Duck, Pheasant, swing and a miss

Monday the weather dude called for rain and snow in that order. When the rain hit Sunday evening I thought it would keep going into Monday however, the weatherman had it right for a change and I awoke to 3 inches of snow with a side of slop below that. I got to the ramp well before sunrise, motored out to the spot of the day and set up my decoys. I heard the sounds of restless waterfowl through the snowstorm across the lake from me. I thought this should be a good day the birds should be moving in and out all day with this snow. Well, the birds I heard moved out in the snow like a thief in the night. I never saw them which at this point of the day I was beginning to realize seeing birds was going to be the hard part. The snow was falling in huge flakes and I had to clean decoys every 15 minutes or so.

 I took this pic after I got back from knocking all the snow off them, I would get up and tip the top of the boat open and the snow was so thick it didn't fall off.
Until....
The snow stopped and the clouds parted long enough for this lonesome guy to come in. I did have a shot at another mallard but after the shot, I swung to get on the hen. She was quickly retreating and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the drake get up and make a clean getaway.

  So day one ended with a wet crotch,(I think my waders are leaking more than previously assessed) and one mallard, which is still better than a shutout with a wet crotch.
At the end of day 1 with no word from Jake, I decided to take a day off of waterfowl and get into some cleanup pheasant. I got to the check station around 8am and got the lowdown on how they were running the clean up now, it has been a long time since I was at Mongo for clean up. Anyway, while I was talking to the DNR guy another hunter walked in and signed up and asked about a youth hunt. I was already outside going to my car when I noticed a dog box in the other hunters truck and no one in the passenger seat. So I turned around and asked him if he was hunting alone, he said, "yes". I said, "do you have a dog?" he said, "yes," I asked him if he wanted some company while assuring him he didn't have to feel obligated to say yes. He said, "sure" so he filled out his check-in card, I filled out mine, I told him I would follow him and thanked him profusely for allowing me to tag along.
So we get to his spot and he lets the dog out and as I'm getting ready I introduce myself and thank him again for allowing me to hunt with them. Well, it wasn't too long and we found ourselves following a super little English Setter named "Sonny" but he didn't answer to that while he was working. I didn't find out his name until the day was almost over because through the course of the day that dog had many names and none of them were Sonny or derogatory. He worked his butt off all day to get us our limits of pheasant. Just a super well behaved little pheasant finding machine. The first 2 came out my side I hit both but couldn't find either. We moved on and it didn't take too long and Sonny had a point. The bird flushed and fell to earth after a couple of shots, and as pheasants do started running. I caught up to it in a fence row and while I was waiting for Robert to get into position the bird just fell over dead. We got another point and flush that bird just dropped. So we decided to push the row that I shot the first 2 birds out of. Well, as we were walking down the row I spotted the first pheasant I shot. So I let Robert know, I picked it up and we moved on to another spot thankful to have found 1 of 2.
So now we only needed one more bird for Robert and we would be done. As we started the sorghum field I was noticing all the pheasant tracks and it wasn't too far in when we got a point. Robert went in for the flush but the dog didn't hold and slowly crept forward. I said, "that birds running", sure enough, a couple feet from the first point came another. Robert moved in again and this time the bird flushed with Sonny nipping at his tail feathers. Robert gave the bird a couple milliseconds then let the lead loose, then came the feathers. After checking the bird and seeing that he wasn't gutted, we high fived, walked back to the vehicles took the hero pic and agreed we should do this again. I told him I will for sure give him a call next year.

Thanks again to Robert and Sonny I had a great time

 

 

 I finally called Jake to see if he was still alive, he said he was beat up pretty bad from work last week. He offered the farm pond shoot for Wednesday, I accepted and we decided on a time to meet at his house at 6am. Well, he said the birds were there Monday and if it's open should be there today. We pulled into the field and saw hard water where the pond was, so the work started. We got out and started busting ice to open a hole. Now instead of a slam dunk duck hunt, it went to holy crap I hope they come back today. The pluses were that they were there Monday and there was duck crap on the ice. So they have been there since there was ice but it had probably closed since then. We stayed 'til 11:30 or so but never fired a shot, we picked up the decoys and headed for the barn to warm up.
All in all, still had a super week, brought home some birds and had a good time with friends.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just taking it easy today, got up at 4 am and got the turkey cookin', washed the dishes and fixin' to make my lunches for the week.
This week's hunting pretty much went the same way, just got everything done. Monday I went to Eagle and didn't shoot the geese that flew by, they were just a little out of range for the #2's I had loaded. So I passed on them and after the day was done I cut a bunch of grass for my buddies A-frame blind.
Tuesday went to one of Jake's spots and shot a couple ducks, I know I know I gotta start getting pics from those hunts.
Wednesday I found geese.... a lot of geese at one of my properties, I called my buddies but nobody could make it, so off to the Fort in the am for me. I got down there and set my decoys,

 brushed up my blind,

and got ready for the action.
This is the first time I have used this blind and let me tell ya it was pretty nice, it kept a lot of the wind off and it was really easy to shoot out of.

The first flock came in from behind me, by the time they made a noise they were practically on top of me. Well, since they were so close it was like trying to hit them with something the size of a golf ball. Anyway, I did drop one of them and the others flew 300 yards out into the field and set down. Well as anyone that hunts geese knows you don't want any competition in the field from live geese. So I started out to kick them off property, on the way I saw another flock land with the 4 that I just shot at. After the long walk, I went over and picked up my goose, made a sleeper decoy out of him and sat back down in my blind. 

Well, this happened soon after sun up and I was kickin' myself for not shooting my limit on the first flock all day. I was out stretching my legs when I heard a honk, I looked up and saw 5 geese headed my way. I only had enough time to make it to the side of the blind so I hunkered down and started calling. 

 I anchored the second goose with one shot, the first goose needed a couple follow up shots.
As it turns out this was the first goose limit of the year for me. I was also super happy I didn't shoot my limit on the first flock because both of these birds were banded.

 Yesterday was the last day I could hunt before the first half of the goose season ended.
Wow, what a way to end this part of the season, by the way, these birds were banded in Peawanuck which is up by Hudson Bay in Ontario. What a way to end the first stretch of the season.
Next week duck is still open and the pheasant clean up will be in full swing, so I'll try to get out for some pheasant also.
OOOOoooo my turkey's done, have a happy Thanksgiving.

Gettin' colder

We've got a lot of the local lakes lockin' up, so the open water is becoming prime real estate. We still don't have a bunch of geese and the geese we do have aren't staying in one field. They're kinda just hoppin' from field to field, so there's no way to set up in any one field and have any kind of success.
Back to the water situation, most of the main bodies are open but the landings that are somewhat sheltered are freezing up pretty quick.
Through all that, I did have some success this week on Big Turkey. Monday it was kinda a fly by shoot and this Suzie got too close.

 Slowly but surely I'm putting together a meal.
Tuesday I went with Jake to one of his fields and just kinda hung out and bullshitted. Oh yeah, we did throw out and air out all his decoys then put them all back in the trailer.
Wednesday I went back out to Big Turkey. Remember the ice I was talking about earlier? Well, I never thought my boat would break that much ice. I broke out a channel at least 150 yards long some thicker some just skim ice, but I was determined to get out. Thankfully I was rewarded for my efforts with a brace of ducks. This is the closest I've been to shooting a limit this year. I needed one more mallard and I would've had my mallard limit.

 The cool thing about this hunt was all the mallards were landing in my decoys, they weren't just passing by. The ringneck, well he came shooting by in a 12 pack and he didn't fly fast enough. I hate eating divers so I usually don't shoot them, but it was pretty fun.

Wind and rain

Monday I went to a local lake albeit a little late (as per my norm anymore) as I was setting up I had a dozen or so mallards fly over and I thought, this should be a good day. Well, the best part of Monday is I didn't get rained on. I ended up heading home without anything to dirty a knife, which actually can be considered a good thing?
Tuesday woke me with some vicious wind and the distinct sound of rain on the roof. So I rolled over and got some more sleep.
Wednesday I made the hour drive to one of my newest little gems. When I got there, there was already a truck at the landing, which didn't really bother me because there always seems to be a vehicle there. Anyway I unloaded the boat and headed across the lake to set up, yes once again a little late. I hunted until 1:00 then packed it in, the person that had the red truck had already packed it in and headed home without firing a shot. My day was a little better.

Thursday I spent a couple hours the morning at the lake 4 minutes from my house. I missed a goose but was able to get my first wood duck this year.

Maybe this will get the ball rolling to a great year. It's been a pretty slow start and I haven't even shot a limit yet, but I think it's lookin' up.
Gotta work a couple days then back at 'er next week.

The word for the week is .... RAIN

 Side note: I looked out my back window on Saturday and saw this fox hangin' out by my shed.

 Let's start on Monday, the only geese I had were the same geese we hunted last week. So back to the same field, while I was setting the last decoys the rain started. It only lasted for a couple minutes but it got everything soaked. So I got up and wiped off all the decoys, well, when the sun came up the clouds parted and I had a field full of bright shiny decoys. Just then the roost pond cleared out and the game was on.... they saw the decoys and the game was off.
Since the sun was out now and I wanted to dry everything out I got up and dried off all the decoys again. Then I climbed back in my blind for the long haul.
I stayed until sunset when I had to stop, so I unloaded and started to pack up, 2 minutes after my time was up this happened.

Tuesday I forgot to set my alarm so I got up late, decided to go out and scout some lakes.
Wednesday and today started with rain, yesterday it stopped around 10am and don't really care when it's going to stop today since my hunting week is already all but over.

On the upside, I did get the boat worked on yesterday, and I am going to pick up a piece to fit in the front. After that cutting the deck for the front and getting carpet for it.