Thanksgiving trip

The pictures of the Bald Eagles reminded me that when that place freezes hard the Coots all don't leave. It often happens so quickly that some will even get frozen in the ice and die. The ones that survive will be in tight little balls of 50 to 100 birds that will keep a hole in the ice open. About 20 feet away a Bald Eagle will be standing on the ice with a big pile of black feathers next to it. When they get hungry they just flap over and grab one of the slowest coots and take it back and eat it. Like salmon eating anchovies from a school. Raptors are very hard on birds up there because they are very vulnerable when it freezes.
One year hunting ducks in a snowstorm, flocks of 100 to many hundreds of Mallards would just appear out of nowhere out over the barley fields there. The snow was about a foot deep so everything was white. There were also big flocks of many thousands of Blackbirds feeding in the fields. They'd land where the snow was thin, scratch around for seeds and then lift off in a cloud and look for another thin spot.
We had a good spread of decoys out and some ducks came to us but the majority of the Mallards went to any black splotch on the ground because that would be the Blackbirds and they would know where the snow was thin enough for the ducks to feed. It's really a wonderful spot where you'll see things you won't see anywhere else.
 
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FLDBRED said:
Your Posts have totally change my opinion of California, I just never knew it had so much to offer the upland hunter.
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Unfortunately what's left is only a small percentage of what it had when I was born nearly a half-century ago. The good stuff now is isolated in small pockets whereas it formerly covered some extremely vast areas.
 
ditchparrot19 said:
Unfortunately what's left is only a small percentage of what it had when I was born nearly a half-century ago. The good stuff now is isolated in small pockets whereas it formerly covered some extremely vast areas.
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For pheasants i would have to agree but there are still some very expansive areas where one could go a chase quail (all three species), grouse and chukar.
 
Wow. Looks like a great trip! Glad to hear JP is doing better. I can't even imagine how painful that would be.
 
If you don't like that, remember you'll have to drive it all the way until it comes out your... like JP. That is one tough pooch!!
 
calamari said:
If you don't like that, remember you'll have to drive it all the way until it comes out your... like JP. That is one tough pooch!!
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To be fair to JP it was bigger around than a meat thermometer.:eek: Poor guy, I think he's almost healed up.
 
Good news for JP.
Odds of that happening to him again would be nearly non-existent. :confused:
I hope. :)
 
I hope so too. I'm not sure who its harder on to be sidelined during pheasant season, him or me. He has a small open sore that is almost closed up, once it is he should be back in the field with me.
 
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