Monday blahs

Weather today was 35/40 with 15-25 mph wind. We hunted a private (but not posted) property of Lee Boehm - father of the guy that didn’t give us permission to hunt his land - between Mercer and McClusky. 

We had a good number of ducks around us and on our pond, but they mostly stayed out of shooting range, so Dan Moved about 60 yards to my left to try to increase our odds. I did shoot 1 Widgeon, and Jackson retrieved a snow goose that was previously wounded & dropped into our pond to die.

We could have / should have shot at least 5 more ducks after we split up to be able to cover more area: a pair that came right to Dan while he was in the middle of a “bathroom break” - a pair decoyed into me when I wasn’t paying attention (so I shot late & missed) - a single decoyed into me while I was talking to Dad and not paying attention (it couldn’t have been more than 20 yards away); I shot at it too late & missed. Toward the end of the hunt, we had 3 more nearby that we didn’t get shooting opportunities (2 more when Dan was taking another “bathroom break” & 1 that flared just before it got into range. My mistakes in not paying attention have me pretty frustrated with myself. 

Jax broke (& reset) on the 1 duck I did shoot, so I had him get back on the retriever stand and made him wait a few seconds, then sent him for the retrieve. He also broke like that once yesterday. Good news is the 2x I shot (& missed!) after that, he stayed steady. Here’s hoping that we have some chances to stay steady & make the retrieves tomorrow…

Sunday pheasants

We hunted Winnie tonight for a little over an hour on PLOTS land near Hazen, ND - the same area we hunted yesterday. She did a good job, but we don’t have much to show for it. She’s tired now and enjoying sleeping in the back seat. Overall, she’s hunting well with very little in the way of side effects (soreness, limping, etc.).

She put up 1 rooster, (behind a couple pieces of tumbleweed that had blown into a cut corn field), but given the lack of cover it was in, it would not hold for her to point it and immediately flushed in front of her. She was 40ish yards in front of us and Dan took a shot at it, but his first offering was probably when the bird was about 55 yds away - so not a high percentage shot…

We’re planning to go to Joe’s spot tomorrow night, so we’re hoping to have some pheasants to clean tomorrow night!

We saw some deer along the road driving home that were interesting. They were bigger and slightly different-looking than our white tails at home. Maybe They are mule deer? We’ll need to do some research to find out.

Rainy Sunday Ducks

This morning, we hunted a medium size pond just off the main road (ND Rt 200), on the West edge of Mercer, ND. Weather was 38 and light rain most of the morning. For some reason, (maybe the 38 & rain?) Dad decided to hang with Winnie at the hotel through the morning. 

While there were a lot of birds around us, we had limited shooting opportunities. The birds here just appear to be pretty educated (probably older birds due to the low nesting success this summer as caused by the drought here) and are very weary of decoys - to the point they are sometimes obviously avoiding the decoys. This has us strategizing to possibly do some unorthodox things in the upcoming days - maybe hunt without decoys, maybe set up decoys 75 yards from where we set up, maybe use only 1 or 2 decoys...

We did kill 3 ducks (2 GW Teal & 1 hen Mallard). Dan got 1 teal, I got 1, & we both hit the mallard. We had a couple other (marginal) shooting chances, so we possibly could have scratched-out a couple more if our shooting was near perfect. We had a good time & Jax again did a great job. Retrieves were pretty easy - 2, 25 yard marks and 1, 50 yard blind that was straight & simple. What he excelled at was sitting still and quiet for the 30 min prior to legal shooting time while 20-30 ducks landed near us & swam around near us. It would have been very easy for him to move, whine, bark, etc. out of excitement and scare everything away.

His behavior reminds me to not take for granted all the little things that go well every day. Another of those little things was the way Dan carefully handed me a couple shotgun shells while we were sitting in our spots (mud/water just under our feet). It was a simple thing that he did without us talking about it, but I could tell that he made very sure I had a good grip on them before he let go - to make sure they didn't fall into the mud. Little things, but they make a difference & add up to a really good trip!

With the rain we got, we decided to wait until tomorrow to hunt the spot that Joe told us about last night. If it stops raining, we'll hunt Sharp-tails/Pheasants where we were yesterday. If it doesn't stop raining, we'll spend the evening relaxing at the hotel. Either way, I'm giving Jackson the evening off to rest and make sure he stays sharp for the next couple days.

Saturday Upland Hunting

We decided to hunt SW of Underwood, near Hazen, SD since there are more birds in that area. 

Jackson hunted the first spot (very small slough-ND State Trust Land) for a quick 10 minute up & back. He hunted perfectly, but no birds were to be found. We proceeded West for about 2-3 more miles and then North a couple miles North on 200 to a few PLOTS areas. 

Winnie hunted this area and couldn’t have done it any better! The statistics on more upland opportunities SW of Underwood proved to be correct as we did see about 15-20 birds flush throughout our 1:30 minutes of hunting. All of the birds we located were Sharp-tails (type of grouse), but unfortunately the 18-20mph winds were causing the birds to flush wild 50+ yards in front of her so we were not able to bag anything tonight. 

Another guest of the hotel (Joe) is leaving in the morning, so he told us about a spot that his group has been hunting that sounds like a can't miss opportunity for pheasants tomorrow night. We all know how those "sure things" can sometimes turn out, but we're going to follow his directions & hopefully have good news to report tomorrow night.

Ducks tomorrow will be a rainy affair. Forecast is 90% chance of rain and 35 degrees, so that sounds like a perfect time to sit outside, right???

Lastly, I'll include a pic of our hotel security system. This is necessary b/c there's no chain on the door & the deadbolt is electronic. That in & of itself is fine. What's not fine is that half of the people here stay here often, so they've stayed in every room (there are only 8) & the hotel owners don't know how to change the room combinations - so all the other guests know the code to get into our room!!! Pretty odd situation, but there's nothing we can do about it at this point...

Saturday am - no ducks

We hunted a new spot, west of Mercer today. Weather was good: 29 degrees with 15 mph wind from the East (which was directly in our face as we sat all morning), mostly clear- very little cloud cover. We saw this pond 2x on Thurs & 2x yesterday & it held good numbers of ducks every time. So.... no idea why we sat for 3 hours today & didn't see anything. We did shoot 1 CN goose - Dan & I both hit it as a small group flew over us. It dropped on the bank behind us, so it wasn't much of a retrieve for Jax to deal with. It was a fairly enjoyable morning, despite the lack of activity. Overall, there just wasn't anything flying anywhere, ducks or geese. Hoping for better luck tomorrow.

We scouted a bit on the way home & got back to the hotel around 12:45. We're figuring out the plan for this afternoon/evening now. Winnie is walking around the room without much of a visible limp, so I imagine Dan will want to hunt. I'm not sure if we'll take Jax, or give him some time off.

One item of note is that both days, while we're hunting, Jax has sat on his retriever stand totally on alert & not even wanting us to pet him or distract him. This is a level of intensity we've never seen from him. It's really cool, but makes me wonder why it took him 9 years to develop that attitude??? He also hasn't displayed much of his normal 'quirkiness'. He's jumping in/out of the truck without hesitation & only shows a mild dislike for the linoleum kitchen floor. Always something new with him... :)

Friday Pheasants

We hunted Wolf Creek WMA this afternoon from 4:45 to 6:45. Both Winnie and Jackson hunted together the entire time. Both did really well the first hour, then tired a little and worked considerably slower the final 30 minutes. Both did a nice job and together they put up 4 birds in front of us. The drawback was that all four were hens (can’t shoot hens...).

All of us are definitely tired now and I speak for everyone when I say we are looking forward to dinner. Jackson was fairly annoyed at mid-day, when we didn’t feed him…

This being our 10th hunting trip, Dan is celebrating by paying a speeding ticket. He got nabbed doing 77 in a 65 driving home from our morning hunt. Positive news is the officer knocked it down to 75 in a 65 so it was no points and the fine was a whopping $20! When the officer told him the amount of the fine, I nearly burst out laughing, which would not have been helpful in that situation. I was able to contain myself at least until the cop walked away.

Friday am ducks - better than expected!

 This morning we hunted at Goven's property next to the canal. The weather was about perfect - 30 degrees, 10-15 mph wind, partly cloudy. In total, we brought home 5 ducks: 1GW Teal, a hen & drake Mallard, & a hen & drake Gadwall.  Dan shot both Gadwall & the drake Mallard & I got the other 2. Jax made quick retrieves on all 5 & made it look easy. Part of his work included a (basic) blind & a trail (the hen gadwall got out of the water & tried to escape into the brush while he retrieved the drake). For the utter lack of training he's received in the last 5 years, he was amazing!

We both shot well, with the only missed opportunity being a Canada goose that Dan missed to start the day. As luck would have it, a trio of mallards dropped into the decoys just as I was changing batteries on the video camera, so I was only able to get 1 shot off at that group - or we likely would have bagged 1 additional bird. Dan also held fire on a mallard that was a 'layup' because he didn't want to scare off a larger group of birds that was also working our spread at the time. I wasn't in a position to see or shoot at that time because I was looking for my thermos that had gone MIA (Dan found it on our way out of the property later, laying at the fence we had to cross to access the property - it must have fallen out while we navigated that crossing in the morning).

After wrapping up the hunt at 11, we scouted our spots to hunt tomorrow and possibly the next day & tracked-down a landowner to ask permission (denied!) to hunt another spot. We got back to the hotel around 2 & had lunch & are now heading out with Both Winnie & Jax to hunt pheasants. Our hope/plan is to hunt 2 hours tonight, but that will depend on how much/long the dogs are able to go.

 

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!

So far, so good - Wednesday late afternoon

 We got out of Columbus about an hour ahead of schedule, leaving around 1pm (EST). We’re currently in western Indiana and making good time. Great driving weather: partly sunny and calm. With no boat in tow & Dan keeping it around 70/75, we’re getting around 20 mpg; so we’ll save a little $ on gas!

I had to spend the afternoon working in the backseat. I’ll say that it wasn’t a very comfortable office, but the company was good and it got us on the road a lot sooner than the alternative! 

We’re planning to get into north-central ND around sunrise tomorrow and scout our way in from there. With water sparse, we’re betting we will need to hunt ducks 30-60 min east of Underwood (that area had less drought and also has more areas of small water anyway).

With no hurry to get there, we’re a lot more relaxed than previous trips. We stopped at a hwy rest area a bit ago and all stretched our legs & switched seats. We’re contemplating a sit-down dinner (vs drive thru) for dinner…

Trip 2021!

        After a golf trip in 2019 and no trip of any kind last year, we're headed back into the marsh & the fields - specifically to Underwood, ND. Our plan is to arrive early on Thursday the 21st and hunt through Friday the 29th. Our hunting expectations are a bit lower than some past years, for several reasons. We have only 2 dogs, Jackson & Winnie. This will be the first trip we've taken planning to hunt both ducks & pheasants where we didn't have at least 3 dogs. The arthritis in Winnie's wrist (lasting effects from the fungal infection she contracted in SD in 2017)  is going to limit her hunting significantly- though we're not sure exactly how much. Jackson's in good health but 'life' has prevented us from doing much training or getting him into top physical shape.

        The weather reports tell us that it's one of the driest years in ND in quite some time (reduced pond counts & therefore numbers of resident ducks). The overall projected duck numbers are still above  the long term average, so we're hoping that the reduced pond counts will concentrate the ducks more, to provide decent hunting. Pheasant populations are about 'normal' for ND, so there's also hope that we'll do ok in the afternoons. We're traveling light - no boat - so hopefully less complications, better gas mileage, & easier driving. It's 1700 miles each way from Atglen & a little over 1400 from Pennsboro, so fingers crossed for smooth sailing!

        Overall, I/we are looking forward to being together & with our dogs & making the best of whatever the situation turns out to be. Dad is again accompanying us & both Dan & I are happy that he decided to come. The long-range forecast shows that low temps should be in the upper 30's & highs will be in the mid/upper 50's, so he'll be happy that it's not brutally cold. 😂