The morning of the 10th was bitter cold, and the wind was bucking something fierce. It was going to be a struggle no matter where we went but we tried our best anyway. With Penny and Lou whining in the back we set out to chase the elusive South Dakota rooster.
Our first spot was a private spot I had gained permission to hunt earlier in the year, and I made sure to ask if I could bring friend. It was an eye-watering start to the hunt before we got to the main waterway. So far there were no pheasants, but there were geese absolutely everywhere. When we got to the far side of the field, a low flock of geese were bucking the wind and headed our direction. Just as they came overhead a single, perfectly placed shot dropped a single goose from the flock.
Bonus birds are always the best! For those concerned, because of these potential bonus birds, I only hunt with steel to keep everything kosher in case a duck or a goose gets too close.
We finished our loop on the field, with Nate on the fenceline, but we did not end up shooting any birds on the property. A quick hop into the car and we were off to the next spot. The long drive to our next spot gave us enough time to merely wipe the snot from our faces. A quick three miles and we were there. We started near the road on a frozen slough edge and made our way to the far fenceline. Not 20 yards into the walk and we were busting birds. I took a long shot on a lone rooster. I hit him, but I don't think it was enough to kill him and we never did recover the bird. With a surprising amount of birds in the area, we worked the fenceline east, and busted a few birds in the process. As we finished walking a small section at the bottom of the hill, we watched as droves of mallards spewed off of the slough to the east.
It was a site indeed!
I couldn't help but get caught up in it. When Nate and I met at the end of the grassy section, I told him I was going to take Lou to the top of the hill in hopes of pass-shooting a mallard or two. He was going to forge on and walk the next patch with his pup, Penny. As I crested the hill I could see why the birds were still around. With most of the slough frozen, there was a small pocket of open water on the slough yet, and every bird in the area wanted to be on it. As it usually works itself out, by the time I arrived at the hilltop, the birds were already settled back down on the slough and were not coming through. It was at that point I heard two shots behind me.
I see Penny in the thin grass running, and Nate headed over to the first rooster of the trip!!! A solo bird with his dog, and I was over being holy-order of distracted by the ducks. I trekked my way over to him and got a look at the spoils of, well, his labor.
Not skunked!!!
We walked the next patch together, working slow as the wind was blasting, and the dogs needed to work. With no roosters in the bag, again, I became hypnotized by the mallards swirling around us. As we looped around a section, a flock was already descending on the field. Feet, down, they were dropping down by the hundreds. We finished up our walk on this property with no more birds, and I went to pick up the car while Nate walked the final fenceline. A lone rooster outsmarted them, and we called it a morning.
Back home we grabbed a quick bite, and talked about heading back out again. Paying the non-resident full ream, I fully expected to hunt every daylight minute we could.
We ended up hunting a couple different public properties in the afternoon, but being public, we were not exactly seeing anything. We flushed a couple of hens, but that was it. By the end of our second walk, we were beat, and ready to call it a day. The dogs were tired enough to actually lay down in the backseat. We called it a successful first day, and headed back home to rest our aching feet for the evening.
Upon returning home, I texted the landowner who let us hunt this morning, and told him we were even able to pull a bird down, with a bonus goose on the side, and thanked him for letting us hunt. We had scouted a couple of spots out for the morning in hopes of finding a bird. While grilling our chicken to pair with the homemade pasta Rachel was making, the landowner called me. He wasted no time and started rattling off properties we needed to hit in the morning. I was frantically circling sections in my plat book. This was going to be spectacular!
The next morning we made sure we were better prepared and ready to go at the spot by 10am. As we crossed the fence, the landowner drove passed and gave us a friendly wave.
Not 40 yards into our walk, we started flushing birds. The first rooster that crested the bluestem faded left out in front of me. I took one shot and he came down, but not dead. Lou and I searched for a few minutes but i knew this bird was not dead and was likely a runner. We pushed on, flushing a few more birds on the first pass, but all roosters were flushing wild out ahead of us. We had plenty to walk on this property, and our return pass brought out no birds, but Lou and Penny both got birdy several times, and our next pass was going to be in a dense stand of bluestem. We worked slowly, letting the dogs do there thing. Penny got out ahead of us and flushed a rooster, and instead of him sailing into the horizon, he flew a couple hundred yards and then dropped back into the grass. When we made our way through, Lou and I eventually ran into the rooster. Once Lou found him, it was game on. She flushed the bird in front of me, and I emptied my gun, hitting him on all three shots. This was Lou's first rooster, and I figured she was going to have some troubles with the retrieval, but once she got a hold of it, she was sold. We continued our walk, not finding anymore pheasants but we did jump a number of deer, one of which hurdled Penny and took off into the field.
The rest of the field was a cover crop of millet and turnips with rows cut out in sections which was not that thick, but I was not about to not walk any of it. Not a quarter of the way through, we watched a rooster run out ahead of us into the next set of rows. Penny and Nate headed over to find the bird to no avail. We didn't think anything of it initially, but after a few minutes we realized that was likely the rooster I dropped earlier. We had literally just pushed the bird from one side of the property to the other, but we still didn't connect with him. As we finished up the first run, a rooster flushed wild right in front of us. Both dogs had managed to run right past the bird, but Nate made a stellar shot that dropped it into the open rows to our right. Just like that, we each had a rooster in the bag! We walked three more sections flushing only one hen, but I figured we were in for a flurry with the final section. If we had pushed the cripple bird across the property, who knows how many others had followed the same trend. We took another quick water break before taking in our last section on this property. We had two birds out of six for our two man limit.
Not 40 yards into the walk Lou went nuts. I knew because she was new to this whole pheasant thing, if she got a nose-full of pheasant, she was going to be gone. When she took off, I took off with her. She was hot on the tail of rooster and when she caught up with the bird, it finally flushed out to my left. My first shot was a complete whiff but my second shot dropped him behind a stack of hay bales. Because Lou flushed the bird, she was full tilt behind it and dang near beat it to the ground. I expected her to be behind the bales chewing on the bird, so I went over to retrieve my bird. Before I could even get to the bales, Lou came around the back with the bird firmly in her jowls. She held her head high, and looked as proud as can be, and rightly so. She dropped the bird at my feet and was rearing and ready to go again. We continued our walk, and Lou was again, running around like a bat out of hell. She got super birdy again, blasted out to the edge and took off again, only to jump back into the cover. I figured she was on a bird when I stepped on a rooster. I about came out of my skin, when I realized what it was: the bird I hit at the very beginning! As he went out into open, I looked for Lou, who was far to my right, and came back to the bird. In one fluid motion I finished off my crippled bird. He was close, and on the ground, and what was left of his head looked like roast beef... It was not ideal, but I was happy to not leave a crippled bird out there. We now had four birds and had still had a couple hundred yards left to walk.
Again, the dogs missed a bird, and a nice rooster gave us a cackling flush right between us. Neither of us called the shot, so both of us ended up shooting, but I was a split second later than Nate, and his shot had already connected. Let's just say, we got that one.
We finished the walk on the last fenceline and returned to our vehicle. We miraculously were one bird short of a two-man limit, and we had only walked the first property the landowner had granted us permission to hunt. With heavy feet, and glowing spirits, we took some photos on a fence-post of our banner hunt.
We drove past a few of the other spots, but we had already walked close to four miles, and our legs were dead. The dogs were just short of passed out in the back seat, so we opted to head home to take care of birds and grab a bite to eat again.
With a final bird left on our docket we had to attempt to fill our limit.
A final walk on a small tract brought about no birds, but it was a fine walk to say the least. We finished out our evening by road hunting until the end of legal, and then driving around watching the insane amount of giant deer in the area.
It was fantastic to have some non-hair-on-fire hunting with a good friend. We were both less than concerned about filling our limits of birds, and we were more involved in watching the dogs work and enjoying the open country. We enjoyed driving around and getting lost on some po-dunk two-track roads, just as much as the actual hunting. To top it off, it was wonderful to enjoy our evenings back at home with some great company. It is crazy to think of our college friends as parents, but I will never see them any other way. I hope we can make a thing of this and do it again, and in a few years, the little ones will be leading the march.
Stay Tuned
No comments:
Post a Comment