Duck Hunters wear waders cause of the stories they tell.
For my Wisconsin duck hunting friends and myself, the
almost-annual fall hunting trip to North Dakota really begins about ten miles
down the hiway the previous year.
12 months earlier, we are already talking about “next year” and what we
can do different and what we learned during this addition-no shortage of
curriculum there at all. Being
from a state that really isn’t known for high volume waterfowl traffic or emptying a lot of ammo boxes,
my group of buddies look foreword to the wide open pot hole country and the
opportunity to clean the cobwebs out of our 12 gauges.
All of us hail from the Wausau area originally and grew up
in the woods, often at the end of the day streaking out of the doors of the
high school, searching for coveys of grouse. Back then a couple of .20 gauge shotguns and tattered bird
vests in the trunk in the school parking lot was no big deal. Close friend Mike
lived on Lake Wausau, so he had duck hunting in his blood and I’d tagged
along with my Grandpa Schutlz bagging a few mallards and Woodies when I was a
kid. As all of us grew up, we made
it a point to hit the woods and marshes together as often as we could. That’s all well and good, but we also
wanted to experience what “real” hunting
was like- out west….shooting box after box of shells at endless flights of
ducks and pheasants. Chatting with a Neillsville neighbor one day, I learned of
a farmer in North Dakota with tons of land and reasonable rates. Perfect opportunity. Some quick calls
and consultations with the hunting buds and soon reservations were made for the
following fall. It was a good
decision back then-we’ve had good
years and slow ones but never unsuccessful if one measures in number of laughs,
stories and solid camaraderie.
Prepping for
the trip may start in our minds right away the preceding year, but for the
dogs, it really begins in earnest during the hottest months of summer. This year would be my 5 year old Black
Lab Molly’s first out-west trip.
She’s performed well on pheasants in state, but retrieving on big cold
North Dakota water through a pile of decoys could be tougher. Several times a week, we’d head down the road and do drills in a
small lake. She enjoyed this game immensely
and even when I set a handful of decoys out off the beach, she managed to
navigate though them to make the retrieves. I felt she was ready and couldn’t wait to see
her hit the water,
The guys are scattered a bit now-Mike and Moe in Wausau,
Dave in Ladysmith, Mikes son James
(with a new dog Wally) near the cities and I’m in Neillsville. With a bit of coordination we all
gathered and shoehorned gear, guns and dogs into two trucks and a trailer. I’d also be delivering a young golden
retriever puppy to a new owner in ND as a favor and she was no problem during
the 8 hour drive. At one time
landowner Allen’s cash crop farm was over 5000 acres, but he’d downsized now
and we had to work harder to find which potholes the birds were using. Pheasants suffered a huge downturn this
past year, so we hunted those as incidentals as we jump shot marshes. Our intent was to try goose hunting as
well, and no expense was spared getting deeks bought, painted and prepped-they
never left the truck box. Crops
were still standing and finding giant Canadians proved difficult. Snow geese would tease us, but are
tough to hunt. We stuck to what
we’d learned over the years-set decoys in the morning, jump shoot later, relax
and catch the sun lengthening shadows late in the day.
We’ve hunted NoDak in about every conceivable kind of weather-from
unseasonably warmth to breaking ice on ponds cold. No different this year. We arrived at 3:30 am and caught some zzzz’s in a gas
station parking lot only to find snow blanketing everything an hour later. Typical North Dakota. Melting snow meant soils turn to black
grease and the truck stayed in four wheel drive all week. Overcast and damp actually helped duck
hunting as one would expect and we managed to get plenty of shooting
opportunities the first 2 days.
Bluebird skys and temps sliding up to the 60s seem to put the kabash on
our waterfowl hunt later. We did
get a few more, but they were tough to find-no cold front flights of northern
birds would arrive this year. We
managed a few rooster pheasants, but the hens outnumbered them 15 to 1 if we
did find them. No matter, we still
were in a beautiful place and away from work and for the dogs, it was nirvana
every day.
