Another Season in the Books

           Well another season has come and gone. A combination of drought, lack of water, and very few storms up north to push down migrating birds, the season was more difficult than those in recent memories. Although quantity of birds was certainly down, it was nonethless a great season. Some of the highlights of the season include some stellar Benelli retrieves, taking a friend out on his first hunt that he shot a banded pintail on, hunting with Grandpa Jack on a regular basis, and a very fun early goose hunt out of state, just to mention a few. Below are a few photos to put the icing on the cake of a great season.


The 2nd and 3rd birds from the right were the first cinammon teal I've ever shot. They are beautiful birds, I wish I had an extra couple hundred bucks floating around, they'd make a great mount!















Pintails have a 2 bird limit a person each day in Utah. My grandpa and I shot these 4 stud drakes out of the first flock at about 9:00 AM. We sat there for 4 more hours and never shot again and watched flock after flock of pintals land in the decoys.

 

Mid November we found a sweet little pot hole that the ducks were using pretty heavily. I have a friend that hadn't been out duck hunting in 10+ years. We finally hooked up one Saturday morning and everything fell into place. The first freeze had come the night before locking up some of the sheetwater and concentrating the ducks. It turned out to be the best duck shoot I had this season.

 

I've really been wanting to shoot another banded duck to get one mounted. My last 2 I shoot I never though of getting them mounted, and in hindsight I wish I would have. I've never shot a banded pintail before and was feeling it in my bones all season. The flights of migrators were moving in and we were consistently shooting limits of pintails. As luck would have it, a single drake pintail cupped in hard and low right over the decoys. He came in on the side my friend was shooting so he stood up and folded the drake pintail. It landed in some thick phragmite behind us so we didn't retrieve it until right before we left. Sure enough, Benelli found it and brought it back with some nice bandage to go with it. I was glad Cade was able to fill the band void for the season!

We finished with 3 limits of ducks that day and all got back in time for some Aggie football. Just the way a Saturday in November should be.

Then the cold weather hit... Everything froze up pretty solid and pretty quick. Most my spots got froze out almost overnight and the pooch and I spent a lot of cold hunts waiting for stuff to fly. December was pretty brutal, I didn't do too well. The top left screen on my programmer consistenly read in the negatives, it was cold!





















We had one last hunt that we went out in style with. It just happened to be Benelli's 2nd birthday and the last Saturday of the season. It was freezing cold again, I was tempted to not take Benelli but I knew she wouldn't forgive me if I did that. I was glad I didn't leave her. There wasn't anywhere to hide her by us so she had to hide on the other side of the dike where she couldn't actually see the decoys or water where the ducks would fall. For all her retrieves they were "blind", meaning she had to follow hand signals to make the retrieves. She retrieved her 300th bird of the season on video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1jTB9C7JgM

We ended up with 3 limits of ducks to end the season, it was a great way to go out.

 

Benelli feels the same way I do about the season being over.....

 

Let the countdown to October begin!

Real Men Wear Jewelry

The waterfowl season has been officially underway for just over a month now. It has been a tougher year this year than last, mainly because of the lack of water and extremely warm weather. The cold fronts from the north are what bring down the new birds and we haven't had many yet. This weekend has a big front coming through so that will be good.

Opening day was a fun shoot, my dad, grandpa, and I went out in the boat and shot 3 limits of ducks and 4 geese by about noon. The biggest thing I looked forward to during this opener was seeing Benelli work. We'd spent a lot of time over the spring and summer refining a few things. She performed awesome and I was really pleased with her. She's retrieved a good number of birds so far this year and is getting the hang of it pretty darn good.

One of the things we'd really focused on was retrieving a goose. We had a flock of ten geese commit pretty nice to the decoys and we dropped 4 out of them bunch, unfortunately 3 were cripples. If you ever have wondered where the term "wild goose chase" this was a great example. Benelli got the first cripple and brought it back to the boat and in the mean while the other cripple was swimming/flying as fast as it could out of the spread. It was probably 200 yards or so and Benelli made a great retrieve. To my pleasant surprise the first goose she brought back had a little prize jewelry with it.

The US Fish and Game uses these leg bands to track migration data about the birds. Unfortunately all of the geese I've shot with bands are anything but exotic migrators! The 2 banded ducks I've shot were both banded over 1,000 miles away!







The Fish and Game send you a certificate of appreciation for filing the band info which is pretty cool. I've kept a book with all the band info in it.

Each band always has a great story that goes with it. Benelli's first goose of the 2012 season won't be forgot. My very first goose I shot as an 11 year old twirp was banded. It is fun to keep these on my lanyard and remember the story that goes behind each one.

Anyways, the season has been tough but it still has produced a good number of birds. I've had to change where and how I hunt a little bit to accomodate for the dog but it is so much more enjoyable have her tag along. Below are some pictures from the season so far.



Anyways, the season has been tough but it still has produced a good number of birds. I've had to change where and how I hunt a little bit to accomodate for the dog but it is so much more enjoyable have her tag along. Below are some pictures from the season so far.

 

Benelli has had a good year so far, I figure she's retrieved pretty close to 50 ducks and just the 3 geese. It's been fun to watch her work and learn. Hopefully this storm moving in over the weekend brings some new birds down. 

Elk Hunt 2012

One of my favorite childhood memories was our annual elk hunt. My dad, grandpa, and I would head up to Evanston, Wyoming for a week. The fall chill in the air, missing school, getting some man time in, it didn't get much sweeter than that. I had a pretty good sense of deja-vu this past week as we hunted in those same areas. Funny how memories come back like that. The scenery was absolutely beautiful. I love the fall.

 

 

 

The first morning we got to the highest point possible. Usually we hear elk bugling the whole climb and see a few, but we hadn't heard or seen a thing. It made us a little worried. It is so dry that the usual ponds and watering holes were dried up. We passed probably 2 dozen on the way up, not a single drop of water was in any of them. Once on top we bugled in hopes of getting a response. About 10 seconds later I was reminded of why I had missed the elk hunt so much; the whole mountainside erupted with bulls whistling. I tried to record it but it was so windy it didn't work. One bull sounded really close, we figured he was just over the next draw, so we headed across the meadow to find him. Halfway through the meadow the bull started pushing all his cows out into the meadow, straight at us. There we are, looking like the village idiots, as this bull is coming out into the meadow. He was smart and never would break the tree line. His cows eventually got within 10 yards of us until the wind shifted and they busted us. This whole time that bull was screaming his lungs out, it really made the hair on the back of your neck stand up!

After busting us we took off after them into the THICK aspens. It was slow going, but we eventually got within 200 yards of the bull. He was still hard to see how big he was because of the thick growth. I saw his swords at one point and they looked good, but that is all I saw. His "eagle cow" busted us and he took off again with his whole posse. We starting cow calling to try to sweet talk him back and before we knew it a different bull came running straight for us. At about 150 yards out he stopped and gave us the stare down for about 10 minutes. We didn't dare move! Finally he put his head down to eat and I pulled the gun up and got a good rest. My shooting lane was about 1 foot wide and his vitals were covered up by the trees. I waited until he finally took a step forward and unleashed the 7mm Browning. He dropped in his tracks and didn't move a foot from where I shot him. Bull down!


 



He's a great bull and it was a blast to be able to have my grandpa tag along for most of the hunt. Unfortunately once the first group busted us we had to leave him behind for a little bit. We went down some pretty steep terrain. The bull was a dandy, unfortunately he is a little beat up on his left side and has couple broken points that I didn't see. You can see just how thick it was behind me, it was tough to get a real great guess on how big he was.

 

 

We got him quartered out, got out the backstraps and tenderloins, and got outta there. We got back the day before the duck hunt opens, but that story is for a different day! I'm fortunate to have a grandpa that is so unselfish. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have a lot of the hunting opportunities I'm able to enjoy. All he needs are a few warm chocolate chip cookies out of the oven and he is a happy camper!

First Blood of the Season!

Fall is officially here! Cold mornings, dew on the truck, and hot chocolate and an apple fritter for breakfast has confirmed it. We brought in the new season in style over labor day weekend with some early season goose action. Utah doesn't have an early goose season, but a few of the neighboring states do. I got an invite from a good buddy so Friday morning I bailed on work early and headed up. I forgot my good camera again so all my pictures are off my phone, so I apologize for the poor quality.

I made it up there and within 30 minutes this was our view:

It turns out where we were staying was right on the golf course. The golf was great and the scenery was absolutely stellar. This helped to pass some time, we were all getting pretty goosey. Bird fever had arrived.










That evening we drove out to where we'd be shooting the next morning to find a few hundred geese hanging out. They were coming in smaller bunches and didn't even circle, things were looking good. We spent the next hour or so waiting on the pharmacy for one of the gang to get a prescription filled to boost his testosterone. Haha, I guess he has some defeciency where his body doesn't produce enough, so we got a lot of good laughs out of that. He is a yBu fan, what can you expect?

The next morning we woke up at 3:00 AM to get the spread set-up. I never have hunted over more than 4 dozen decoys or so, but we put out probably 10 dozen? It was a lot of work but we had a sweet looking spread! We got set up just in time to watch the sunrise come up over the mountains.

The mornings hunt was quick. The geese moved just as expected and we killed 9 of our 10 bird limit out of the first flock. They came in picture perfect. We left after the first bunch came in because we'd be hunting the same field later in the trip and didn't want to educate anymore birds. We went back and played some more golf and then crashed.



Day two came with the same schedule and set-up, although we moved to  opposite ends of the field. Later that evening one of the guys went out and killed 1 more bird to fill our limits. Most the geese were moving on the opposite end of the field, so we sat there the next morning. We had another gorgeous set-up. The birds didn't move until a little bit later so we got to watch the fog burn off, it was beautiful.

This hunt reminded us why they call it hunting and not killing. We didn't ever fire our guns, but that was fine. I got to be with some new friends, see a couple dads interact with their young sons, the fact that we didn't shoot anything was a let down, but definitely not a trip ruiner. For some reason all the birds went to an entirely different area. Despite our 10 dozen decoys and who knows how much money invested in goose calls we couldn't pull any in close enough.

That night we wrapped things up with ribeyes and goose breasts on the grill. We exchanged some great hunting stories and filled up on man food. It was a great way to end the trip.

 


























It was a great trip, big thanks for those that set-up and extended the invite. It's hard to take people you don't know real great to your hunting spot, too many people can ruin it to fast.

Regular season starts here in Utah on Conference Weekend so the countdown is on for it! I just found out I have an elk tag for the 1st week in October so we'll see if I can kill an elk and be back in time for the opener. That happened once in 5th grade, in fact, I wrote a paper on it in Mrs. Pobanz's class. I told the story of how we killed 3 elk that morning by 10 and made it back in time to go to Henry's Lake and catch 5 pound brookies that same night. That next week my parents got called into the classroom with me because my teacher was concerned with my honesty and accused me of making up stories. The look on her face when my dad told her it was true is probably the only thing I remember from 5th grade. Let's hope the first weekend in October can raise some eyebrows with the stories to follow it!

Hand signals

I love YouTube. You can find anything and everything you seem to need. Like anything on the internet, you have to do some homework to find out if something is legit. This trainer makes the hand signals seem so easy, I was sure his dog had done this hundreds of times. Surprisingly it went about as easy as his video shows.

Benelli caught on fast and is getting pretty dang good with her hand signals. At a park or ball field she'll go out to about 40 yards, I don't think I'll focus on much further than that. I was surprised how quick she learned, within a week she was running. As the video shows, the next step is to start adding distractions and make sure she realizes she goes where I tell her to, not where she wants to. The fact that she'll do this consistently without her e-collar is encouraging.

To get her to go 100% of the time where she is sent to I'll use this drill below. It's time to start clamping down again and really enforcing the obedience as it is almost time! I'm headed out of the state labor-day weekend for some birthday early season goose slaying.

Tis The Season

It's been fantastic waking up to go to work in the morning and have that cool crisp feel in the air. I drive through Sardine Canyon everyday on the way to work and love seeing the colors already starting to change. Rolling past the Logan River Golf Course in the morning usually produces a small family group of geese heading to feed, goose fever is getting here! I was out in the garden tonight and the ducks and geese starting piling into a pond behind the house, Benelli was going nuts! She is about as excited as I am.

I saw a hilarious quote this week that reminded me of Benelli when we first got her. We were still living in our apartment and couldn't have pets. We were moving into our house about a week away so we didn't want to wait getting her any longer so we drove up to Pocatello and picked her up. She was like any 12 week old pup, it was fun having her. We quickly learned if we left her in her pet porter at night she would bark and whine uncontrollably. We were worried sick about getting caught with her so we'd take turns staying up at night with her throwing some obnoxious squeaky toy across the floor. After a few days this got really old. We couldn't take her out during the day time, we couldn't lock her up, it was a bit of a disaster. One day we were cooking dinner and we both looked at each other and said "It's too quiet." We made a mad dash to the bedroom and found Benelli taking a dump on the floor. Phenomenal. Which leads well into the quote I saw this week: "They say a dog is a man's best friend, but I don't even have enemies that will look me dead in the eye while taking a shit on my carpet."

I bought Benelli a new ground blind this last week with my safety bonus from work. I bought the Greenhead Gear Ground Force blind (on the right). She currently is running out of a Rig 'em Right Field Bully. I've really liked the one she has now except it is a weird triangle shape and has a really hard time breaking up with not much cover. It is just too high and too sharp of edges to break up. This newer one is a lower profile and more square. Benelli doesn't seem to mind!

The ground force blind does look quite a bit smaller and I think it'll disappear out in the field quite a bit better than the Rig 'Em Right. For $150 it better!

The big downside to the blind is collapsing it. The Rig 'Em Right collapses awesome, it basically folds up in a triangle and that is it. You clip the front to the back and you can pack it all over and it doesn't take up much space. The only word I can think of to describe it would be like an accordion. The Ground Force Blind has a pole that runs down the middle, that collapses how tall it is, but that is it! It'd be a pain in the but to pack a long ways. It is a pain putting together as well, I have a bad feeling the middle pole is going to freeze up when it gets cold. That was a big disappointment, it isn't very mobile.

I've started Benelli on hand signals this last week and she is doing quite well. I've got some video I'll upload and hopefully post up this week.

This week was a great week for Benelli. A trainer I started working with when Benelli was a few months old told me something I've never forgot, "Benelli will only be as good as her trainer." Having said that, there were a couple things last year I didn't spend enough time and training on to expect great results. First and probably foremost is Benelli would not stay steady. As soon as the sound of a muzzle blast went off she was off to the races to retrieve. I plan to fix that next week. She will stay steady out of her ground blind throwing just a bumper, but you add live birds, calls, and her retrieving instinct takes over. It is hard to find the balance of discipline and not taking away her instinct to retrieve. Next week should show some good results for that....
My quality of pictures are pretty poor, I need to stop using the phone on my camera. This week we focused on retrieving a goose. She retrieved a few last year, but she struggled for the most part. I blame that on not training her with any geese, and partly her size. Last hunting season she was still less than a year old; a big goose can be 10-15 pounds. That is a lot of goose for the 8 month old pup she was. I'll start adding her ground blind to her drills this week, and hopefully add the gun in by Saturday.
 A few (literally, probably 3 retrieves?) times out to the park and she was golden. She'll now run 200 yards, pick up this heavy 10 pound bumper, retrieve to hand, heel, sit, and wait for her command to drop.



And last but not least, what an awesome picture! Makes me really excited for when Jack will be old enough to have and train his own dog. If only training a kid was as easy as training a dog!