Duck Hunting the runway with the Chief

So the plan is to meet at the spot at 6:30am and walk in for a 6:55 shooting time. I met Chief Paul and some other friends at the runway. (We call it the runway because it is a narrow side channel off the river that the ducks fly up and down.)

We get out to the blind and there are about 100 ducks waiting for us, but of course it is too dark to shoot and they mostly all fly away. We get the small group of decoys (3) out into the water and hunker down till it is light enough to shoot. My German Wire Haired Pointing Griffon Remi was anxiously waiting to do some work.




Now for those of you who don't know me, my dog Remi and I are not blind or decoy hunters, we specialize in jump shooting.  We don't like sitting still and freezing to death which normally happens when we attempt to decoy.




 

So it is finally light enough to to shoot and I look over to our left and see some ducks still sitting in the channel. So of course I sneak over and dump two mallard hens. Both ducks had broken wings and were still alive as well as swimming to the opposite side of the channel. Well Remi springs into action and goes after them, she did have a bit of trouble on the opposite shore. She would pick one up and the other one would run away  then she would drop the one she had and go after the running one, then of course the one she dropped would run away and so on. It was a big cycle of bird dog owner frustration. Finally she picked one brought it to me and then went back for the other.

For the rest of the day Remi was flawless, Chief Paul was turning the ducks to the blind like a pro and I was having a decent day shooting.

The best duck of the day was a Green head  flying over taking a look at the decoys, and I decided it was time to shoot it. I raised my gun took one shot and the bird folded and hit the water,  Remi went straight out a got it and brought it back to the blind. It was the best, I didn't even feel the gun go off, I didn't have to give any commands to the dog and I only used one shot. That was duck hunting bliss at its best. 


Like Chief Paul said there is nothing better than calling ducks and watching a good bird dog work. I can't say it any better. Just watching Remi chase ducks all day, even though it was 13 degrees with her hair all iced up really shows her dedication to please and her drive to hunt.

Thanks Chief Paul and friends I could not of asked for a better day out hunting. 

2011 grouse hunting

I originally posted this as a guest post over at The Unlucky Hunter.

So in my family September is Grouse hunting. We look forward to it for all 8 months once duck hunting is finished in late January. Grouse hunting is also my wife's favorite hunting season. She loves spending time with me, our daughter Maddy and the dogs. We love the mountain top hikes and the views while looking for blue grouse, as well as chasing the ruffed grouse in the creek bottoms where the grouse flush and you are lucky to get a clear shot. The good days are when we get to do both.



First two grouse of year



This year my wife was the lucky one who shot the first two grouse, and the first day ended slow my wife shot 2 and I shot one grouse and one rabbit.

Later in the year we decided to check out some roads we have never walked in past years. They did produce some grouse so we will add them into our routine of closed roads to hunt.

But the best day came one evening when my wife, Maddy and I decided to go for a hunt after work. we left the house at about 4pm. We first went to the 300 rd and I saw a quick glimpse of what I believed to be a grouse run from the road to the bushes.  So the breaks came on and we jumped out of my old jeep.  It always a great feeling when your standing in the bushes and can hear the grouse running on all the dry leaves around you, but you cant see them.

Maddy getting ready to go hunting

Finally the group of grouse erupts into the thick creek bottom. I could see one perched in a tree and as I was about to shoot it my wife yells I see one. Of course I think it is the same one I see, but being the good husband I am I tell her to shoot it. Bang, she shoots and says she got it, and lucky me my grouse is still in my tree so I shoot it. My wife gets into the creek bottom with the dogs to retrieve the grouse. While she was down there I saw a bee's nest in the tree that looks like a grouse. Of course right at that time my wife says she sees another one. I warn her of the nest and she is confident that what she sees is a grouse. When she shoots her grouse another one takes off right next to my head and flies up the hill behind me.

So I walk up to the top of the hill and it flushes.  Just as it is about to drop over the next hill I dump it. After I find it I walked back down to the road and I end up shooting one more out of a fir tree. So we got a total of 5 ruffed grouse out of this group. In Washington State a daily limit of grouse is 4 per person of ruffed or blue grouse only.

Next we decided to drive over to the next canyon over and hunt the ridge between the that canyon and the one we were in currently. We drive to the top of the road and walk up to the top of the ridge. My wife goes towards the top of the ridge and I walk low around the shaded backside of the ridge with our dogs Remi and Lily our German Wire Haired Pointing Griffons.

All of a sudden Remi gets birdy. Of course every dog is different but Remi gets low to the ground and her nose works back and forth quickly and stedily low to the ground making a heavy sniffing sound and her tail stays very parallel to the ground and wags back and forth. She continues to work through the tall grass and I have to walk at a fast pace to keep up with her. Then Lily come over and gets birdy as well. We work the hillside for about 60 yards, then both dogs stop and go on hard point. I look up and about 15 yards in front of them there is a big blue grouse sitting on a rock above the grass. As I shoot the grouse 3 or 4 more take off from the grass below it.

My wife come running over to see if she can get into the action but of course everything is gone by the time she gets there.

So we walk to the top of the ridge with my wife a little disapointed. But lucky her the dogs get birdy again. They work for about 20 yards and with out warning blue grouse after blue grouse start getting up out of the  sun dried grass. It was amazing so see them flush like this.  It was very hard for me not to start shooting but my limit was done.  My wife saw where some landed in a tree down the steep rocky hill. Like the determined hunter she is we hike our butts down the hill. She shot two of the grouse, and as usual when hunting steep terrain when the grouse fell they had to roll a few yards down the hill. Luckily we have our amazing dogs  who happily go down an bring them back up to us. We hiked back up over the top and back down to where the jeep was parked and took some pictures right as we were losing the light of the sun.

We drove home that night with the feeling of MAN THAT WAS AN  AWSOME HUNT!!! And a story we will tell for ever.

The Great Goose Jump of 2011

This is my submission for the Sportsman Channel Writing Contest for Hunters hosted by the Outdoor Blogger Network.

For my favorite outdoor memory I am going to go with one fresh in my head. As it just happened in late October.

 I was in Okanogan County WA hunting ducks, the lakes are starting to freeze and I know this will be my last day hunting in this area. It is a Wednesday and where we are hunting you can only shoot geese on Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays. My wife had gone home and my friend’s wife had stayed in camp to pack things up before their 7 hour drive home.

Most of the lakes we checked were frozen, the wind was blowing very cold air and we had only shot 2 little teal. It was a long hard day so far. We go to our last lake of the day a small spring lake out in the middle of the sage brush. I am 100% expecting this lake to be frozen and my friend asks "Should we even bother?" I tell him we are here we might as well check it out.

We drive over to the lake and park in the sage brush and like I always do  I check the lake to see where the ducks are by peeking up slowly over the sage brush to check the water a little at a time as too not scare off anything on the water. (Believe me if the ducks see you they will be gone.)  As I look to the far side of the lake I can see ICE!!!!!!  I can remember thinking crap this sucks. I stand up a little more and I see two goose heads, then four. I duck back down below the brush line and turn to my friend back at the truck and give him the goose sign. (Which consists of me flapping my arms all the out as if I were a goose.) I don’t think I have ever seen him get out of the truck so fast.



Puting on a sneak



We started our walk around to the "Jump Point" where we are going to implement our attack on these geese. We load up with 3 1/2 in BB's and BBB's. It is about 1/4 mile walk around to the best jump point on the small lake. I tell my friend ok I don’t know how many or how close but if we don’t end up with four or more geese we should retire from hunting for ever.

We get to the jump point which is a berm with the lake right on the other side of the berm. We give each other the ceremonial fist knock and we jump.

All I can say is there were geese everywhere, they took off in a tornado of birds and we unleashed hell upon them. Geese were dropping and splashing everywhere.

When the Shooting stopped there were 5 geese in the water. Before I was able to celebrate I noticed a small group of geese turned the wrong way and could not make it out over the hill the lake is tucked into. But I was too far for a shot at this point. I grabbed another 3 1/2 in shell from my vest and went into a dead sprint down the bank of the lake. (I felt like I was a car trying to beat a train across the train tracks.)  Just as the geese got parallel I stopped pulled up and BANG! Wouldn't you know one of those geese just peeled right out of that gray sky. I was in complete disbelief...... I mean I knew I had it the whole time.

Now the real work begins, as in get back to the truck, get the dogs and then get the dogs to break the ice. See these geese were sitting in the only part of the lake that was not frozen. No matter where you started from the dogs had at least 20 feet of ice to break.  I started gathering rocks to throw at the geese to get and keep my dogs attention.

At first my dog Remi was not having this whole ice thing. Finally I get her to break a path way through the ice for her to get two of the geese in the water and my friend’s lab was able to get the other three.

We had all six geese laying there on the beach and we felt like we had just won the super bowl or maybe the 2011 Goose Bowl. There were hugs for everyone even the cold wet dogs. Now we get to carry these six Canadian Honkers as well as guns back to the truck.

On the walk back we asked, what ones did you get? I don't know, which ones did you get? Screw it how about we both got three.... Sounds good to me.

We ended the hunt with another ceremonial fist knock and a memory that will last forever.

Duck Hunting 2011

Well so far 2011 has been a great year for duck hunting. I took one week off of work to go to duck camp with my family and friends. My wife got her first duck out of the air this year and is still shooting 100% green heads life time. I shot a triple on geese twice this year and shot 10 geese all together and all jump shooting.  With my buddy we shot about 60 ducks, alot more when you add in my Dad and brother. Here is a pic from hunting at our DUCK CAMP in Okanogan County WA.