pheasant hunt 17

perfect weather for a hunt.  about 20 degrees with a 10mph breeze.  temp wasnt too cold once you got moving but cold enough to keep the dogs charging.  december 23rd now and still no snow.  the pheasants have gotten hip to hunters and are running machines.  once they decide to fly they are usually out of range.  however we still managed to find some birds that would sit tight for a pointing dog.  only able to manage 8 birds - one short of a limit.  this time it was not due to lazy hunters.  we pounded cattails for 6 hours - 3 days later my legs are still sore!!!  as the season draws near to end i appreciate each hunt a little more.

15th and 16th pheasant hunt of the year

hunt 15 was a hunt with uncle wicki home based out of the famous "hunting shack."  3 dogs and 3 guys only produced 3 birds after considerable walking.  seems like the birds are getting wise to hunters and with no snow on the ground, holding tight is not on their minds.  this was the first time i can remember going hunting without even pulling the trigger!

pheasant hunt 16 was much better from a numbers standpoint.  joe and i headed out for the day to steele and managed 5 birds in a few hours.  we had plans to get the 6th bird but a big lunch and a couple beers can sidetrack even the most well laid out plan.  only time for a couple more hunts this year.  how sad...

no they dont hunt

SW North Dakota 3 Day Hunt

The birds were aplenty south of Dickinson for our mid December hunt.  We hunted for 3 days and managed to get our limits by about 11am each day.  Most of the birds were pretty wild but it seemed that some would always sit tight for us.  I have to say that our dogs have progressed into some fine hunting machines.  points are more rock solid, dogs are backing each other nicely and retrieves are becoming faster and more often.  all in all another great hunt.

 joe and kelly working dogs in a nice draw

 dan and tim

 kelly and joe

 joe tim dan tanner and dogs

 day one roosters

 hunting rig

 tim and joe working some bottom land surrounded by wheat

 day 3 roosters

 joe tanner tim and larry (land owner)

zoomba

video of birds - sorry no shooting

11th day pheasant

possibly the best hunt of the year.  beautiful december day and a 6 bird limit in about 2 hours.  with about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground the birds held very nice.  great hunt for sure!

9th and 10th day pheasant

we struck out early tuesday hoping to do a combo duck and pheasant hunt - hopes were low for the ducks due to the low temps for the past few days.  the further west we went the more we realized we were a few days late for the ducks - all were south for the winter.  this was fine with  us.  now we could fully focus on pheasants.  we had terrific hunting over the next two days and only ended up 1 short of our 2 day limit - this was mostly because of hunter laziness.  we even secured some new hunting access from a generous farmer who was bribed with a couple cold bud lights!

4 proud dogs

joe surveying our newly found spot

i like the little hun in my hand

bad camera work with the shadows

limit for 2!

dogs ready to go

the road to glory

10th and most likely last duck hunt

most of the ducks have headed out but we managed to find a pond w about 10,000 ducks and geese jammed into it.  by now they are very wary and smart  == tough to decoy.  but it was a nice day so we though we would give it a last shot.  joe brought brody on his first duck hunt.  i have to say for a three year old he did pretty well.  he did whine a little when he didnt shoot anything but that was just fine.

duck hunts 8 and 9

we must be getting to the end of the season cause these ducks are way to smart and skiddish to by anything but northern ducks.  we have ditched the layout blinds to lower our profile and are now laying on the freezing ground covering up with cut cornstalks.  our success is marginal at best - seems like the ducks are just out of shooting range - with lows in the single digits its only a matter of time before they are gone for good.  hopefully one more good hunt!!!  on a side note - davis has been making some great retrieves but he still isnt sure about retrieving those big ol honkers...

8th day pheasant

headed out early hoping to scout some ducks near jamestown - didnt find much so continued.  ended up on a long walk with only 1 rooster to show for it.  i then decided to go to uncle wickis hunting shack and see if he was home.  he asked me to join him for a couple walks so it was perfect.  uncle wicki put us on some nice birds - and  a skunk that blasted davis.  super fun except for the skunk.  ended up w 8 roosters

                                     

duck hunt #6 and #7

the sixth and seventh duck hunt of the year were both on a wednesday.  other than being on the same day they had nothing in common.  on the morning hunt we saw very few birds.  what birds we saw decoyed nicely and produced some fine shooting.  on the evening hunt we saw thousands of birds.  however they were nearly impossible to decoy and produced very few shots.  it was a tale of two different hunts.  both fun non the less

honk!

two nice widgeons