Still a few birds around…

This is just a quick report…

Tyler and I made it out for our annual turkey weekend hunt. We had a late start today hitting a public area at about 11 a.m. Another group of three were leaving as we pulled in. We discussed what they saw and where they tried. Ends up that they saw zero birds. The good news was they didn’t make it back to the area I wanted to hunt. Other than that group we had the place to our selves.

We wondered around for about three hours and bounced wild flushing birds bagging one. We must have seen close to a dozen or so. We packed it in at about 2 p.m. stopping for a quick bite at the local Kum & Go before hitting the next spot at 3 p.m. We pushed a strip of cover that is about 30 feet wide all the way to it end with a hen popping out. The hen held really tight, but not as tight as the rooster that got up on Tyler’s side. Tyler and I each squeezed one off and missed. It was a simple missed slam dunk. Tyler was tired and went back to the truck while I moved to the other side of the road where I worked the grass/field edge when the dog, Sadie decided cross the field to the bordering creek. I lost her for a short while when birds started flying behind me out of range. Sure enough I see her bead bounding through the grass in hot pursuit. Once Sadie and I had a quick discussion, we proceeded down the field about 35 yards when a nice rooster popped up crossing left to right. I gave him one warning shot and dropped him with the second shot. At that point I turned around to head back to the truck when another rooster popped to my right quartering away and I dropped him.

We ended the day with three birds.

We’ll be back at it again tomorrow.

I think the reports of no birds are grossly overrated. Hunted on Thanksgiving with my nephews and bro in low for 4 hours and saw 12 birds, getting 5 roosters. I had the dog on point 2 yards in front of me and wanted to get one of the young guys a shot or two. Flushed a nice rooster, waited for the kids to shot until it was well out of range and just giggled. He said he was not able to shoot because it happened too fast. I just laughed because I had told him the dog was on point, get ready, and 30 seconds later I flushed the bird. Ohh well, we were all young once and have all made mistakes.

Today I went out for a whole 20 minutes, saw 8 birds, 6 of which were roosters. Shot at 2, killed 2, and went home for the day.

I need to work tomorrow, but think I might go for a walk on Sunday and see how things are going.

I have been very impressed with my dog work today, as I put one down on the run, she tracked him down, pointed him and got him when he ran again. For all you guys who prefer flushing dogs, you do not know what your missing

Finally folllowing up with our Saturday evening hunt. It was good seeing numerous birds flying into and out of the grass as we were hunting. I felt like the good old days in SD.

Pictured is Tyler with a pair he shot.

Nice. I always like to see young people getting excited to be in the field.