dawsonscreek

Maybe the slight cool down this weekend will do something. Saturday morning is probably shot for me due to a Friday night wedding, but gonna scout hard and put something together for Sunday as it is going to be my last day. Oct 6 is duck open for PA and I only live 10 minutes from the border so I might as well check that out!

Duped again, set up in one of the pastures from last week, thinking the warm temps would have them in there. Well, they roosted in the pond up the road, got up just high enough to clear the trees and landed in the adjacent pasture. Likely never even saw my dekes. Oh well, bring on the ducks now, I've had enough of these long necks for a while.

Had two pastures lined up for the weekend. Saturday's had over 100 in it the night before and had been consistently holding 4 dozen in the mornings, nobody showed up. Sunday's pasture had been holding 150 birds consistently all day and gain, nothing really showed up. We only had one flock work, and piss poor  shooting led to only three birds hitting the dirt. Still a great weekend to be out, nd the number of woodies on the pasture pond is exciting for October!

Yeah its brutal out there. Found those birds the next day on a pond and got permission only to find them gone the following day. Tough hunting. Do have permission on a pasture/pond with 100 just have a feeling they aren't leaving it to roost though. They've been there all week so hopefully they stick around. Plan is to shoot it this weekend, will post  report.

Having a hard time finding and staying on birds here in the southern tir. SEems as though once we find some, they are gone the next day. Nothing is consistent down here. Despite the tough conditions we got on a field opening day and watched 100+ chose the next field over the hill and not even give us a look. Managed to pull one group of 5 off and we got three of them. Hopefully the cold front this weekend brings some much needed luck 

Saturday morning felt like it was gonna be one of those great mornings. Clear skies and chilly. Nothing spoke off the roost, walked my usual mile loop without a peep. Almost back to the end of the loop and got a response. I got as close as I dared and set up. He came in gobbling, drumming, and strutting. SMoked him at 23 yards, he didn’t even flop. He had about 1” spurs, a 9 1/2” beard and was heavy! Estimated at 22 pounds. 

Let's just hope that April actually feels like spring and we don't go straight to summer!

Hit the field early on Saturday morning, my work schedule only allows me afternoons and evening for scouting so I wasn’t sure when the birds were getting to the field.Turns out a bunch were roosting on the river adjacent to the field, they left roost when the sun was above the hill and we got a two pack that landed in the decoys.

Then a long wait till 11:00 and 3 dozen came back together and landed outside of the spread. Tried waiting them out hoping they’d walk into the spread but that didn’t happen.We both had to p*ss and every bird that came by was landing with the live birds so We flushed them out

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Then in the afternoon we finally had birds coming in again, all in pairs which was perfect for 2 shooters. I cleaned up 3 more and missed one, was shooting 100% on one shot till that miss! My buddy only ended up with one more, his gun malfuncted on 2 feet down birds that would have been dead, and also missed one out of the pair I missed. So, we at least shot at a limit, all in all a great day and good success for it being my first year targeting geese! 

Good shoot! I got permission on the field I was hoping for. Gonna be a tough hide /setup as the birds are strung out along a several hundred yard flooded ditch in a short stubble field (with a little snow and I don't have snow covers for the layouts) and not really concentrated in one area of it. Gonna give it a shot though!

4 minutes ago, longspurs said:

With this weather DawsonC you do what you got to do. Water spots have been tough cuz skim ice . Nice jump !!!

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Jumping Canadas is really fun to me. Had a perfect opportunity at a bigger group, sitting in a pond at the bottom of a tall bank, stopped at the house and by the time the guy got to the door and said go ahead and hunt, the geese had swum out too far to jump. They'll be there Saturday though....

Me and a buddy got out to do some jump shooting, as we couldn’t get on any fields/loafs due to lack of scouting time. Only had one good jump, 2 geese on the river, one shot fired by each of us( simultaneously!) , 2 geese fell dead. Praying to get permission for Saturday on a field I found last night! 

I ordered a wicked lights headlamp and am impatiently waiting on its arrival. Only a few more days to bag my first fox(my goal for this year).

Turns out she wasn't a hunting dog, but when she was on her walk she decided she wanted to take a hike up over the hill following some sort of scent!

She is back home safe. As annoying as Facebook is, it was how we found the owners. She made quite the trek over beartown Hill, glad the yipping coyotes we heard didn’t find this sweet girl! 

Got Home from a a Super Bowl party last night and this beagle was sitting on the front porch. I live on Kane Road in Painted Post, basically at the end of Beartown Road where it meets 417. Haven’t seen her before, but there were some guys hunting the town gravel pits on Addison road, maybe it is there dog. She is very sweet and obedient, somebody must be missing her. She is safe and warm in my house. Please spread the word. My name is Jeff

607-346-1506. 

10 hours ago, jimmac said:

Nice gun, the 22-250 is a killing machine. Not fur friendly at all on fox, fist size exits or bigger. I use the same caliber once fox season ends for yotes, prior to that I use a 17 WSM. I'm a fox guy first. All my fur gets put up.

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How do you like that WSM? As far as knock down power and fur damage. I too want to focus on foxes, I have yet to bag one but have had much better luck calling in greys than yotes. So now I am carrying a .223 and a shotgun. I know the .223 will more than likely destroy a fox so I'm looking for something more fur friendly. Leaning towards .22 mag because they're affordable but also want something that would take a coyote so I'm wondering if a .22 hornet would better suit me or if the .17 WSM or .17 hornet would be worth a look.

7 hours ago, pap said:

Coyote eyes usually shine like a brownish to like white but, I’ve made the same mistake and it was a green color, so I did some research and it has something to do with the amount of zinc I think their diet and also there age. I was using coyote sounds that’s what threw me for a loop. Also it was a good 300 yards away I was at a miniature model airplane strip. Did the same sneaky deal I was using a 1 million candle power light with a red lens and I put the beam right to it and still couldn’t make a positive ID. surely didn’t want to shoot someone’s dog. Had to pass through a development to get to state game land.

 I have read similar articles about eye color, didn’t clear it up. Guess I can’t say what it was unless I had seen it in the light better. Good lesson to not shoot the first eyes you see though! If not tonight I will be out next Saturday night for sure (the honey works late so I’ve got the time!) 

Novice question here. While out last night I was calling for about 20 minutes when I caught a pair of eyes in the light. They showed green reflection, whatever it was would slowly work its way across the hill side, surely looking at the caller but not coming in. After watching it for about 5-10 minutes I lost sight of it, a very short time later I caught eyes down in the corner of the field I was in, I was able to positively ID that as a deer (also green eye reflection). Question is, do predators show green eye reflection, or was I tricked by a whitetail investigating my call from a distance? The eyes appeared to be very close together on the front of the animals face, but with it being pitch black and my light only good for ID to about 80 yards, I can't say for certain what I saw was not a deer.

WOW! Nice yote, glad you got redemption on him!

The number and types of birds usually determines how I clean them. Woodies always get plucked, singe the smaller feathers off and split down the middle to cook in cast iron or on the grill. I currently have a couple whole plucked mallards in the freezer that will be for a special dinner (cooking a whole duck properly is tedious). For most puddle ducks I will breast out and cook skin on, divers always get skinned. Geese get breasted out skinless and also have legs worth saving.

Hank Shaw is an amazing wild game chef and has so many unique ways to cook ducks, geese, and their parts. Check it out.

https://honest-food.net/

Get him on some pigeons this summer too! Practices your wingshooting and his retrieving (and they are actually tasty!)

Great job! Had some good shooting on Seneca today too. Congrats!! Long wait till next season now

Well late season is over for me, only got out twice but had a great season! Today was a 3 man hunt that started with boat issues and slow duck action. A few singles were picked off but we don’t get any flocks in. We weren’t set up for divers but late morning a large flock of redheads worked the shore over us and a 3 man limit hit that water in one volley! My first redhead! I ended up shooting 3 new species this year (Green Winged Teal, Gadwall, Redhead). I am ready for it to be next late season already! 

Hmmm maybe ill be in the market for a 22 mag (again regretting selling the one I had).

1 hour ago, pap said:

 

Are you talking about 6mm Creedmoor!! If so my cousin just bought one in the Ruger platform, I don’t know if Savage or anyone else has chambered this rifle yet, but I know he shoots the 110 gr Hornady BT out of his, he got his buzzing over 3000ft per sec. out of his, he hunts predators with his, he likes it, he first bought a Winchester 243 wsm that gun blew yotes in half, just about, that thing was nasty!! I shot his 6mm, nice!! No Recoil shoots about on a quarter for me, and with him behind the rifle 3 shots cut the same hole. Be interesting to hear how yours does. I’m a sucker for wildcat cartridges so I guess that’s why I show interest in the gun!!

No, the gun I have is a Mossberg MVP predator edition. It's chambered in 5.56x45 so it will also shoot .223. It is a really nice shooting gun, bolt action and takes AR-15 mags. Hoping that a .223 wont damage a fox pelt too much. I want a red and a grey for the wall, then the rest would go to market (should I have that great of a season).