Rio Grand Duck Hunt - Jan 09

On closing weekend of the '08-'09 duck season, my friends Jared, Abe and I went out for one last hunt on the Rio Grande. We'd been talking for a long time about float hunting the river in a small boat. Jared has a little boat so we decided we should just go for it.

Jared and I drove up river and floated down while Abe sat in some brush on an island down river with his dog spike.

We built a blind on the front of the boat to break up our outline. Worked decent, but it needed to be taller. The other problem we ran into was shallow water. His boat didn't draft much water at all but it would still run aground pretty often. It definitely made the trip longer and more labor intensive. We floated several miles. I bet we pushed the boat at least a mile of that. This ruined a few shooting opportunities because we had to get out and push several times when we were almost close enough to shoot. The ducks would spot our movement and flush out of range.

Later in the day, near dark, we went to a spot and stalk method like we normally use. We spotted a couple ducks down river so Jared got out and walked up shore. He took my single shot 10ga. He snuck up on the ducks and they flushed perfectly. He dropped a nice hen mallard. That was the last time that shotgun was fired before I oiled it up and packed in away during our time in Hawaii. Might be a few years before its fired again. I'm glad it retired on a good note. Good shot Jared!

Here's the view from our boat. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast. Any day outdoors is a good day.

Dalhart Pheasant Hunt - Dec 07

In 2007 my dad and I got an invitation to hunt Pheasant in Dalhart TX. The panhandle of Texas offers some of the best pheasant hunting in the country. Admittedly it's probably not as rich as South Dakota, but if everyone in your group limits out every day they hunt...what's the difference? The first morning we hunted the farmer took us to an old silage pit that had grown up with weeds. Earlier that year, during corn harvest, he'd pulled alongside the pit with the combine and dumped a little corn in it. We got out of the truck and while we were loading our guns about 25 pheasant flushed out of it! One guy managed to fire one shot and missed. We all stood there with dumb looks of disappointment. That was more birds than we'd flushed in years of hunting pheasant combined! Not only did these guys not seem to be phased by all these birds flying away untouched, it became clear that they had no intention of going after them out in the corn stubble. Just said, "we'll find plenty more. No need to wear ourselves out trying to walk through that stubble." We'd never been afforded such a luxery! In eastern NM if you flush anything you better go after it, no matter where it lands, because that might be the only pheasant you see all weekend.

We hunted two days and limited out by noon each day. We killed 27 roosters in all.

We hunted corners of mostly corn fields and a few wheat fields.

It was a once in a lifetime hunt for us. We're used to hunting all weekend in hopes of bringing home two or three birds in Eastern NM. Sometimes you hunt all weekend and come home with none! It was a real privaledge.