Shiawassee Kid

Hey guys, just putting the word out that i have 2 weeks of rental open on my house in NoDak. Slots are available from October 2nd to October 15th. If interested please email me dan.boivin@gmail.com for details. The house is located in a small rural town in South Central NoDak. It’s a great town, plenty of potholes and great farmers throughout. I’ve been going there for 6 years straight….its been great every year. House can sleep 6 guys downstairs and more upstairs if need be. Have full kitchen, large livingroom, 2 bedrooms with 3 beds each and 1 bath.

for rent

2.5mi from house

Absolutely had a blast tonight. Pretty much drained my 8 gig card on a pothole as wave after wave of ducks and geese came in and landed. I think i’m in full duck season mode now. Enjoy.

um ya...

caught this one launching, tons of bluewings on the prairie for sure.

she was very cooperative for me

incoming

gaddy brood

some honks

Got the house emptied of all the junk, now we’re in full clean mode, should be done today cleaning and tomorrow we can get some furniture up in it and head home.

I forgot that I had snapped this shot just outside of Grand Forks on way out to Nodak this year. I noticed a strange plane lifting off the air base as we were passing by so i stuck my camera out the window and guessed on where it was overhead. Pretty cool watching a Predator Drone lift off and maneuver around knowing there was a guy somewhere remotely controlling it.

Predator Drone over Grand Forks

Predator Drone over Grand Forks

Since the mallards haven’t cooperated we just settled on hammering gadwals and wigeons (and any other species that felt the need to bomb our decoys). Tonight Dave and I absolutely had one of the best marsh hunts ever. It took longer to unload canoe, paddle to spot (about 70yrds) throw out decoys than it took to shoot 12 gaddies. Tanner got a workout as the water was belly deep. He got very little rest as we had birds down while he was still bringing the previous bird back like 3-4 times. This hunt made my week. Dave and I shot really well, the dog did absolutely awesome and we were loaded back up in the truck before it was even close to dark. great hunt by all standards.

This is the last night here at camp and Chris, Johnny and Steve are heading out in the morning. Dave V. and I are gonna hit our favorite hole in the morning and head out around noon or so.

so far after totaling ducks/geese/swans this week. In the past 7 days we have shot 192 ducks, 4 canadas, 1 snow, 3 swans. Dave and I will have a chance in the morning to extend that total another 12 more to bring it over 200. We probably woulda easily made that mark if Dave would have been here sunday and monday.

tailgate stack

crew, dogs and birds

just had to include this, Otto has the best poses.

Today we took it easy and cruised for swans and a few ducks. Chris’s crew had a swan down (we actually got to see it happen as we were driving up to them) at around 9:30am. After we left those guys we went about a square or two over to a big slough. We spotted 50 swans on the water in the upwind end and decided to push them up and setup hoping they would fly back into it later. About 45min after setup the lifted off the slough about a mile over and came back just as we had hoped. Flock of about 8 swans cruised over dave and he pulled a helluva shot (about 50-60yrds) broke a wing and brought it down hard. Tanner attempted to retrieve it but kept chasing/pushing it out farther into water which got deep. We eventually got it and Dave was one happy camper!!!! made the day for sure.

Evening we hunted another slough for ducks and finished out a limit of gaddy’s and wigeon (i accidently shot a shoveler)…..thought I could make the whole trip without shooting a shoveljunk. On our way back to the truck we passed a rockpile and tanner was up there sniffing on something hard…so i walked over and checked it out….it was the antler shed pictured below. Pretty solid rack, wish i could’ve found the other half.

johnny doing a trophy pose

5:30am this morning we started dragging about 10 dozen decoys into a tilled wheat field that Chris S. had scouted out the night before. After setup and much anticipation….the plan just never came together. Wind shifted off from North to Northeast and changed the flight line. Lots of ducks and geese this morning, just about a mile to our east. After shooting a few ducks we called it, left our stuff in the field and headed back for breakfast.

At about 1pm we decided to split up and do some pothole shooting from 1-5pm and then meet back at the layouts for evening hunt. Dave V. and I went to the same territory we did the night before and moved about a mile north on a small, shallow, weedy pothole. I had scouted it out last saturday and kicked about 100 gadwal off it and marked it on GPS then. This was first time back to it…we pulled in the driveway and gently drove back to the edge of it. It was 75yrds off the road. When I got about halfway to it, i noticed a bunch little duck heads staring at me through the weeds…hehe. I shifted in reverse and before I could backup they jumped up and vacated…about a 100+ gaddies. Dave and I quickly got our waders on and grabbed the guns, 24 deeks, spinner and the dog. 2hrs (4pm) dave finished the last bird off with a zinger of a blue wing teal, hell of a shot.

We met Chris and crew over at the field blinds to watch them jump shoot their last 5 ducks in a slough 100yrds in front of the layout blinds.

tanner retreived solid today. nice long retreives....using his nose and he even brought them all the way to heal. amazing day for Tanner.

crew holding todays smackdown

straps!

1:30pm Dave V. flew in today at Jamestown, after picking him up and hammering the local chinese joint we hoofed it back to our rent house and got the truck loaded with dogs and decoys. We made a trip 10 minutes south of town to a gaddy hole i found few days ago…parked on side of road, walked out 100yrds into the side of the hole and setup. 12 hotbuy decoys,  1 spinner. 45minutes later we were done.

Dave V. limit of gaddys and wigeon.

me holding the limit for the pic

hoody from tuesday

The rest of the crew went out marsh hunting today while I was picking dave up and they did just as good, even tagged a snow.

John next to their tuesday limit

Chris, Steve and Johns wad from today.

And here is some random pic’s from the rest of the trip. enjoy.

John hoggin the only good chair here.

Steve with his perfect sleeping beer holding form.

Chris dropped a pheasant as it flew over the highway. Made for easy recovery.

Nice Wigeon from one of our field shoots.

Little surf and turf.

here’s john doing some coot shooting. he was not very successful.