Friday, October 21, 2005

Grand slam slammed Spent the morning hunting prairie grouse with Gari Sisk an hour east of Pierre. Gari put down two dogs, her English pointer Jack and a black Lab named chukar. We worked several shelter belts first, thinking they might be out of the wind. Jack pointed a snipe and a hen pheasant, and we bumped a couple deer. Then, on the advice of the landowner, we hoofed it across a big pasture and were soon into birds. One sharptail flushed wild and sailed a mile on the 30 mph NW wind. Then Jack locked up, but Chukar bumped a flock before we could get into position. Several more small flocks flushed, some downwind, some upwind, but all flew over at least one hill, so we turned around and worked back to the vehicles. Thus ended my quest for a SD grand slam. I at least saw some live grouse, tho I think they were all sharptails because I thought I heard a chuckle when one flock jumped. Then I tried to stay awake as I drove east and north to Alsen, ND, where I met up with Rick Frisch and Bill Cooksey of Avery Outdoors and fellow writer Mike Faw. We're hunting ducks in the morning, so I'll have a report on that sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. Later... 9:28:23 PM    comment [] Dakota pheasant redux Bone tired and need to get up early to hunt grouse in the morning on the way to ND, so this will be bullet points only. Hunted pheasants at Cody Warne's operation this morning (a preserve, but loaded with wild birds) with Lee Harstad, Dean Bortz and Rick Windham, from NE. We started off slowly. I missed the only shot we had on the first drive, then Rick smoked one on the second drive with his 1880 Husqvarna side-by-side. On drive three, Rick, Dean and I each shot one. Then we drove to a stock dam to water the dogs and Cody said we should rush up to the cover because there might be a few pheasants there.  Dean and I did that, and 150-200 pheasants boiled out of there. We each shot two, but one of mine eluded the dogs. We made one more drive, where Rick shot one with his Winchester 94-410 and he and I each missed another.  A group of hunters was driving a nearby field, so we waited for them to push one to us and sure enough, a rooster came over me, and we were suddenly filled out. After sandwiches at Cody's clubhouse, Dean, Rick and I drove to the National Grasslands south of Pierre, where we ran into two hunters from WI and MN who hadn't seen a bird. Not a good sign, we figured. We drove on the Sheriff Lake, where we saw 4 roosters as we drove up, and several hens bailed out as we walked to the dam. Later, we found a prairie chicken carcass. It had been killed earlier today by a hawk and mostly eaten. Dean missed a rooster on the way back to the truck and a couple more ran off and flushed wild. Had dinner with Lee and his supervisor, Nicole Nordbye, of SD Tourism and M.D. and Julie McClelland-Johnson, in town for the Governor's Pheasant Hunt, which starts tomorrow. By the time that party starts, I'll be hunting grouse with Gari Sisk and on my way to Devil's Lake, ND. Later... 12:48:59 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Dan Small. Last update: 10/22/05; 10:48:08 PM.