Take-aways from this season

Miforester said:
It was another good season for me, no major injuries to my pups or me! Started in Michigan chasing woodcock and grouse and two trips to SD one mid November the other mid December with my son and his buddy. It was his buddies first time pheasant hunting and that trip was a huge success.
  • Learning there are several variables that contribute to lost birds, many are hunter issues, not fully on the bird, poor marking, some are weather/climate dependent warm dry high occurrence, vegetation type and lastly dogs.
    • All my dogs located crippled birds and they were all on the ground when we lost birds too.
    • Cripple in habitat with alot of birds is nearly impossible to recover, least for me and my current dogs.
    • I seem to cripple more birds flying straight away from me and I believe it is do to my reluctance to cover up the bird i'm tend to offset my lead point.
  • When I'm in the woods I run my dogs individually and the take turns at different covers, I don't do that in the pheasant field and need to start doing that to give my dogs a break as the get older.
    • Bella my oldest Britt (9 yrs) is still a machine and I need to do a better job of working my other two independent of her, they tend to follow her lead.
    • River, 7 yr setter, has really figured thing out and is a good hunter, she located many of our cripples she just need more time on her own.
    • Remi, 1.5 yr Britt, really started to figure things out, she started slowing her pace when tracking and has located many downed birds, goals for this off-season is retrieving.
  • As I age I need to do a better job of conditioning prior to the season.
  • Shooting is streaky/cyclic first SD trip i was on a hot streak for the first 4 days only missing 2 shootable birds, 5 day shot a box of shells before downing first bird, then killed 3 birds on 4 shots with a pointed double to end my trip.
  • Both trips to SD this year the ratio of shootable birds was heavily in favor of roosters, I'm guessing this was just the luck of the draw, not complaining but very nice.
  • This year I/we shot more roosters over points then the past several years. Again I don't really have an explanation as i'm not a quite hunter, we talk to one another and I talk to my dogs constantly, in thick cover I use beepers to locate, but most of the time use a tone/vibrate to recall.
  • Got to spend time in the field with DakotaZeb and Bree, always a highlight for me.
  • Greatest joy was the December trip watching my son and his buddy hunting and our dog(s) on point they walk in for flush and make the shot, dog makes a great retrieve. Don't have them all on film but they ingrained in my memory for life.
As I state 2023 was a great year for many reasons and each season i learn a little more, if nothing else being patient with my dogs and just enjoying the time we spend in the woods/fields pursuing birds together.
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AKSkeeter said:
Areas I've been hunting in eastern MT since the 1990s way too crowded with out of state hunters, dog trailers, etc.

I'm moving on to some new MT locations that are not as popular and broadcast all over social media.
It was a good season, got to hunt my lab pup 46 times and hunted the older lab 16 times. No lost birds.
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I can't believe the numbers of hunters I saw in Montana!Why this year???
 
I would rate my season as a 7/10 based on my harvest numbers, but a 9/10 on everything else. My takeaways from this season:
Weather- Too warm=too many hunters and educated birds.
Private/public: Night and day difference from my perspective. I shot only 3 limits this season and 2 of those were on private ground. My public limit was early season on less pressured birds.
Bird counts- I think this entirely subjective, but I feel the bird numbers were as good as last year. I shot less birds this season, but I think that was a factor of weather and pressure. I saw plenty of birds flushing wild, and we had our fair share of runners based on how the dogs were working.
Dogs- My springer made excellent strides and my lab continued to be a strong bird finder, but still struggles with finding those difficult cripples. I also quit hunting them together the last month of the season which helped my springer tremendously. You know they love the game when they are genuinely mad when you get back to the truck and the hunt is over. You tell by the look on her face in the photos I posted in the Iowa Photos/Stories thread.
Ammo- I tried to use what I had on hand to clean out the gun cabinet and noticed I didn't have as clean of kills as when I was using Boss last year, so I plan to buy more Boss for the upcoming season. I only lost 2 birds, but it seems most of the retrieved birds had their heads up when the dogs brought them back.
Shooting: Over all I felt like I was shooting well, but had a couple of shots I'd like to have back. I went 3 for 3 yesterday, so that was a positive way to end the season.
 
BRITTMAN said:
Had fun.

Main dog is in his prime and he showed it.

First time I bought a pup in the fall - complicates things quite a bit, but he shows signs of being a solid bird dog.
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Yeah I bought mine in September. He kept up, even when he was very small.He retrieved 3 birds,and flushed 4 hens.It changed my season some.
 
benelli-banger said:
Hope and pray your wife is doing okay🙏🏻✝️
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Thank you. She has been doing a lot better. It wasn't looking good for most of last year but she got through an aggressive chemo treatment and they haven't found any evidence of the cancer her last two check ups...so we are trying to get her strength back, get back to living a little bit and take it a step at a time.
 
Mosby said:
Thank you. She has been doing a lot better. It wasn't looking good for most of last year but she got through an aggressive chemo treatment and they haven't found any evidence of the cancer her last two check ups...so we are trying to get her strength back, get back to living a little bit and take it a step at a time.
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I will pray for her✝️🙏🏻❤️
 
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