North Dakota Pheasant Hunt Trip
October 28-31, 2008
Second year for the North Dakota Pheasant hunt. Dev and I did the trek along with Obie. It was a great time with lots of shooting, beautiful weather, and ugly scenery but we didn't go for the scenery, we went for the shooting and hunting. They say that pictures are worth a thousand words so why belabor the point with a boring story?
The first day we had a hard time "hitting" the birds. A little rusty I would say. Obie found every bird we shot so it turned out to be very successful. The second day we hit a lot of birds that we didn't find. I think we were starting to get a little closer to the target and getting a little more on task. Obie on the other hand didn't find all of them. We ended up loosing the equivelant of a limit. One of our old friends said he doesn't count if you don't pick them up so we moved on the best we could. On the third day we couldn't find any birds to shoot. The birds were really spooky and would fly up long before we got there.
Obie was really fun to watch. He would get a scent and start to go wild. The tail swings totally out of control and he is 100% focused on a mission. As he gets closer to the birds he will start to do the "coyote jump" pounce thing and get an idea where the bird is. When this happens you want to make sure you are there and ready because it usually means a bird within a matter of seconds. If so, and you hit it, and he can see it all happen he is all over it and get the bird. When he has to pick up the scent again he looses focus and unless it is nearby can't put the sequence all together. We need about a month of this type of game and we all would be better shots and the dog would be better retrievers!
