Sky Turned Black.....

UGUIDE

Active member
...at Cattail Haven today. The family hunts on the first weekend and they must have had a group of 24 or so and had the break up and hunt in 2 groups. I was their video taping and we went out and hunted until about 3pm and had 27 birds for our group. Pretty slow going. We found birds in standing corn and thick CRP. The big heavy sloughs did not hold birds.

We hunted this one block of CRP and got decent birds out of it. At days end the group decided to hunt it again from ppposite direction. We wouldn't you know my battery died in camcorder but I figured this hunt was a waste of time since we had already hit it. I thought well maybe birds will come out of corn across road and come in here to roost.

We got about 3/4 of way through this plot and got nothing up and all of a sudden there must have been 100 birds in the air and WWIII was launched. Not many were taken out of that bunch but the CRP was heavy and held good bords the rest of way out. My sons 1.5 year old lab finally came into her own on that last 1/4 of grass. She got hot and flushed several birds and made one retrieve. This was only here 2nd time in the field. This was what I was hoping for to help train her in.

we got up several more roosters and hens in that CRP right up to the end. Ended up with about 40 birds on the day.

From now on I will carry spare camcorder battery with me.

Headed to Highmore and J Bar lazy 7 Pheasant Camp for more videoing tomorrow and then back on Monday for filming at Pheasant Camp Lodge. Stay tuned for more reports.

Feel free to add on your reports here.
 
HockeyBob,

I wasn't at this camp last year opener so hard to say and with all crops in it really masks the true picture. Best comment I have to go on is local guy that lives by us drives these roads everyday and he thinks the birds are up from last year.

We shot a fair amount of young birds and we also did not see the wacky hen to rooster ratio we have seen in past openers where hens outnumbered roosters by a large margin. This might be indicative of better nesting success.
 
Thanks U-guide.

We hunt between Cresbard and Ipswich and based on the road reports, they say its down pretty big from last year. I know its up from the 10 year average but we are totally spoiled now with the numbers we had the last few years.
We have a small group of 5 guys but with all the crops in the field, hunting will be tough for us with all the standing corn. We are heading out on Halloween for 5 days.
I really enjoy all your reports and videos on your website.

Thanks,
Bob
 
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