H20fwler
5 year old buck +
My sons and I took the dogs north last Thursday to chase grouse and see if any woodcock were around. The boys had never hunted woodcock before and I had only ever shot them while rabbit hunting as incidentals and that had been a couple decades ago, seems like we always would jump one or two while after bunnies.
We made it to the area close to where we wanted to start at in the morning and found a motel and settled in. The youngest son started looking around on the internet and found a public place for pheasant that was an hour away, we got to talking and all three of us though it would be pretty cool to try and get three species in one day so we decided to get up early Friday morning and start there to see if we could find any.
It was a beautiful spot of waist high CRP and the dogs were amped ready to go...Darcy has gotten pretty good at sniffing pheasants out. We were pushing a section when we heard a rooster cackle a few hundred yards away and another answer, that got us all pumped up and on high alert. The dogs did fantastic and we shot pretty good, my oldest boys one year old female GSP Lou made a couple great retrieves it being her first pheasant hunt ever and Darcy had a couple nice points although the birds didn't want to hold and kept trying to sneak off on her.
We were pretty stoked at the results of a quick couple hour hunt, the boys got back on their phones and found us some public land that we could try for grouse and timberdoodles that wasn't to far away so off we went. The area looked very promising with young mixed aspens and conifers the fall colors were spectacular in full swing. We rolled out and started pushing through it...lots of thumb sized aspen, we flushed a few grouse but the stuff was so thick that even with the lower leaves off it was very hard to see. We got a few shots and had some fun, it was awesome for me hunting with both my sons who I think enjoy hunting even more than I do.
The dogs kept working the cover and if they got "birdy" we tried to get in better position to shoot, we finally knocked one down and only had one more species to check off our list. We moved on down the road a ways and jumped into another cover, almost immediately my youngest son shot the first woodcock of the trip..his first ever!
As we worked that spot we found some woodcock and all got a little shooting. We drove on down the road and hunted a beautiful spot along a river that was more open on one side and really thick on the other and had lots of flushes, the oldest son soon got his first woodcock ever and a nice grouse.
A great northern fall day with a lot of walking, wet feet, good dog work and tailgate lunch of smoked salmon and cheese...and we hit our trifecta
We made it to the area close to where we wanted to start at in the morning and found a motel and settled in. The youngest son started looking around on the internet and found a public place for pheasant that was an hour away, we got to talking and all three of us though it would be pretty cool to try and get three species in one day so we decided to get up early Friday morning and start there to see if we could find any.
It was a beautiful spot of waist high CRP and the dogs were amped ready to go...Darcy has gotten pretty good at sniffing pheasants out. We were pushing a section when we heard a rooster cackle a few hundred yards away and another answer, that got us all pumped up and on high alert. The dogs did fantastic and we shot pretty good, my oldest boys one year old female GSP Lou made a couple great retrieves it being her first pheasant hunt ever and Darcy had a couple nice points although the birds didn't want to hold and kept trying to sneak off on her.
We were pretty stoked at the results of a quick couple hour hunt, the boys got back on their phones and found us some public land that we could try for grouse and timberdoodles that wasn't to far away so off we went. The area looked very promising with young mixed aspens and conifers the fall colors were spectacular in full swing. We rolled out and started pushing through it...lots of thumb sized aspen, we flushed a few grouse but the stuff was so thick that even with the lower leaves off it was very hard to see. We got a few shots and had some fun, it was awesome for me hunting with both my sons who I think enjoy hunting even more than I do.
The dogs kept working the cover and if they got "birdy" we tried to get in better position to shoot, we finally knocked one down and only had one more species to check off our list. We moved on down the road a ways and jumped into another cover, almost immediately my youngest son shot the first woodcock of the trip..his first ever!
As we worked that spot we found some woodcock and all got a little shooting. We drove on down the road and hunted a beautiful spot along a river that was more open on one side and really thick on the other and had lots of flushes, the oldest son soon got his first woodcock ever and a nice grouse.
A great northern fall day with a lot of walking, wet feet, good dog work and tailgate lunch of smoked salmon and cheese...and we hit our trifecta
