This is the week 7 recap. With better weather we were able to get out for three days starting with a local trip plus a two day trip to Iowa.
November 26th
This was a last minute, local trip. I had not thought about going out but then Bill sent me a message that he could be convinced to go out. So, why not. We went out to a local property that we hunt quite often. It was mostly cloudy, with a strong wind. After the recent warm spell, it was nice to be able to hunt in cooler temperatures.
We started the hunt by checking out a food plot. The dog got interested right away. So, Bill went to the other end and posted while I followed the dog. After about 5 minutes we heard 3 birds get up out of another food plot about 50 yards away. We pushed through the food plot we were in without any action and then checked out the other food plot and it too was now empty.
We had watched where the birds went, so we headed in that direction. They landed in a thicket of pine trees, willows and dogwoods. Bill posted up where birds often fly. I followed the dog around the other side. Stella went into the thicket and was very birdy. She pointed and was not moving. So, I tried to work my way in. As I got closer, I heard two birds get up but never saw them. Later, Bill said 5 birds came out of that thicket but none were close to him. He did see where a rooster had flown.
The rest of the afternoon was like that. We would head to wooded cover, Stella would go in and point or track. I would try to follow her and hear a bird get up. Bill might see them. Then we would move on. We saw at least a dozen birds but never got a shot. It was still nice to get out, we saw birds and Stella enjoyed herself.
November 29th - Iowa Day 1
Kevin, Stella and I arrived at the Wildlife Management Area (WMA) about noon. Bright sunny skies, moderate wind out of the West and temperatures in the low to mid 40s. I had hunted this field on my previous Iowa trip and did well.
We started by working into the wind along the road. Stella tracked a hen that got up right near Kevin. She tracked another bird then lost it. A few steps later, Kevin flushed a rooster that flew up into the wind. Kevin shot it and the wind carried it across the road. Stella went after it and immediately hit a barbed wire fence. Fortunately she was unhurt and retrieved the bird.
We continued on until we got close to the western boundary. Stella had been tracking but lost the track. As we started north along the boundary, Stella went on point. Kevin moved up, Stella re-positioned and a rooster flushed due west, over a tilled field. Kevin dropped it. The bird was running but Stella caught it quickly. (In video)
Continuing north, about a 1/2 mile farther, Stella went on point. Kevin moved up and a hen flushed from right in front of her nose. (In video)
It was warm and Stella was drinking a lot. The water supply that I share with Stella was running low so we decided to head back to the truck. On the way, Stella went on a solid point right in front of me. I barely got the GoPro recording when a rooster flushed and I dropped it. Stella retrieved it. In the video, you may hear me say “GoPro stop recording”. That is supposed to stop the recording but due to the wind it did not. (See post about hunting with a GoPro.)
Within a few minutes, Stella got birdy again so I started the GoPro. Or so I thought. Instead of starting a recording it just ended the previous one. Shortly after that, a rooster flushed and I dropped the second bird, with a follow up shot by Kevin. Because the camera stopped recording instead of starting, I missed this bird.
So, we had four birds and we were pretty much out of water. We continued to the truck, had lunch, refilled our water supplies and gave Stella a break. After our break, we headed back out towards the east. It was cooler and the wind had died down a bit. Stella picked up and tracked several birds but would eventually lose the track or the track would head outside of the WMA. She hit on a fresh track and we followed her for quite a ways. A rooster got up and we both missed two shots, although it looked like the bird might have been touched and it did not fly more than a few hundred yards. So we decided to go to where it landed.
Stella had other plans and we ended up following her on a couple other tracks. We eventually were able to walk through where we thought the bird might have gone down. As a I was walking along, suddenly a rooster tried to flush but it had an obvious broken wing. It started running and we called Stella over. She took off and was soon 100 meters away. Kevin stayed in the spot and I followed Stella. We tracked that cripple for almost 400 yards before catching it. In hindsight, I do not think it was the bird we shot at because it had a broken wing. Our bird was flying until it set down.
By this time the sun was starting to set so we headed back to the truck. As we got close, Stella started tracking. We followed, as usual, and a rooster popped up and we dropped it. That filled out our 2 man limit for the day with 5 minutes to spare. (In video)
November 30th - Iowa Day 2
After the previous day’s success we were hopeful for our second day. The weather was good with sunny skies, temperatures in the mid 20s and a strong wind out of the north.
We started the day at a field that we successfully hunted several times last year. It tends to be somewhat sheltered from the wind, so we like to hunt there when it is windy. We started out heading north into the wind and it was not long before Stella was birdy. As we were tracking, we saw hens flushing way ahead of us. The track did not pan out but it was obvious that there had been birds in the area. We continued through a cattail slough up into a food plot as we continued to see birds flushing wild far ahead of us.
We continued from food plot to prairie to wooded thickets. In the thickets, Stella got birdy a few times but nothing came of it until she finally went on a solid point. I waited next to her until Kevin moved up. A bird flushed and flew directly away from me. I thought it was a hen and called it. Kevin had a side view and said it was a rooster, too late for a shot.
We continued on a big loop through another food plot with an occasional point on hens or tracks that led no where. After a couple hours we headed back to the truck.
We had lunch and decided to go back to the field from the previous day where we had seen several roosters besides those we harvested. As we left the truck and started hunting Stella picked up a track. She tracked one bird out into a prairie area when it flushed. Kevin hit it and took out a wing. Stella was there immediately. She tracked the cripple for a couple hundred yards but then lost the track in an area of short grass, probably due to the wind. We walked a little further then decided that we had had enough.
Overall, a very successful trip.
Video
I continue to learn more about using the GoPro. The voice commands to start and stop recording work well, except in windy conditions. I have to focus on whether the camera does what I want it to do, exactly at the time I need to be focusing on the dog.
Birds that flush wild will never be captured, such as the first bird that Kevin shot along the road. At times, I forget to turn the camera on because of what the dog is doing or what is happening around me.
I am also working on keeping the gun out of the frame as well as smoothly panning. It is important that I constantly be scanning around when we are tracking so that I keep track of where my partners are, where the dog is and where a bird may flush. But that constant scanning may not make good video.
On this trip, I recorded over 50 Gig of video but did not use most of it. I have lots of video of Stella tracking but that generally does not get used if there is no bird. This video is about 6 minutes long, representing about 10 hours of hunting.
Note: It is best to view the week 7 recap video with an expanded screen.
Summary
Week 7 Recap summary. We are about half way through the season. We are seeing more birds than any other year, at this point of the season. Our hunter and dog miles are in the top 25%, as well as the trip counts.
