Season Wrap-Up

[abarill]

In July I moved from Orlando, FL to Dallas, TX for one year. Last year was the first year I spent entirely hunting by myself, and it was eye-opening. This season I only hunted with other people twice.

Majority consisted of jump shooting “stock tanks”- Texas speak for small potholes that seasonally flood on farms. I never really got into many birds, but I really enjoyed spending time with my dog, Lily, and watching her have fun.


Below is my best day of jump shooting. It was about 30*, raining, and gusting well over 20mph. Should’ve had a full limit but that’s how it goes. Lily made her personal best retrieve on the hen ringneck, it was crippled and at least 100 yards away swimming into some thick brush. She disappeared, and about a minute later I see her with a very alive, very confused hen ringneck in her mouth. I don’t know who was more shocked- me or the bird! Shorty thereafter I am creeping up to a string of 3 ponds in a row, and see a pair of ducks in some grass in the middle pond. I snuck around the other side, got as close as I could, and put the bead on a drake mallard in a small group of birds. Well after the first shot everything jumped, and about 15 wigeon and mallards were doing there best to get out quick. Second shot a drake wigeon fell, and the third shot was the hen. Unfortunately the mallard got away, but I was stoked to have two wigeon!


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This is my favorite picture from the season. It may be my favorite picture of my dog thus far. My parents had a local artist do a sketch of it as a Christmas present. I was hunting on a very windy day, so sneaking up to ponds was easy. I walked up to a small pond, and nothing jumped. Lily goes running by me towards the water, and as I am yelling at her this hen mallard jumped out of thick grass near the edge about 15-20 yards away. I made a quick shot, and she fell into this grass. I sent lily to find her, thinking it would be an easy retrieve. She ran way past where I thought the bird fell, so I tried calling her back. She was too excited and completely blew me off. Well now I was fired up and made her heel, then stay and watch as I found the bird. Damn if 20 minutes didn’t go by without finding it. Finally I got tired of looking at her sad face, so I said “ok YOU go find it”. She ran about 30 feet past me right to the bird. I guess the wind carried it further than I thought. She had this “I told you so” look that I won’t soon forget. I took this picture soon after.

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This was my first bird in Texas, and Lily’s first retrieve in two years. I never hunted her in Florida bc the floodwaters carry some horrible fungal diseases. Man was she proud!
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I got a chance to sneak out to west Texas in early January- lots of birds on private land. I’ve never seen so many pintails in one spot. Lots of wigeon, mallards, and spoonies too. Texas has a program that leases lands from farmers, unfortunately all of the “playas”, or big farm ponds had dried up on the public land. I found this last spot on a Hail Mary of a chance. Showed up and it was completely frozen. A few minutes later a nice guy about my age showed up, and I told him he could hunt with me. No ducks flew that morning, but we did jump some wild pheasants! This was Lily’s first adventure with ice....


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All in all a fun year. I wish I could stay out here forever. My brother is die-hard set on killing some chachalacas, we have another month to get after them.

[BOGSTER]

Please don’t think I’m knocking it, but why wouldn’t you just set up and hunt the “stock tanks?”

No decoys?

[BEAR]

Good going. I’ve shot Chachalacas in south Texas. They are noisy, challenging to hunt birds. I shot three.

[abarill]

Bog-


Plenty of decoys- I was only able to hunt weekends, and I pretty much always had patient discharges on weekend mornings until 10am. I set up a few times in mornings when I got free, but never did it consistently enough to narrow down on birds. One morning I hunted a lake on the border of Oklahoma. I scouted the night before and watched lots of big ducks dropping into rafts of coots. Set up the next morning, and had to rub elbows with people every 200 yards along the riverbank. One group actually blew the call from 6am until noon, when hunting finished on the lake. I was impressed that anyone could actually call for 6 hours pretty much straight.

But in short- never really had the chance.

[abarill]

Good going. I’ve shot Chachalacas in south Texas. They are noisy, challenging to hunt birds. I shot three.

Was it worth it? From what I hear it can be frustrating. Lots of walking, bugs, and very thick brush....

[BEAR]

I walked up to a lady’s house, asked for permission to hunt the brushy part of her property, she said, “yes”. I went and got a bag of corn, came back, threw some out and here they came. I went to shooting and they went to scattering. Retrieving them was no fun. I ripped my shirt up belly crawling through there to get to them. Had thorns in my back for a week, that finally worked themselves out with the puss buildup around them. E09F19F1-8F34-4282-8CC6-20A86028DA34.jpg
Behind me is where they were at. If you want to hear more about what I learned about hunting them, shot me a PM with your number. I’ll give you a call this week.

[beanhunter]

Very cool!

[Strick9]

Nothing wrong with that, how long are you in Tx?

[abarill]

Thanks- I’ll be here until July. Bear- I’ll have to show my brother your post haha. I’ll shoot you a PM after work