Vammy
Member
First of all, I want to say thanks to all for the info many of you have posted on your hunting activities this year. Your input was valuable in gauging what we could expect this year. From your posts, we found exactly what we expected, knew how to deal with it, and had a great time. I really appreciate everyone's input, and will make an effort to become more active on this forum to pass it forward.
Three of us and 2 dogs (Blue, a 5 yr old GSP and Carver, a 5 yr old Black Lab who has not hunted in at least 3 years...he has a story worth its own post) arrived at the same self-guided PTP farm we've been hunting for 9-10 years on Friday, Dec 7, with 2 days to get 'er done.
Saturday was bitterly cold, -15F or something at 10:00, so we hunted one dog at a time to keep dogs fresh. We focused on the heavier cattail sloughs in or near cornfields, and found good numbers of birds. Birds were wild as expected; when you got a chance, you better make it count! I shot horribly on Saturday;had a chance to limit, but instead went 0-fer-3. Jeff did limit, and Kraig never had a decent shot. Blue took the brunt of the dog work on Saturday, finding all 3 birds. Unfortunately, we did not put a bird down for Carver, so he didn?t quite have his head in the game yet; but he stayed close, and responded to his commands, so I was happy with that.
Sunday was better, a little warmer with afternoon temperatures breaking the zero mark. We hit new places with similar habitat, and put 5 more birds in the bag before my buddies had to roll for home mid-afternoon. Blue put on some stellar dog work, finding 3 birds, Carver finally got to retrieve a couple birds. You could see the light bulb go off for Carver after the 1st one!
Monday, Carver and I hunted alone on the farm. We bagged a rooster pretty much first thing, and then didn't get another chance all day. Still, Carver was now fully "in"... watching him track a couple of runners until they flushed was awesome. Too bad they were hens!
Tuesday was one of those great days to be in the field: sunny in the morning, with light snow in the afternoon, +18F for temperature, and very light/no wind. We started on the farm, and then went to public. The first rooster hit the ground at 10:15, and Carver had to get on the fall and track it down; he did a great job. Second bird was dead on fall about 1:00, in cattails where he dug it right out. I started thinking I really do have a dawg now! Last bird of the day came around 4:00, off public ground, out of a slough that had birds blowing out the moment we started in...this might have been the nastiest slough we hunted; it was horrible. Carver was awesome, hunting hard, close, flushing hens, and held it together when it was a "no bird" moment on the wild ones. After dropping a rooster, we had a heck of a time finding it, but Carver kept at it, and 10 minutes later we had our 3rd bird! I was a very happy man, with a long walk back to the truck, an empty shotgun, a tired dog, and a hard-won South Dakota limit!
While we didn't shoot limits every day, we had a great time, saw lots of birds (more birds than Kraig had ever seen in his life) and were pleased with the trip, cold weather and all! Most of our birds were definitely 2 year olds, and a couple of long spurs too. The last bird I shot Tuesday was very young, certainly a late hatch rooster that's much smaller than my other birds...barely a nub for a spur. I would have stayed another day, but somewhere along the way Carver sustained a nice 1-inch long cut on his belly, and I needed to pick up my new puppy...more on her in a separate post.
I won't get back to SoDak again this year, but will be in NE around Christmas, and expect to take Carver for another walk on the wildside and keep him coming along. Good luck to all, safe travels this holiday season!
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Three of us and 2 dogs (Blue, a 5 yr old GSP and Carver, a 5 yr old Black Lab who has not hunted in at least 3 years...he has a story worth its own post) arrived at the same self-guided PTP farm we've been hunting for 9-10 years on Friday, Dec 7, with 2 days to get 'er done.
Saturday was bitterly cold, -15F or something at 10:00, so we hunted one dog at a time to keep dogs fresh. We focused on the heavier cattail sloughs in or near cornfields, and found good numbers of birds. Birds were wild as expected; when you got a chance, you better make it count! I shot horribly on Saturday;had a chance to limit, but instead went 0-fer-3. Jeff did limit, and Kraig never had a decent shot. Blue took the brunt of the dog work on Saturday, finding all 3 birds. Unfortunately, we did not put a bird down for Carver, so he didn?t quite have his head in the game yet; but he stayed close, and responded to his commands, so I was happy with that.
Sunday was better, a little warmer with afternoon temperatures breaking the zero mark. We hit new places with similar habitat, and put 5 more birds in the bag before my buddies had to roll for home mid-afternoon. Blue put on some stellar dog work, finding 3 birds, Carver finally got to retrieve a couple birds. You could see the light bulb go off for Carver after the 1st one!
Monday, Carver and I hunted alone on the farm. We bagged a rooster pretty much first thing, and then didn't get another chance all day. Still, Carver was now fully "in"... watching him track a couple of runners until they flushed was awesome. Too bad they were hens!
Tuesday was one of those great days to be in the field: sunny in the morning, with light snow in the afternoon, +18F for temperature, and very light/no wind. We started on the farm, and then went to public. The first rooster hit the ground at 10:15, and Carver had to get on the fall and track it down; he did a great job. Second bird was dead on fall about 1:00, in cattails where he dug it right out. I started thinking I really do have a dawg now! Last bird of the day came around 4:00, off public ground, out of a slough that had birds blowing out the moment we started in...this might have been the nastiest slough we hunted; it was horrible. Carver was awesome, hunting hard, close, flushing hens, and held it together when it was a "no bird" moment on the wild ones. After dropping a rooster, we had a heck of a time finding it, but Carver kept at it, and 10 minutes later we had our 3rd bird! I was a very happy man, with a long walk back to the truck, an empty shotgun, a tired dog, and a hard-won South Dakota limit!
While we didn't shoot limits every day, we had a great time, saw lots of birds (more birds than Kraig had ever seen in his life) and were pleased with the trip, cold weather and all! Most of our birds were definitely 2 year olds, and a couple of long spurs too. The last bird I shot Tuesday was very young, certainly a late hatch rooster that's much smaller than my other birds...barely a nub for a spur. I would have stayed another day, but somewhere along the way Carver sustained a nice 1-inch long cut on his belly, and I needed to pick up my new puppy...more on her in a separate post.
I won't get back to SoDak again this year, but will be in NE around Christmas, and expect to take Carver for another walk on the wildside and keep him coming along. Good luck to all, safe travels this holiday season!
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