Had my best year in quite a while. I hunt an area of WC that has been in the "poor" to "very poor" zones on the DNR prospects map for the past few years, but thankfully this area always produces for me. Bird concentrations were spotty as usual, but overall I was impressed and I've hunted the same area for nearly 40 yrs. My son and I saw more birds in the first hour on opening day than I have in the past 8-10 years even flushing over 50 birds one afternoon, proving the range-wide pre-season predictions accurate, even though my area did not show an increase over last year according to the road counts. I've come to believe over the years some areas just don't "road count" very accurately..especially where I hunt. A good subject for another thread perhaps...
Got out plenty and would've liked to have hunted a few more times, but had to visit the in-laws in AZ after Christmas. Next time I'm bringing a gun and hunting Gambel's quail down there as they seemed to be everywhere! Had some great solo hunts with my 7 yr old lab in December getting limits on my last 4 trips. I killed a total of 32 birds for the season and only failed to limit once. In fact limiting too soon some days was my only "complaint", that, and the warm and wet conditions for much of the season which made things tough some days on both man and beast.
Have to say I'm worried about next year's prospects in WC due to heavy ice and crusted deep snow in much of the region. The only bright spot is that many low areas were left with standing corn or beans, which is surely helping survival in what's adding up to be a tough winter so far. Birds in areas without standing crops or food plots are likely suffering heavy losses. A good thaw next week would really help!! As usual we could use a lot more PF food plots out there for nasty winters such as this.