We’ve Had Enough...

Today we hunted a different IHAP (private land open to public hunting) in Washington County, IA. It was the spot we scouted yesterday morning before legal shooting time. Since it looked good then,  we figured that we should give it a shot today. We had Winnie & Mag with us and Winnie was on a bird in the first 5 minutes. She trailed it for 400-500 yards before it finally flushed & presented a nice shot for me. I folded it with a single shot & Winnie handled the retrieve without a problem (Winnie finally got to make a retrieve!). It was a great start to the day, but unfortunately would be the last bird contact as well... Both girls hunted well (slower than they used-to, but not less effectively), got birdy a time or 2, but produced no more birds. We stopped hunting a little after 10:15.

We then took stock of our position: 3 days of duck hunting (on our own/no guide) that has resulted in 2 killed ducks, & 4 days of pheasant hunting where we totaled 5 birds. Our frustration levels (with the lack of success, not each other) & lack of optimism for the next few days led us to decide to cut our losses and head for home.

Also in this mess is the fact that the point of attachment for the winch strap & safety chain on the bow of the boat broke on Tuesday & needed to be repaired... I found a welding shop nearby & got that fixed while Dad & Dan started getting the hotel room packed-up. As I write this, we’re out of Iowa (into IL) & expect to be in Columbus, OH around 11:30 EST. That will put Dad & Dan to Dan’s house around 2:30a and Bill to Atglen around 6am.

Overall, we shot 14 ducks (12 mallards, 2 teal) & 5 pheasants on generally good shooting by both of us.
We had 5 roosters flush & killed 4 (+ Jax got 1 on his own) & Dan missed 1 that was borderline out of range. We just didn’t have enough birds of either species come in range...

Single Teal

We put the boat in the water  at the actual boat ramp on Babcock Access Road, near where we put in yesterday. It was nice to get to use the ramp, as opposed to jackknifing off the side of the road. We were set up and hunting by 2 PM & stopped at the end of shooting time, which was 4:48pm.  We set up around the other side of the same island we hunted yesterday, but sat on the land (concealed by trees) instead of hunting out of the boat.  Although the 3 of us could have fit in the boat (with Mag on the land behind us), we decided that the concealment was better if we all just sat up in the trees with Maggie.

We had only 2 possible shooting opportunities, a group of Greenwing teal & a single Bluebill that gave us a look. We got one drake Greenwing out of the flock (shot by Bill on his second shot) & did not shoot at the Bluebill, as we were hoping it would swing around for another pass & present a higher percentage shot. It did not, so it lived to see another day.  Maggie made quick work of the simple retrieve on the Greenwing & seemed to generally enjoy the rest of her day laying (partially) in her hut. I imagine that she, like us, would have preferred to have a little more action...

We are stopping at KFC to grab dinner & then will be back to the hotel, settled in for the night. We do have a couple birds to clean & then make a plan for our pheasant hunting tomorrow. We might even have time to hit the hotel hot tub for a few minutes!

Teamwork Rooster

We finished our morning of pheasants, hunting on a private property open to public hunting (called IHAP) in Keokuk County, just south of the English River wildlife area that we hunted two days ago.  In that 2 hours, Winnie and Jackson combined to put up eight birds - six Hens, one Rooster, one bird that we weren’t sure which it was (so we didn’t shoot). I guess that puts it into the “Q” category for us...

 The rooster was a nice package of teamwork by both dogs. Winnie found the scent & trailed the bird for quite a distance before setting up on a solid point. Jackson heard her collar screech & came running, actually knocking her over in his enthusiasm to find her. Winnie stood up & reset her point while Jackson found & flushed the bird - putting it into nice gun range for a simple shot for me. Jackson made short work of the retrieve, though he was not very interested in releasing the bird to me once he returned to my side. We had to spend a minute of training to remind him that the birds are mine and not his!  We also noted that Winnie  seems to have her normal interest level in hunting, but is moving at a much slower pace (assuming due to her illness) than is typical for her. 

Although we only put up one rooster, the amount of bird contact and the quality of the habitat is leading us to think that we will probably hunt this property again before the end of the trip. Our plan now is to get a quick lunch & change into our duck attire and get into the boat & out on the water. We plan to set up at the same spot we hunted yesterday morning, just hoping for  better results...

Your Friendly Neighborhood K9 Pharmacy

We hunted pheasants this evening for a little more than an hour at Schmitter Heritage Wildlife Area, which is approximately 40 minutes southwest of Iowa City. It looked like nice habitat, but we only had 1 bird contact. Winnie & Maggie trailed a bird for a hundred yards or so before it flushed wild out in front of them - putting it on the edge of  shooting range for us. Dan got off a shot & drew feathers, but didn’t hit it hard enough to knock it down.  Although my first shot came as the bird was probably about out of range, I knew he had been hit, so I tried to help out (unsuccessfully). With the same theory in mind, Dan went ahead and took a second shot, but was also unsuccessful in connecting.

Winnie continues to look healthy & is hunting well. Maggie also appears to have more stamina than I expected (given that she’s 11 years old & I don’t get her nearly enough regular exercise) & seems to be feeling better than I would have expected (arthritis issues). Let’s hope this trend continues for both of them.  The pheasant hunting hours in Iowa being different than anywhere else we have ever hunted is causing us to adjust some of our plans & typical ways of doing things...

With another night ahead of us with low temps in the teens, we are going to switch up the schedule for tomorrow & hunt pheasants in the morning & ducks in the afternoon - with the hope of warmer temperatures through the day causing more ducks to be moving later in the afternoon (as opposed to first thing in the am). Also, afternoon/evening duck hunting appears to be the norm around here, based on what we see the local duck hunters doing. Tomorrow's forecasted high is 30, with even warmer days ahead later in the week.

We are getting into the groove of our schedule now, although keeping the cocktail of meds straight for the dogs is a challenge (Winnie for her fungal infection, arthritis, and some new stuff as a result of the overdose & Mag for arthritis & her overactive thyroid). If anyone in this area needs doggie meds, they could come ask us - we probably have them...

Actually Using the Boat!!!

Today was our first day of putting the boat in the water (after trailering it out here every year, but not using it for several years). The flooding is so extensive that all the boat ramps are inaccessible, so the only way to launch a boat is to drive down a gravel road until the road is swamped, jackknife the trailer off the road, then push the boat off the trailer into the flooded area. Because of this, we were not comfortable navigating unknown terrain in the dark that is normally dry land. This lead us to the decision to wait until first light to launch the boat. It is another blustery day, with temps at 16 degrees & wind at 10-15mph. Battling ice on our gear is beginning to get a little annoying. Check out the ice that formed on the bill of the mallard decoy Dan is holding below... The good news is that temps are forecasted to rise a few degrees tomorrow & for the remainder of the week - getting up to the low 40's Th-Sat.

We ended up being set up and ready to hunt around 8:15 in a flooded field off of the Babcock Access Road. Even though it is normally dry land, the water depths were still 4 to 8 feet!  We had 2 ducks drop into the decoys just as we finished setting them & 2 more circled to land while we were getting our guns uncased & readying ourselves to hunt. After that, we had 1 Bluewing teal visit us. Dan made sure that it was a short visit, with a simple but effective shot. Jax was a good boy all am (sitting in the boat) & made short work of that easy retrieve. We wrapped up our hunt at 9:55 in order to give us time to get ourselves to the hotel with  ample time to change clothes, grab something to eat, and get out for some pheasant hunting this afternoon.

We are planning to search for phez this afternoon at one of the properties suggested to us by the local PF President.

Yeah, buoy...!!! (Read that in a Flava Flav voice...)

 As you can tell from the title of this post, we are quite happy with today’s pheasant hunt. Our first afternoon of actual pheasant hunting was a short, but good one.  We hunted the English River Wildlife Area which is about 30 miles southwest of our hotel from 3:30 until 4:45 (sunset was 4:45).  We hunted 15 minutes longer than legal (shooting time ended at 4:30) because we had assumed that shooting time ended 30 min after sunset - like everywhere else in the US we've ever hunted. It turns out that Iowa pheasant hunting hours are 8-4:30 daily, regardless of sunrise/sunset times! Winnie hunted well, although by the end of the afternoon, her catheter site was inflamed & bleeding a little. Both Dan and I were developing heel blisters, which contributed to the decision to stop at at a time that we thought was 30 minutes before we had-to (but turned out to be 15 minutes after we should have!) We didn't get too bent out of shape about this because we had 3 pheasants already & were both pretty content.

We were hunting Winnie and Jackson together for that time & both dogs performed flawlessly. Dan shot and killed 2 birds on 4 shots and I got no birds on one shot (firing to back up Dan on one of his birds).  Jackson got one bird (Dan won’t let me take credit for the bird, even though it was my dog that found it) that was unable to flush. However, it had enough life in it to run for about 40 yards through the woods until he caught up & got a hold of it.  The 2 birds that Dan ended-up shooting had both been trailed by Winnie & Jax for quite a long way, with Winnie registering multiple points along the trail before continuing to pursue. Jackson was also participating in those trailing duties nicely. Jackson retrieved both birds (because I sent him for them) despite the fact that Winnie was also in the vicinity of both & could have handled that job. I sent him on the first one because it was in tall/thick grass and I didn’t think it was hit hard enough to be killed cleanly. The second bird fell into some heavy cover and Jackson had a perfect mark on it from an elevated position so I knew he would get it quickly and cleanly. Dan assures me he has no problem with those decisions, but I’m going to be more careful in the future & make sure that I don’t let the retrievers hog all of the retrieves for the remainder of the week.

With us wrapping up at 4:45, we had enough daylight to clean the birds on the tailgate at the hunting site, so that job is already complete!  Since we were fairly busy in the middle of the day, we didn’t have time to take a picture of my nautical find from this morning - so we used the little bit of extra light we had this evening to snap that picture & include it here.

No Ducks on Monday

As we took stock of the spot we had to hunt, our day started out with more optimism than we had last night. The temps, the wind, our exquisite decoy spread (quite lifelike and realistic), & our proximity to the refuge area all combined to make us think that this could be a really good morning.  That optimism quickly faded, as the lack of avian activity was glaringly evident. We wrapped up our hunt at 9 AM without firing a shot - though we did have one missed opportunity on a single Mallard that surprised us, but didn’t stick around for a second pass over the decoys.

We did find a channel buoy that had washed away from it’s anchor point in the recent flooding & ended-up stuck in the woods. Knowing that would be someday cleaned-up & sent to the trash, we carried it out thinking that it might be a nice decoration somewhere in the future.  It was a good thing that we only had a couple hundred yard walk back to the truck, because the buoy weighed around 60 pounds. When combined with another 60 pounds of various hunting supplies, it made for a slightly strenuous walk - especially considering that it was up hill both ways...

 In other good news, the veterinary center performed another blood test on Winnie this morning & called us to say the results are very good. We picked her up & she has a clean bill of health, so we're going to take her out to hunt this afternoon. Speaking of this afternoon, after we get the necessary tasks completed at the hotel, we will are planning  to head out for an honest to goodness real afternoon of pheasant hunting. Stay tuned for tonight‘s update on that activity.

In Search of Water

 At the conclusion of our morning duck hunting, Dan and I stopped on the way back to the hotel to scout a walk-in spot for hunting ducks tomorrow. That was a bust because the cold temperatures have iced over much of the water in this area & the spot we hoped to hunt was totally frozen.  We next went to the hotel to change into our pheasant hunting clothes, pick up Dad, & switch dogs. We did that & went to go grab lunch & scout for a place to hunt ducks in the morning on our way out to hunt pheasants. However, since we didn't arrive at the hotel until around 1 PM, this was turned out to be an overly ambitious workload.

 We grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald’s & then headed to the first of 3 spots we had earmarked as possibilities for a walk-in duck hunt tomorrow morning. The first place was a half mile from the road and took quite a bit of time to check out while also turning out not to be a huntable spot due to the amount of ice & lack of open water. The second spot ended up being where we will hunt tomorrow morning.  It's a pond that has a small spillway at one end that has enough current to keep an area of open water around it, leaving us a 30yd x 60yd hole as a landing area for the ducks. While we are hopeful that we can have some shooting opportunities tomorrow am, I can't say that we really expect to do that well... We have hope, because our spot is adjacent to the refuge (where no hunting is allowed - so tons of birds congregate there, see pic below)

In order to be sure we were thorough enough in our scouting, I was wearing my chest waders through all this activity, (no fun walking a mile through medium cover to scout that first spot in heavy chest waders...) with the plan to take them off & put on my pheasant boots once our duck scouting was complete. The problem with that plan is that I left my boots at the hotel!

 The combination of having only one hour of remaining daylight & me having a choice between hunting pheasants in chest waders or in crocs lead us to the decision to again cancel our pheasant hunting. We instead used the last hour to look at a couple additional spots for duck hunting on Tuesday & further into the week.  Another contributing factor to that decision was the utter lack of pheasants in the immediate area due to massive flooding in this region over the last month. We were planning to hunt ducks on the reservoir and pheasants around the banks of the reservoir and adjacent fields, all within the same wildlife management area. Unfortunately, the flooding brought the waters  25 feet over the normal water level & pushed all the pheasants on the management area onto private ground adjacent to the area, making them un-huntable. I cannot begin to estimate or explain the volume of water that is still present here over an expanse of many square miles, or the amount of water that had to have been here 2 weeks ago, based on seeing the high water marks on trees. Our pheasant hunting will need to be further away from our hotel & the duck hunting areas. We do have some good leads from various sources about where to hunt pheasants - we just need to have the time to hunt them! Hopefully, that can start tomorrow.

Between the flooding that has pushed all the (local) pheasants to places we can't hunt & washing out all the actual boat ramps (they are all still significantly under water) & the low temps that are freezing a lot of the water that we could hunt without a boat, Mother Nature has not been our friend on this trip! I did manage to find a coot while scouting (picture below), so maybe if the traditional duck hunting isn't going well, Dan will have some coot to shoot...

As an update on Winnie, she is doing well at the emergency vet & we may be able to spring her tomorrow. It will depend on the results of the blood tests that they'll run on her then Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed.

Mallard Limits for Veteran's Day

 We had a much better morning today than the last two. Dan and I combined to kill 5 drake & 3 hen mallard‘s, which put us at our daily limit for that species. It was obvious from the start of the day that a lot of new birds moved into the area yesterday afternoon & last night. We saw at least twice the number of ducks today that we did yesterday - while hunting the same spot. We saw a few teal, but 95% of the birds we are seeing are mallards - which is good with me! Compared to yesterday’s cold temperatures, today's weather of 26° and light wind felt like a heat wave. Dad reported that he was able to finally get some sleep, & enjoyed an uneventful morning at the hotel.

 Through the morning, Dan & I had flashes of brilliance, each making a couple really nice shots, but also both put on some displays of miserable marksmanship as well.  We wrapped up our hunt around 10:30, but could have been done significantly earlier had we shot a little better.

 Jackson was with us today and did an overall excellent job. He had some difficulty on one bird early in the day when has a rough dismount out of the boat, missed the mark in the decoys, then refused multiple whistles & casts. He ended up tangled in a decoy line & drug the decoy about 40 yards before I called him back in. My read on the situation was that he was overly excited/amped-up & not thinking straight. I calmed him down for a second & lined him up & re-sent him for the bird (which was straight in front of us at about 30 yards away) & he picked it up cleanly to finish the retrieve. After that, he was flawless in retrieving six or seven more birds, to include a couple doubles & 3 birds that landed in a channel of fast-moving water - which was something new for him to learn how to navigate. He sat quietly all morning in his spot on the boat, helped us watch for ducks, & generally was a good boy. Shockingly, he was jumping into the boat (which was a leap of about 18" from the bank) without hesitation & with visible athleticism & grace. He's also jumping into & out of the truck's back seat without pause or worry... Now, this may not seem like a big deal, but those that know Jackson & his "quirky" ways will definitely be happy to hear of him doing some more 'normal' things.

All-in-all it was a fun morning where we were busy almost all of the time (there were many groups of birds that worked our spread for multiple passes before deciding not to commit). We had an enjoyable, safe, and effective hunt. We'll remember the couple really good shots, try to have short memories of the bad ones, & hope to have another day tomorrow just as good...

Uh-Oh

Sooo.... Our day started with me, Dan, & Maggie in the boat with our duck hunting guide (Lynn Buswell, pictured below in the boat/blind with Dan). We got a phone call from Dad (at the hotel) that when he got up to use the bathroom, he discovered that all of Winnie's meds - Rimadyl (NSAID for dogs) & Intraconazole (meds to treat her fungal infection) had been eaten. This put us all in an emergent situation at 5:20am... We had left him no first aid kit (we had it with us), no list of vets to call (it was in the truck at the boat ramp), & no vehicle. We pieced-together enough facts to be pretty sure (but not 100% positive) it was Winnie who ingested the meds & not Jax. Lynn offered to call his girlfriend & have her get Dad & the dog(s) & take them to the vet (we were able to pull up our list of pre-qualified vets in the area on my phone). This is what we did... Spoiler alert - Winnie is ok... Below is a picture of the counter area where the meds were stored - on the shelf that is chest high for me. She must have jumped up onto the counter to stand on it with all 4 paws & then reached her head up onto the shelf to get the meds - but not the Pedigree wet dog food pouches or the granola bars!

While Lynn's girlfriend was en-route to the hotel, Dad was able to get some Hydrogen Peroxide (one of the hotel workers went to a nearby Target to buy it) to induce vomiting. He got this process started & then Lynn's girlfriend arrived to head to the Vet. We decided that Dad should take Jax too, since we weren't totally sure that he didn't partake in the overdose (rave) party that went on in the living room. The four of them got to the nearby Animal Hospital, where vomiting was immediately induced for both dogs. Long story short was the results of that process were enough for me to decide that Jax had not eaten the pills. It was also obvious that Winnie had, so they gave her activated charcoal & started her on IV fluids & other meds to dilute the overdose & counter the effects on her kidneys and liver. They did blood-work on her as a baseline of liver and kidney function & will continue the IV fluids for 48 hours & do another round of blood-work to compare to today's results. We hope to be able to get her out of the hospital on Monday. Maybe she'll be ready to hunt Tuesday??? We'll just have to wait and see...

As for our morning hunt, It was cold today - 16 degrees with 10mph wind & clear skies when we started at 5:30. By the late morning, it had warmed-up to 25 degrees, & Mag enjoyed the warmth of the sun, as evidence by the pic below. We hunted from 6:20-10:15 & shot 4 drake & 1 hen Mallards, recovering 3 of the 5 - there was a fair amount of ice around our hunting spot & it prevented Mag from picking up 3 of the birds until several hours later, when we were finished. She was able to find 2 of the 3, but only recover 1 of those 2 because of additional ice issues... Her blind manners & obedience were excellent & other than the cold, she seemed to enjoy her day. We had a fair number of ducks (all mallards) work our spread through the morning, but most refused to finish close enough for shots. Of the 4 we shot, Bill hit 3 (all wounded, not dead). Dan hit 2 (1 of which was the same bird Bill hit) & wounded both. Lynn killed 1 bird after Dan hit, but didn't drop the bird). Bill was going to the bathroom at the time of this shot, so didn't get to join in the fun. Overall, Bill took 3 shots for the day & Dan took 10 shots (+/- 1)  - partly because he had a move favorable position in the blind.

With all this going on, today was another day of afternoon activity that didn't include hunting. For tomorrow, we're meeting Lynn in the am for ducks & then heading out in the pm on our own for either ducks or phez - not decided yet. We're hoping that tomorrow provides a bit more hunting action (both am & pm) than we got today & just a little less drama!

Friday: A Little Bit of Hunting, Some Scouting, & Getting Ready for the Week

Well, we killed as many ducks this morning as you would expect to kill when hunting a brand new place without the ability to do any scouting beforehand... We picked a spot that looked like it could work & threw out some decoys. After 2.5 hours we called it quits. We did see a decent amount of ducks & even had a couple in range, but nothing that presented a good shot. Dan managed to get 1 shot, but came up empty, as it wasn't a high-quality shot...

We then did some scouting, meeting with the Manager of the Hawkeye WMA to get some tips for the remainder of the week. He was very nice & provided some solid info. We also were finally able to connect with 2 WCOs with whom I'd been playing phone tag this week. They both provided decent info, but the general idea is that pheasant hunting nearby is going to be tough because of the flooding. We may end up driving a little more than originally planned each day to get to some areas with better chances for pheasants. To that end, I was also able to talk with the President of the local PF Chapter, who was extremely helpful. He confirmed that several places we were considering are holding birds & also told us which places to stay away-from, so we don't waste our time!

We were thinking to do a quick evening duck hunt in some flooded corn, but by the time we got the boat & truck unpacked & got our hotel suite situated (our suite is sweet, BTW...) it was too late to go. We had a nice dinner at the local Pizza Ranch & are now getting our gear ready for tomorrow. We (Dan & I) are hunting ducks with guide Lynn Buswell tomorrow & Sunday am in an effort to get a jumpstart on some local knowledge. We will come back to the hotel to get Dad & grab lunch each day, then the 3 of us will go after some pheasants in the afternoon.

Jax went out with us today (in hopes of getting him a couple "training" ducks, but all he got was an opportunity to sit and watch the sky), so Mag will have the ducking duties tomorrow. Winnie & Jax will hunt pheasants tomorrow afternoon. Weather forecast for 6am tomorrow is 17 degrees with 10 mph wind - so it's going to be chilly! Dad & Winnie will be happily curled-up under the covers!

As info, for anyone who checked our itinerary that was posted yesterday, we were slightly off schedule on our planning & arrival time. We pulled into the hotel 3 minutes ahead of schedule...

Heading West

We’re loaded & on the road, having just departed our meeting place (where Dad & Dan met me) on the West side of Columbus, OH. Dan’s new truck rides really nice & has a great audio system  - although he’s currently wasting it by making us listen to the Steeler game (I’m boycotting the NFL...). One downside of the new ride is that it’s a good bit smaller than the old Ford - so Mag,Win, & I are extremely close quarters in the back seat. Jackson’s in a kennel in the truck bed (he and Mag will switch spots when we stop for gas). Dan will get to cuddle up with him and Win and try to sleep the last few hours of the trip. Our itinerary is below, for anyone who’s interested in the specifics (although the plan for tomorrow am has already changed). Our new plan for the next 24 hrs is to arrive in Iowa City around 4am and go out to hunt ducks, then scout & hunt pheasants through the afternoon.

We’ll post something tomorrow, when we have some pics and videos of lots of dead birds!!!