Redneck Dove Shoot!

I drove out to the duck camp with the boys and Chrissy.  The plan was to spend the night at the cabin, check on water levels and let the boys run around shooting their BB guns and just be boys.  As I was unloading the car I couldn't help but notice the almost continuous flight of Starlings.  The Starlings where trading between the cattail sloughs and a cut corn field.  Their flight path was taking the majority of the birds directly over the cabin. 

Since Starlings aren't a protected bird in MN I loaded up the Browning with #8 game load and "got after em".  The wind was blowing about 25 mph so it made for some fun and challenging shooting.  This was my redneck Argentina dove hunt! When the smoke finally cleared we had laid down 25 Starling and 1 Pigeon.  Oshie did a hell of a job retrieving all of the downed birds.  It made for a fun afternoon.

The water level is looking good for this fall.  The water level is down from last fall which is a good thing.  There is a ton of breeding geese pairs on the property which should lead to a great early season shoot.  Things are already looking up for the fall.

Meeker Co. Massacre

With both boys out of school for Christmas break, we decided to head out for an afternoon pheasant hunt. The weather has been brutal in MN for nearly a month, but today we had temps in the mid 30’s and a light wind. With the good weather, deep snow, and the prospect of another storm hitting MN tomorrow I figured the pheasants would be on the move. We had to do most of our scouting from the car and then walk ditches because all of the grassy cover in the area is under 3 feet of snow. Not the ideal pheasant hunt, but we had to make do.

I turned onto our first gravel road at 2:15 PM. A half mile down the road we spotted a group of 7-8 hens sitting in a bush. We pulled up along side of them and got to watch them for nearly a minute before they flew off into a cattail swamp. As we started to pull away a rooster flew into the cattails on the other side of the road. I parked, loaded up and walked in after him. A few minutes later I had 10-15 birds erupt from the cattails and brush around me. I made a clean shot on the rooster closest to me and held off on other shots as the birds flew over thick cover and I didn’t want to risk a lost bird. Plus the snow was up to my waist (literally) and I was spent pretty after three minutes of walking through it. I was shocked the birds held so tight. Below is a picture of Jake with rooster #1.

A couple minutes later we drove along a brushy ditch that ran along some stubble corn. The road was covered up in tracks, so we parked the car and started to walked the edge of the ditch. As soon as we got into the thick cover the air erupted around us as 7 roosters flushed within 5-10 yards of us. Three shots later and I had two roosters laying face down in the snow. The boys each made a retrieve in the deep snow and our hunt was done in 15 minutes.

We drove around a bit more and saw several other big groups of birds. It was fun seeing all the birds, but with all the snow and lack of cover in the area they could be in big trouble by the end of the winter. We might sneak out for one more hunt on Friday and that would put an end to my 2010 hunting season. Although if it ended today, it will still be my best season ever! Luckily Minny-Mo gets to start the 2011 hunting season off with a late February hog hunt in Oklahoma, so stay tuned. Hopefully 2011 is as good to me as 2010.....

12/31/10- The rain and sleet held off this morning so the entire family made a quick trip back to Meeker Co. before todays storm moved in. Just like Tuesday, we pulled onto the same road and immediately saw 20+ pheasants run out of a corn field and into the same brush/swamp I shot bird #1 on Wednesday. This time the birds flushed a bit more wild and kept the majority of the brush between us. One rooster got a bit to high in the air for his own good and I was able to whack pheasant #1 less than 5 minutes into legal shooting time.

Minutes later Logan made his first ever spot on a rooster that was sitting down in some cattails along the shoreline of a swamp. I was able to walk within 10 yards of the bird before he even moved. The bird flushed up into the cattails and got himself tangled up in the mess of grass. I felt like I was shooting a pop can off a fence pole. 1 shot and a cloud of feathers. I am guessing #2 load might have been a bit heavy for this shot. Logan was one proud hunter when we retrieved the bird.
We saw several more birds but they either spooked as we approached or held up in areas we couldn’t hunt. Either way it was a fun morning. 2010 season is officially closed!

Afternoon Pheasant Shoot

Logan decided it was a good idea if Jake, Logan and I went pheasant hunting after lunch this afternoon. The weather wasn’t the best for pheasant hunting, 30 degrees, cloudy and a 20-25 mph winds out of the northwest. The wind chill made it feel like it was 9 degrees! I decided to try out near Dassel, MN. After a 35 minute drive we where at our hunting area. We saw one rooster 15 minutes into the hunt but he was near a couple homesteads so we just watched him strut around in a picked corn field. A couple minutes later Logan spotted some crows sitting on the backside of a down fall about 40 yards out. Logan insisted that I try and shoot the crows and I have no issue with shooting a crow. With the wind blowing so hard I was able to sneak within 25 yards of the crows before they tried taking flight into wind. Easy money! One shot and one dead crow! The next hour and a half was very slow other than watching a couple big flocks of geese and Mallards work a picked corn field. Finally around 4:15 we spotted two roosters feeding in a stubble corn field at the corner of two dirt roads, the perfect spot to put on a stock. I was able to make my way to about 20 yards before a hen took flight from the ditch. That immediately put the two roosters into the air. One bird took off with the wind and was gone in a flash. The second tried following the hen into the wind. Sucker! I quickly dispatched of the rooster with a 25 yard crossing shot with both boys watching. That put an end to our quick Wednesday afternoon hunt and both boys where all smiles. Great idea by Logan.