the pheasants will not know that daylight savings time has ended (enabling us to surprise them when they think it is still 9am and they are safe). So, we are leaving the house in a few minutes to head to the Aberdeen area to see what we can find. All 3 of us were up before our alarms - I guess we are well-rested - and I had a minute to take some pictures of the area around our house while Mag & Jax were going to the bathroom.


All the pictures are taken from our front door. The house we are in is in the center of town and is very good for our purposes. It is 2 BR, 1 BA with a living room, eating area, and Kitchen. There is a detached garage 20 yards away with enough room to park the boat and still have room to move around and store some other stuff. Since both bedrooms have bunk beds that are a full over a twin, we gave Dad the choice of beds. The catch is if he picked a bottom bunk, he would have dog(s) sleeping with him. He chose the top bunk in my room & it seems to be working out well. He's been pretty happy - since he didn't plan for 73 degree weather. We assured him that he shouldn't get used to it, or think that it's normal. The first picture is facing East and shows the other house that our landlord owns here in Lily. The second photo faces South, and the third looks Northward, showing our garage and Suburban, and our neighbor Dave's house ( across the street). He has stopped by each day & is very nice. He's also a pheasant & duck hunter who lives here and is retired. He actually went out and drove around for a couple hours yesterday scouting for ducks for us! He didn't find much, but did show us several spots that usually produce for him.  As you can see, there isn't much here - but that's not a bad thing!


We are taking all the dogs and all the gear with us and will not be back to the house until after dark (we're going straight from the pheasant field into the duck marsh - hopefully grabbing a drive-through lunch on the way). We are planning to hunt ducks at a spot where we saw several thousand assorted goose species - along with lots of ducks - on Thursday night when we got here. It looked like a good spot, and it is West of here - which makes it closer to Aberdeen, so it works well logistically. Wish us luck and expect a post later tonight, if we aren't too tired...

0'fer on pheasants

We hunted a few spots that were recommended to us by a PF contact out here but had no luck tonight with pheasants. Both dogs hundred very well with Jackson starting to quarter across all 3 of us as opposed to hunting only for Bill like he has wanted to do in past years. The experience he is gaining each day is noticeable and fun to watch him learn and progress. The only criticism that I have of him is that his owner failed to properly condition him, so there were quite a few times that he got tired and decided to put himself "at heel" and walk with Bill instead of hunting. In his defense, it was over 70° today (far from optimal weather) for hunting. Both dogs got birdy a couple times and Winnie had 1 point at 1 minute after the last legal shooting time, so (to be legal) we called her off of it and headed home. While that would have been very sporting of us, what really happened was the bird was in some REALLY thick brush and after pointing it 2-3 times in there over the course of about 5 minutes, they still couldn't get it to flush and we had to give up on it.

 Tomorrow we intend to hunt  pheasants farther to the west (in the Route 37 corridor) between the towns of Conde and Groton.  It will cause us more driving time, but there are higher concentrations of birds the further West of Lily that we go.

 We also scouted a couple more duck spots this afternoon and found another spot or 2, so we're starting to get more comfortable with our surroundings in that realm.

Both dogs are already happy to be home and comfy, as you can see...

Thank goodness for Teal

We hunted this morning from 6:45-11 on a Walk In Area next to a private residence. It was a narrow slough (20 yards across and a couple hundred yards long). The owner (Teresa) gave us permission to hunt inside their safety zone and to park in their yard. That will earn her a pack of whoopee pies later in the trip! Overall, we brought home 9 GW Teal, about half drakes and half hens. Those little suckers fly so fast there is was no chance to pick out only drakes. Dan was the big winner today, shooting 6 & I shot 3, officially, since it is a 6-bird limit per person. Hypothetically, with a limit of 12 between us it could have been possible for me to only have shot 2 and Dan to have shot 8 (adding up to 10 because we -hypothetically of course- could have both shot 1 of the birds.
Nothing was really decoying, so all of the shots were passing shots. That made for some tough shooting and Dan did well, connecting on 8 of 17 shots. I had a rougher go of it, connecting on 2 of 10. In a lesson on duck blind communication, Dad now knows that when we rapidly say "duck, duck, duck" it means get down so I don't shoot you - not "hey, there are some ducks..."


Mag was more excited (and not in a good way) than we can ever remember her being. This manifested itself with near constant whining and even a couple yips/barks after we shot the first double of the day. The whining was more annoying than harmful, but the barking had me pretty mad. On a good note, she was totally steady on the retriever stand and did a great job finding several birds that dropped into the cattails. She couldn't see the action very well, so most of her retrieves were blinds - although the longest one was about 50 yards. Overall, she was good, and her excitement for birds is probably more a commentary on how little I've trained her this year, and how few birds she's seen (even training birds) in the past 8 months...


We scouted a couple more spots for tomorrow/Monday duck hunting and have now eaten lunch. We're heading out in a couple minutes to look for the huge numbers of ducks we saw on Lake Lily last night then hit 2-3 pheasant spots in that same general area. Jackson will be teaming up with Winnie for pheasants tonight.

Friday Pheasant Hunting

We broke the seal and finally have a bird in the bag! While we only got 1, it was a nice piece of teamwork by Mag & Winnie, and a good shot by me. Winnie initially pointed the bird - Mag heard Winnie's beeper screech and made a beeline for her - they both followed the trail of the running bird for probably 400 yards, including crossing a gravel road. Winnie ended up circling downwind of it (we're not sure if she did this on purpose or not) and pointed it again from ~15 yards away. Mag ran in and flushed it. Dan was closest to the action and promptly whiffed (although he claims he was looking directly into the sun and only pulled the trigger in the hope to hit the bird as a reward for the great job the dogs did). Luckily, the rooster was flying in my direction and offered about the easiest shot possible for me - a right to left crosser at about 15-20 yards. It folded cleanly and Mag sat on the flush/whistle. Unfortunately, Winnie didn't and I couldn't stop her before she got to the bird. After a little coaxing, Winnie picked it up and returned it to Dan.


We had 1 other pheasant opportunity at a CREP site, but the rooster (which we watched fly in and land 150 yards in front of us) flushed wild in front of the dogs and Dan took a long poke at it, and a second shot that probably would have been more like rifle range than shotgun range... Dad is enjoying himself and all good through day 1.


We only had boots on the ground for about 1.5 hours for pheasants tonight due to morning duck scouting running into the afternoon, our neighbor stopping to visit at lunchtime, & our landlord asking us to scout a spot for him to take us later in the trip. On a good note, we saw THOUSANDS of ducks flying over/around Lake Lily (about 4 miles West of the house). Over the next couple days, we are going to figure out how to hunt them...

Day 1 Duck Hunting Attempt

No ducks today. We hunted only from 7:45 to 9:30, then called it a day. Temps today are 65 degrees and there was not a cloud in the sky. It was the definition of a bluebird day... We had a fair number of ducks flying in our vicinity for the first hour of the day and had a couple small groups thinking about joining our fakes, but none made the fatal mistake. Dan did take 3 shots at some passing overhead (in a "why not" moment), but came up empty. This morning was a good intro for Dad - we wouldn't want him to expect a pile of birds every day! We spent the remainder of the am driving the area to scout and did find 2 good concentrations of ducks. One place is within a safety zone, but the homeowner gave us permission to hunt there - so that is our spot for tomorrow. The second promising spot will be likely be Sunday's spot.


Jax had the duty this morning and was a good boy although he didn't have much to do, other than sit quietly. Because we hadn't been able to scout the cover near our intended spot for this morning, we needed to pack in chairs, stools, layout blinds, and ghillie suits (to be prepared for whatever cover we did find).We used our 'decoy cart' to get all our stuff into the field this morning, so we were happy to have decided to bring it along.


We got back to the house around 2:15 and are eating lunch now. We're planning to hit 3-4 spots for pheasants this afternoon/evening that were recommended by a local Pheasants Forever contact that we made prior to the trip. Let's hope that Winnie & Mag have more retrieving asked of them than Jax did this morning!

Travel Complete

The final leg of our travels went smoothly and we made it into Lily, SD around 4:30pm. Upon our arrival, we got into the house, dropped the boat in the garage and headed out to scout the last 2+ hours for a good duck spot or two to get us started tomorrow morning. Given our abbreviated scouting time available tonight, we stayed close to the house and checked out some spots that we knew were open to the public. We found 2 large ponds that look promising. The 1st was holding hundreds of geese (Snow, Canada, and Speck) as well as a fair amount of ducks mixed in with them. We were confident that we could have a successful hunt there in the morning, but kept on with our scouting to try to find another spot for Saturday. About 15 minutes later, we came across another large pond North of Lily near Bristol that was not only holding ducks, but had a pocket of a dozen or more pintails plus several dozen Mallards - that will be our spot tomorrow. We are all REALLY tired and looking forward to some sleep.  All 3 dogs got a head start on us: Winnie is on my bed, Mag is on her dog bed, and Jax was quick to snag the couch...

Is this Heaven... No, It's Iowa

Our morning stop at the Field of Dreams movie site was great. Although we had to wait for the fog to burn off and then brave some cool temps and morning dew, it was more than worth the inconvenience. Dad was very surprised to wake up at a ball field (it had been conveniently his turn to sleep during that leg of the drive) and the dogs had a some good time to run around and stretch.


After breaking out the hidden cleats, gloves, balls, & bats, we enjoyed playing catch together on the field and then each taking some BP. Dan scored the big hit, sending  one of my expertly-thrown batting practice pitches deep into the left centerfield corn. Dad only slightly torqued his bad knee... I came away uninjured, though I do have to admit that my back is a little sore from over swinging on a few pitches.


We got back on the road around 9:45am, so we will get to Lily later than expected, but should hopefully have enough time to find a duck hunting spot for tomorrow morning. We should arrive around 5, drop the boat, and have 1-2 hours of light to scout.


Taking the Suburban is working out well. Our 'bed' in here is very comfortable, there is plenty of room for us, the dogs, and our gear. Everything is totally accessible and convenient. Let's hope that it is good for day-to-day usage as it has been on the drive out here. Our gas mileage has not been as good as hoped, but we've been driving 70 most of the way to make up time. If back it off to 65, we would be good...

Here we go!!

We got a late start from the house tonight and have just left our 1st travel stop in Columbus, OH. Unfortunately, we are already 6 minutes behind schedule! To remedy this, we will increase our driving speed from 70mph to 71 mph for the next 6 hours. Pshewww... Tragedy averted!! However, (for some odd reason) blogger has decided to stop keeping the app updated with iOS changes, so this is going to be a little more cumbersome this year, but we're trying to work around it. The latest weather reports tell us to expect unseasonably warm temperatures again this year, but we are still hoping for better results (for ducks) based on a stronger resident population in the area that we are hunting this year. 422 miles to our next stop in Knoxville, Illinois at 5:39am CST.