Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game How are you doing in the 2013 bird season???

Bird seasons are opening across the west and all will open as fall progresses?? How are you doing??

We were out yesterday and bagged one old blue..

Nada, zip, zero, nothing. Still having fun though.

I think you got the last blue left in the snowy's.

JWP, Not the last one, but the birds seem scarce this fall.. Taught school here for years.. lots of my former students, are here and hunters.. So far no one is doing anything great..
One of them did get chanced out of the woods by a black bear!!!

The doves are wild as hell!!! Except for the ones in town!!!

Got two quail the other day, still need to go back out...

Going dove hunting this afternoon.little bro came home from school for the weekend so we are going to kill the schit out of them!

Let us know how it goes.. what are you guys shooting??

Went for Dove late this afternoon. Toby and I parked ourselves under a tree out of the sun. Poor guy almost wore his eyes out looking for birds. Starlings would go by in groups of up to 20. Swallows would do their aerobatic maneuvers and he sat there and shivered. Then a couple young Bucks and girl below us got some shooting. That's when the moaning started.

Took the girlfriend out for her first time ever bird hunting today and she had a group of grouse blow up right at her feet. She unloaded the shotgun and didn't hit a single one but she was extremely excited and is hooked now. We did manage to get a few doves.

Little bro wanted to go see some buddies so I went out to my grandparents and shot my 243 with some new test loads. I brought along my little Benelli montefeltro 20 ga to blast some doves afterwards. Instead of pass shooting (they weren't really flying anyways) I took Jaeger and we walked the stubble field and jump shot them. I ended up shooting 5 and saw quite a few more. I'm thinking about getting serious tomorrow and bringing the mojo dove and setting it out where I can sit in the strip of grain that was left for the birds and clipping some decoys on the fence wires. A big storm blew in and I figured I should call it quits before we got struck by all the lightning!

The two young Bucks that were below me had shot a couple before I got there. They had a fishing rod with a sinker and would throw it over the power line and then attach a dead Dove and reel it up and tie it off as a decoy.

There were only a few Doves around, but those that were made a map quest drive to those dead decoys. Made my normal dead tree hotspot turn chilly cold.

Damn young snots shouldn't be allowed to do that.

Glad to see some are getting birds and doing some shooting.. Doves are pretty "ify" here in my area. In a good year I might get a dozen.. This morning I was out looking for a cow elk, and saw 3 or 4 get airborne, but no shotgun.. Be a pretty poor season for us so far.. The worst was Sept. one after a brief grouse hunt we were home, and it was pretty hot.. I decided to take my goldens to the local fishing lake for a swim.. Kate the young one loves to swim.. She doesn't need to retrieve anything swimming is a joy for her.. Peach likes to swim and fetch sticks or ducks.. They both paddled around for 15 minutes, and then we headed home to take it easy for a couple hours before supper and an evening elk hunt..
The dogs headed to their spots for rest.. A couple hours later, we were getting a bite to eat, and Peach was up on her cushion.. When she walked out to eat her supper, I noticed something on the cushion.. A big dark wet spot.. We looked her over and found her back legs and tail covered with blood!!!! We checked her over and found an arrow shaped cut on the left rear leg.. Called the vet and hurried 40 miles to his office Sunday eve..

Poor Peach under went emergency surgery.. She had severed the tendon in that leg!! Doc thinks she will be fine.. She is in a cast now and will be for 8 weeks.. Made her rest completely the first 5 days, but now every time I move, she is there hoping she will not miss the next ride.. It is hard to leave those sad eyes behind. Hopefully she will be able to go with me more this next week.. Grouse hunting has been very slow, and with Peach recovering, our all day trips for grouse and trout have been eliminated.. But on the positive side, we got her there on time, and she should recover fine..
Be careful of your little pals while afield..

Hazen,

Dang, I'm sorry to hear that. That is a tough injury. Keep us up on how she is doing and we all are rooting for her.

Give her a pat and hug from over here in Pa.

(SundayAM Brace) Some of The Thems...



[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M_asMPnujP4[/video]

battue, thanks will do..

Great photography, but that pic is freaky. Then the decoy is giving them that look.

Two days of hunting blues and two limits.

And some happy labradors.

Flushing dogs make it tough wing-shooting on blue grouse but it's nice to get them out and get some feathers in their mouths.

Can't wait for pheasant season!

Great, glad the blue grouse populations are doing well somewhere in the Rockies... Keep after them..

Went out yesterday afternoon and my wife shot the only dove. Her first dove and also her first game bird! So I was happy! My lab also got into a group of about 20 pheasants in the stubble. They were all in the strip of grain that was left for the birds. It was good to see since we haven't seen many pheasants this summer. The hail got alot of them and there were even some chicks flushed that looked like they were just big enough to fly they were tiny! All the other birds except a few hens were young once too. Couldn't tell what they were since they didnt have their adult feathers yet. Jaeger loved it though. They were all holding tight and he could really get close before they jumped up. It was funny to see my wife about pee her pants when a couple jumped up at her feet!
Here are a few pics from yesterday


The pheasants were in the tall stuff behind and to the right of me







When we walked up to our decoys from walking down the field, 5 doves flew up from the decoys but we were talking about jaeger and the pheasants and weren't quick enough to get a shot off.