To Look Back is to Look Forward and Plan

I am not hunting or fishing, but doing a lot of planning right now.  Planning fishing trips and in the fall some hunting trips for big game.  In order to plan, looking backward on the sucess of the last year is always a good way to go forward.  My hunting last year was way beyond exciting and successful.  This does not mean fish weren't caught, it is just that the hunting was really exciting.

It all started out in September when the trip was made to the Tetons to hunt with my favorite outfitter Bob Barlow, owner of Barlow outfitting.  We were after black bear and the western side of the Tetons has plenty.  I enjoy camping, but a really nice hotel or motel is even better.  When you hunt with Bob, you may be staying in Tetonia, Idaho and staying at the Teton Mountain View Lodge.  It is an older motel, but operated by some really nice people and a continental breakfast is available. 

Looking out my back window of Teton Mountain Vew Lodge.  There they are, the west side of the Grand Tetons.

The trip was an outstanding success, and the hide is at the taxidermist.  In a few months he should be ready to bring home, and I have many friends and family waiting to see this nice big bear. 

I no more got home from that trip, and my wife and I took off for a camera safari with our favorite tour company Odesseys Unlimited.  Almost three weeks in Kenya and Tanzania was the highlight of our world travels.  It was like looking at a copy of National Geographic, except you see yourself in the picture.  Great food and accommodations helped make this a memorable trip for the two of us.  Odesseys always has excellent guides and this gentleman was no exception.  His  knowledge and education as a Naturalist and great knowledge of both countries complemented the trip to the fullest.

Isn't he a grand fellow!  We were within ten feet of him and he just ignored us.  The animals see the touring vehicles all day long on the savannah.

Again we were within 15 to 20 feet of this beautiful female lion.  We have over 450 picture and I would like to post them all.

After just barely getting over the jet lag and the trip, I headed to Colorado and hunted at Smith Rancho.  I was treated to an excellent guide, food, and lodging.  I was not on the ranch for a full day, and had a nice 5 x 5 bull elk.  That same day he was taken to the processor in Craig, Colorado, and the next day I left for home.  It was a quick trip with good results.

Beautiful, just beautiful, and he tastes really good.

After I got home, my fellow hunters from the duck blind wondered where I had been.  After everyone was treated to elk burgers, the complaining went away.  I had really missed out on some fantastic duck shooting.  Then the season just got better.  With the drought that had taken place in the midwest, the potholes were all dried up and there was no water as the birds migrated south.  That was, until they came to our hunting spot.  The good news for them was they were greeted with 40 acres of open water.  The bad news for them was there were a lot of hunters waiting to fill their limit of tasty northen mallards and Canada geese.  I have hunted there for 15 years and have never seen it better. 

The boys had some good luck on this day and every day during the season

There is my good friend John hunkered down in the blind

Then in January, my good friend John and I headed up to Little Creek Game and Bird Farm, just east of Arlington, Nebraska.  We got our pheasants, but it was watching John's dog, Junior, work the field that made the trip enjoyable.  The dog had so much energy even though it was freezing cold and windy.  Back and forth he would go and then froze up solid going on point.  Next year when we go up, I am not carrying a gun, but just taking pictures of Junior.  We never lose a bird when he is along.

There is John and I with Junior in the background after a morning hunt.  Seeing that dog standing there sniffing, makes me wonder what he did next.

My last trip was down to southeast Missouri to hunt Arkansas Razorback Hogs at High Adventure Ranch.  This is my kind of hunting.  Excellent lodging, excellent food, excellent guides make me a happy hunter.  I am going to go back for another experience as they have some different types of game to pick from. 

You can see the feature of the razorback hog down her back.

As I write this piece, I am just waiting for the weather to break and warm up.  After that I will be after turkeys and fish.  Life is good.



 
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Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck.  Hank
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Eagles, Trumpeter Swans & One Million Snow Geese



One of the local papers had an article about Squaw National Wildlife Refuge south of Mound City, Missouri close to the Missouri River.   The article discussed the migration patterns of  Snow Geese through our area.  It is only a 1.5 hour drive south for us.   Every year they go through, and now they are stopping at Desota Bend Wildlife Refuge just east of Blair, Nebraska. That is a 45 minute drive for us.  As they make their way up the Missouri river to their nesting grounds above the arctic circle, it is a sight to see.  The snow geese have become so plentiful that there are now no limits as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife want to thin the numbers before Mother Nature does.  Mother Nature
 is not very kind when it comes to thinning the numbers.  Hunting them in the fall at our blinds has not been very successful as they fly over in enormous flocks, flying very high, and going from refuge to refuge.

When stepping out of the vehicle at Squaw Creek, the first sound you hear is a high pitched yelping, that when multiplied by many thousands, will leave an indelible print on your memory.  When massed together they look like an enormous island of geese. Then all at once they begin to yelp, rise up off the water, swirl around and land back again.  We stood for an hour and watched this spectacle several times. 

I truly believe snow geese are smarter than other waterfowl.  If there is one important lesson that snow geese have learned and learned well, it is that there is safety in numbers.  When my friends and I began hunting the birds during the mid 1960s, snow geese migrated across Iowa in small flocks that usually consisted of anywhere from a dozen on up to 20 or so birds.  The migration was well distributed statewide, and the geese stopped wherever there were suitable marshes. 

How times have changed.  Today, most of the snow geese are hunted in open fields with big spreads of decoys and with the use of electronic calls.  They do not decoy as in the past.  If you do get them to start coming in, a 20 yard shot is about all you can get.  I really believe the snow goose is the hardest bird to deceive and that includes the wild turkey.

Squaw Creek is not only a stopping off place for snow geese, but for waterfowl of all types.  There was also a migration of Trumpeter Swans which we were able to photograph.  They stayed at a considerable distance.  In addition, there were bald eagles everywhere in the trees. 

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Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck, Hank.

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Hunting the Snow Goose Migration North

The reports are coming in and the snow goose migration north may be starting to come through the Omaha area soon.  Two major snow storms have stopped the migration altogether and probably have pushed many of the birds back south.  As of February 11th the count was 1,003,600 and as of March 4th the count was 276,273.  This may not be good for our snow goose season.  However, they could be spread out along the bottoms as they work their way north.  Desoto National Wildlife Refuge just east of Blair, Nebraska as of March 6th, did not show any snow geese.  There was a good population of Canada Geese and Mallards, but they are out of season till this fall.

When tracking migration in the spring, we look toward the south and Squaw Creek.  Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge is located in northwest Missouri near Mound City. The refuge was established August 23, 1935 as an Executive Order 7156 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a refuge feeding and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife. The refuge is 30 miles northwest of St. Joseph, Missouri. It is 100 miles north of Kansas City, Missouri, and 100 miles south of Omaha, Nebraska. The refuge includes 7,415 acres of wetlands, grasslands, and forests along the eastern edge of the Missouri River floodplain.

Desoto National Wildlife Refuge in years gone by was an excellent barometer of the shooting that might take place, but they have not stopped there like they used to.  Our club does take a look at the population of birds on Desoto in the fall.

Located just east of Blair, Nebraska, the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge is located in the migratory bird corridor of the Missouri River floodplain and provides essential habitat for resident, migratory and endangered species. High quality floodplain forest, grassland, wetland, sandbar and river habitats support diverse and productive populations of migratory waterfowl, shorebirds and neotropical birds, as well as rare, threatened and endangered species, including the pallid sturgeon and piping plover. 

The refuge is a destination for people who want to explore the habitats and wildlife of this part of the Missouri River and get a glimpse of what pre-settlement Iowa and Nebraska may have looked like.

When the snow is off the ground and the temps begin to warm, the migration usually starts with the birds swirling their way north.  Southerly flow and balmy days are what we are looking for.  This is gentleman hunting.  Decoying is by far the most productive way of attracting the geese in the spring.  Experience has shown that the bigger the spread the better the chances of attracting a flock of geese that are feeding or looking for water.

Following feeding flocks by pass shooting is another way to harvest a few birds.  The snow geese feed into the wind.  Gaining permission from a farmer may present an opportunity to get up wind from a feeding flock and harvest some birds. 

After a cold front, very few birds will be migrating.  In this type of condition, it is important to hunt close to a refuge, if at all possible.  It is also more important to work smaller flocks as they seem to be more susceptible to decoying. 

Right now as of this writing, the opportunity for some snow goose shooting is not shaping up as a heavy blizzard just occurred this weekend. 

Good hunting, good fishing and good luck. Hank

 

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Arkansas Razorback at High Adventure Ranch



On the edge of the Ozark Mountains lies High Adventure Ranch.  Here nestled in the  woods is a paradise of wild game, great guides, excellent food, and good lodging.  To make matters even better, they are really nice people and ready to make your stay and hunt a memorable experience.

The trip started for me several weeks ago.  I first surfed the web looking for a place to harvest a wild pig.  I started in Texas and moved north.  My goal was to find lodging, hunting, a qualified guide, and processing of the harvest.  I finally found what I wanted.   Texas had some great places, along with Oklahoma.  However, the drive down south was too lengthy, and whenever a trip is taken, a load of gear is taken along.  Paying a big luggage fee to the airlines was out of the question.  After all, I bought this stuff, and now it was time to take it with me.

I left on a Sunday morning.  The road was almost all interstate and a mere 430 miles to St. James, Missouri from the Omaha area.  Next morning after a short trip down Highway 63 to YY intersection and 6 miles later, there it was, the ranch.

East of this gate was the entrance to the ranch and a quick call on the cell admitted me to a wonderful experience.  I was met immediately by a ranch employee who took me up to the lodge where I stowed my gear.  Next, came my guide for the trip.  We sat down and discussed what I wanted to do.  The plan was to shoot a Russian Wild Boar, but after conversations with the guide, my mind was changed.  The Russian Wild Boar is a little strong tasting.  Therefore, he recommended I harvest a young Arkansas Razorback sow.  They make the best eating, and for me and my friends, that is what this is all about in the end.

The lodge where I was to stay.  It overlooked a beautiful valley.

A view from the lodge shows the expanse of the area and the timbered hill.

The area where I would be hunting was in excess of 3,000 acres of some of the most dense timber you have ever seen.  Shooting through this would not be an easy task.  The plan was to walk and stalk.  The hogs do not have the greatest of eyesight, but they do have a sensitive nose. 

We would move slowly through the timber scanning for a good shot on a nice size Razorback Hog.  If one was spotted and did not bolt off, I was to keep the timber in a line of sight between me and the hog and walk toward it till I could get a good shot. 

This was really tough.  There were several opportunities, and I pulled the gun to my shoulder more than once, but the hog would move off and was lost in the timber or mixed in within a group.  It was really hard to distinguish the target after that, as they were all black.

Moving up toward a ridge line where we could look down into the valley below, we spotted some really big Russian Boars.   They did not like us being in their territory and let it be known.  With the hogs snorting and growling, we just slowly backed away. 

Notice the blonde snout on each of the two hogs.  That is a marking for a Russian Wild Boar. 

We stayed along the ridgeline and the guide spotted a nice size Razorback.  She was moving along at a good clip.  The shot was only about 50 yards, but I had to shoot through an opening in the trees.  I flunked. Jerking the trigger on the shot, I sent the round right over her head.  The pig shifted into high gear and headed for the hills.  There was no blood trail, so it was obvious what had happened.  It is called missing.

We moved back toward a couple of pigs down the hill from where I had missed.   There stood a nice size young and tender looking female Arkansas Razorback. She had no little ones with her, so this was an obvious opportunity.  Not wanting to mess this shot up, a good stand of timber was between me and her.  A slow and cautious walk was made toward the hog.  At about 40 yards she moved into an opening and was totally broadside.  With my hand up against a tree to steady the gun, the round was squeezed off. 

There is nothing like the power of a 30-06 round with a Nossler Partition Bullet.  We had success.

Note the razorback hair down the back.

The guide called in a four wheeler and she was taken back to the ranch for processing.  You can have your meat processed right there and cooled, or just have it quartered.  With the blizzard fast approaching Kansas City, I just had it quartered, packed in an iced down cooler and was ready to hit the bricks after lunch. 

I never got a weight, but I filled a really big cooler with ice and quarters of the pig.

After an excellent lunch, I hit the road to beat the storm.  There are excellent opportunities of various game on the ranch and the personnel are very accommodating.  I had a really great time and hated to leave so quickly.  I'll be back.





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Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck.  Hank