My son and I have hunted birds "out west" for almost 20 years, and the weather, for the most part, has been favorable for the majority of those trips. But this last one was an exception. Our first day of hunting was in East Central Illinois, on Saturday November 5. Those of you who hunted in that area on that day can testify--the weather was a mess! We had permission to hunt on private ground--a grass waterway with filter strips on each side of a mile long, winding ditch. Winds exceeded 45 mph and there were birds but they were jumpy, most flushing ahead of us. We got back in the middle of the section and the skies opened up and dumped rain and sleet which the winds blew sideways; we were drenched in just a minute or so. We hastened back to the truck and vowed to hit this location on another day--the birds were here.
We then tried another spot when the rain let up (the wind never did!) and, in walking this ditchline, a bird hammered out and sailed with the wind. I was lucky to catch him with my A5 Sweet, just in time and he dropped. We saw a few hens too but no more roosters. The next day we hunted another private land tract west of Bloomington, IL. belonging to a co worker of my son's. It had wonderful thick CRP-type cover and the weather was warm--almost too warm for the dog. Birds were here too, but uncharacteristically for this tract, they flushed wild, ahead of us--and this was only Day 2 of the season! After an hour and a half of working the cover I did shoot one rooster. The cover really was almost too heavy, there were just a lot of places the birds could be.
We did see a couple of really nice bucks in there and the owner had a nice deer stand set up.
The next day was a travel day and we took I-80 west, making our usual stops at the Iowa Machine Shed in Davenport for lunch (try it!) and then Scheels in Iowa City where I picked up a 12 gauge Browning Citori 725 I plan to use for targets, and we checked out the ammo department--NO Green Dot, Universal, Unique or 700X, and shot was $64/bag...very small supply of 20 gauge and 16 gauge shells. Prices seemed unusually high for Scheels! Next we stopped at Brownells in Grinnell--same deal, not much ammo unless you like .223's and assault rifle accessories. We went on the Bass Pro at Altoona and the ammo was short there too. Finally we left I-80 and headed to NW Iowa.
We have a friend who has acreage north of Storm Lake. He has wild birds and he also releases some birds But he has a lot of cover and they fly hard. We like the set up because it includes a house with bed and board--we bring food and cook--and this place is way off the road. Here we hunted various kinds of cover for two days---windy and rainy both days but the dog got a great workout, flushing and retrieving a number of birds. I used my 16 gauge A5 and Prairie Storm #6's and he used his 12 and 20 gauge Benelli's. It was peaceful back there and we had a great shoot. It had been very dry in that area but they got rain in that whole general area while we were there.
We had purchased an Iowa public hunting area atlas and had studied the Clay and Dickinson County areas for public land tracts we could hunt--I've read so much on this site about the public land successes and frustrations of public land that, although our remaining time was limited, we wanted to try it. Not to make a long story endless, we hit 4 spots, some bummers but two good ones and we did shoot a wild bird or two on a huge tract with sorghum, standing corn, corn stubble and LOTS of grass at the end of a dead-end road.
I'll remeber my final shot for a long time--a cackling rooster flying 35-40 yards at an angle behind me; I turned and shot reflexively and the bird dropped, the wind catching itas it tumbled to the stubble, the dog on it , retrieving it back to me. Our first foray into public land hunting---but definitely not our last; there are birds and working to find them is the challenging part!
Final statistics: 1,478 miles, 81.65 gallons of gas at an average price of $3.49/gallon, 16 roosters total for the two of us, hunting private land, public land and outfitter land over 4 days of actual hunting, some of it interrupted by nasty weather but all of it enjoyable with memories that will never leave us. We do have some photos to share. We'll try to get back out there later this season---meanwhile, deer and duck season here at home!
We then tried another spot when the rain let up (the wind never did!) and, in walking this ditchline, a bird hammered out and sailed with the wind. I was lucky to catch him with my A5 Sweet, just in time and he dropped. We saw a few hens too but no more roosters. The next day we hunted another private land tract west of Bloomington, IL. belonging to a co worker of my son's. It had wonderful thick CRP-type cover and the weather was warm--almost too warm for the dog. Birds were here too, but uncharacteristically for this tract, they flushed wild, ahead of us--and this was only Day 2 of the season! After an hour and a half of working the cover I did shoot one rooster. The cover really was almost too heavy, there were just a lot of places the birds could be.
We did see a couple of really nice bucks in there and the owner had a nice deer stand set up.
The next day was a travel day and we took I-80 west, making our usual stops at the Iowa Machine Shed in Davenport for lunch (try it!) and then Scheels in Iowa City where I picked up a 12 gauge Browning Citori 725 I plan to use for targets, and we checked out the ammo department--NO Green Dot, Universal, Unique or 700X, and shot was $64/bag...very small supply of 20 gauge and 16 gauge shells. Prices seemed unusually high for Scheels! Next we stopped at Brownells in Grinnell--same deal, not much ammo unless you like .223's and assault rifle accessories. We went on the Bass Pro at Altoona and the ammo was short there too. Finally we left I-80 and headed to NW Iowa.
We have a friend who has acreage north of Storm Lake. He has wild birds and he also releases some birds But he has a lot of cover and they fly hard. We like the set up because it includes a house with bed and board--we bring food and cook--and this place is way off the road. Here we hunted various kinds of cover for two days---windy and rainy both days but the dog got a great workout, flushing and retrieving a number of birds. I used my 16 gauge A5 and Prairie Storm #6's and he used his 12 and 20 gauge Benelli's. It was peaceful back there and we had a great shoot. It had been very dry in that area but they got rain in that whole general area while we were there.
We had purchased an Iowa public hunting area atlas and had studied the Clay and Dickinson County areas for public land tracts we could hunt--I've read so much on this site about the public land successes and frustrations of public land that, although our remaining time was limited, we wanted to try it. Not to make a long story endless, we hit 4 spots, some bummers but two good ones and we did shoot a wild bird or two on a huge tract with sorghum, standing corn, corn stubble and LOTS of grass at the end of a dead-end road.
I'll remeber my final shot for a long time--a cackling rooster flying 35-40 yards at an angle behind me; I turned and shot reflexively and the bird dropped, the wind catching itas it tumbled to the stubble, the dog on it , retrieving it back to me. Our first foray into public land hunting---but definitely not our last; there are birds and working to find them is the challenging part!
Final statistics: 1,478 miles, 81.65 gallons of gas at an average price of $3.49/gallon, 16 roosters total for the two of us, hunting private land, public land and outfitter land over 4 days of actual hunting, some of it interrupted by nasty weather but all of it enjoyable with memories that will never leave us. We do have some photos to share. We'll try to get back out there later this season---meanwhile, deer and duck season here at home!
