ditchparrot19
Member
My partner and I spent the first 6 days of the season hunting several pieces of private land within the Fort Peck Reservation. Birds were plentiful, but much spookier from the get-go than in years past, probably due to the warm, dry, windy conditions. Limits were easy some days and not so easy on others, but always achievable with a little work.
By far the best action was in creek bottoms to the north of Hwy. 2. Where there was water and high cover in a drainage adjacent to a grain field, there were a ton of birds. This was the case in every instance. We killed numerous birds with crops stuffed nearly to the size of tennis balls.
The woody areas down near the Missouri River weren't nearly as productive, for the most part. I don't know if that's a theme throughout the region, as our primary place down there had no grain this year. We bagged a few, but the populations didn't approach those of the northern stuff.
The Labs had to do most of the work as those roosters just refused to be pointed unless they were completely trapped and had nowhere to run. Even some of those made themselves unshootable, as I had two come out of the end of a ditch, one after the other, and fly directly toward the faces of a large herd of cows. I could do nothing other than wave bye-bye to them, but fortunately there were other opportunities to be had.
We got into three substantial covies of Huns, but the sharptails were scarce where we were. My pointer found one big group of sharpies sitting on a disked-up field and my setter nailed four in some brush about 200 yards from a creek. I didn't shoot any because I just don't want to eat them.
Overall, I came home with plenty of birds and a new Lab puppy that'll replace my 13-year-old "dog of a lifetime" (I'll post on that in the Main Bird Dog forum). Wish I could've stayed another week, but I was also happy to get home to my 5-year-old daughter. She's having a blast with the pup.
It's a wonderful state you have there. This was my seventh visit for this purpose and it always seems like a great place to live -- as long as it's not December, January or February.
I left my camera that contains almost all of my photos at the house in Glasgow and won't be getting it back for a bit. Had the three below on my phone.
-- The first (bottom) is of my initial bird of the trip, bagged at 8:50 a.m. on opening day.
-- The second (middle) is of my buddy, whom I've known since before kindergarten, after a successful push down another creek.
-- The third (top) depicts the final bird of the trip and a couple of worn-out, senior citizen pointing dogs that gave me a great effort all week. The setter had to retrieve it from an extremely wet and muddy ditch (it rained pretty good on our last morning) and was none too thrilled about it, but she did it anyway.
By far the best action was in creek bottoms to the north of Hwy. 2. Where there was water and high cover in a drainage adjacent to a grain field, there were a ton of birds. This was the case in every instance. We killed numerous birds with crops stuffed nearly to the size of tennis balls.
The woody areas down near the Missouri River weren't nearly as productive, for the most part. I don't know if that's a theme throughout the region, as our primary place down there had no grain this year. We bagged a few, but the populations didn't approach those of the northern stuff.
The Labs had to do most of the work as those roosters just refused to be pointed unless they were completely trapped and had nowhere to run. Even some of those made themselves unshootable, as I had two come out of the end of a ditch, one after the other, and fly directly toward the faces of a large herd of cows. I could do nothing other than wave bye-bye to them, but fortunately there were other opportunities to be had.
We got into three substantial covies of Huns, but the sharptails were scarce where we were. My pointer found one big group of sharpies sitting on a disked-up field and my setter nailed four in some brush about 200 yards from a creek. I didn't shoot any because I just don't want to eat them.
Overall, I came home with plenty of birds and a new Lab puppy that'll replace my 13-year-old "dog of a lifetime" (I'll post on that in the Main Bird Dog forum). Wish I could've stayed another week, but I was also happy to get home to my 5-year-old daughter. She's having a blast with the pup.
It's a wonderful state you have there. This was my seventh visit for this purpose and it always seems like a great place to live -- as long as it's not December, January or February.
I left my camera that contains almost all of my photos at the house in Glasgow and won't be getting it back for a bit. Had the three below on my phone.
-- The first (bottom) is of my initial bird of the trip, bagged at 8:50 a.m. on opening day.
-- The second (middle) is of my buddy, whom I've known since before kindergarten, after a successful push down another creek.
-- The third (top) depicts the final bird of the trip and a couple of worn-out, senior citizen pointing dogs that gave me a great effort all week. The setter had to retrieve it from an extremely wet and muddy ditch (it rained pretty good on our last morning) and was none too thrilled about it, but she did it anyway.
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