Scouting Day - tired, but successful

We arrived in the area about 6:30 this morning (Thurs) and scouted for ducks from sunrise until around noon. There is a good amt. of water once we get 20 min East of our hotel, so we'll be driving a little more than typical each morning for ducks, but we found several spots holding good numbers of birds that are accessible to us. We checked-in to our hotel and grabbed some lunch mid-day, then Dan & I went back out to scout for a few hours until dark.

A couple of our 'old haunts' (Bill Kuhne's, O'Shea's multiple ponds, 3 telephone pole pond, and a couple others) that are nearby to the hotel have zero water. Jerry's has some & we may or may not hunt there - It will depend on how we do at our new spots. The Goven property in Turtle Lake has some ducks, though the water levels are lower than normal - so that's where we'll start our hunt tomorrow. They were nice enough to allow us to hunt it again this year.

As far as pheasants, we saw 6-8 birds as we drove around today & some other hunters in the hotel say that they've "done ok" lately. We have all our old spots available to us, and a couple new ones (areas that were historically ponds and are now dry often make good phez habitat). We're planning to get in a couple hours' hunting tomorrow afternoon/evening to see what we can do.

Our hotel is just what we need - lots of space and not breaking the bank! Certainly nothing fancy (or even nice!), but for a hunting trip, it's about perfect. It is a 'bring your own hangers' type of place, but luckily, we did! Both dogs did great on the trip & have settled into the hotel nicely. Jackson didn't even make too big of a fuss over the flooring! We're grabbing a quick snack/dinner and getting to bed. I haven't slept since 7am Wed (39 hours ago) and the other guys aren't a lot better - so we'll all sleep soundly tonight & 5:45 alarms will come too soon!