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When hunting in black duck country, a thermos full of coffee is mandatory—not for the caffeine or warmth but to keep your spirits up. On the marshes where black ducks live, they make up the bulk of every bird you see. The problem is, they want nothing to do with you.
Of the over two dozen duck species that migrate along the Atlantic Flyway, the black duck is the only one rumored to be able to count. Too many decoys, and a black duck won’t commit. Too few decoys, and they’ll keep buzzing. The lucky number? Seven, according to old-timers from Long Island Sound. Even-numbered decoy spreads, they insist, indicate a duck hunter.
Now, I can’t attest to the black duck’s ability to count, but I do know they’re tough suckers to hunt. They’re brutally wary. They shy away from most natural-looking decoy spreads, almost always avoid a duck call, and fly in such small numbers that one shot is usually all you get. To avoid heartbreak and frustration, hunters must ditch the usual duck hunting playbook and adopt strategies honed over generations of being outwitted.
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Our modern hunting dog breeds have been around for roughly 150 years and, in that time, people have created countless divisions based on politics, preferences, and differing opinions on the best way to create the perfect hunting dog. These divisions yielded a broad spectrum of options when it comes to choosing a hunting dog that works best for you. In some cases, the differences were based on style choices such as color or coat length. In others, such as the division between the Deutsch Drahthaar and the German Wirehaired Pointer, the split came from different philosophies on how to manage the breed.
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Despite being exotic to North America, the ring-necked pheasant has supplanted our native gamebirds as the most popular species to hunt among the upland hunting populace. Pheasants are abundant, meaty, found over a large range, and just so darn charismatic. Even the most ardent quail or grouse lover must admit few birds can match the beauty and sheer excitement at the flush of a wild rooster. Add in their incredible craftiness and ability to outwit the most seasoned bird hunter time and again, and it’s no wonder why pheasants have captured the imagination of bird hunters in a way no other species has.
While there are plenty of opportunities across much of the Midwest to chase ringnecks, there is much to consider before taking off on a hunt. Let’s closely examine some of these considerations that will boost your odds of success this fall and help turn around a potentially disappointing season.
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Depending on how you choose to look at it, my very first day in the Maine grouse woods with Lincoln was either an embarrassment of riches, or just an embarrassment. I had only bagged one ruffed grouse before that trip, the precious end result of miles and miles of hiking in the rough West Virginia mountains a few hours from our home. While I took great pride in the challenge, I decided that we needed to get ourselves to a place where the grouse contact was just a little less other-worldly and a lot less rare.
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Most people associate American woodcock with the Northwoods. However, they are common throughout the entire eastern half of the United States over the course of their fall and spring migrations.
During the woodcock migration, these plump, bug-eyed brown birds utilize very similar habitat types across each state, albeit habitat that is comprised of very different species of trees and shrubs across their lengthy flight.
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Brittanies are the fulfillment of a French dream to build a better bird dog. I am sure that if those old braconniers from La Bretagne could see the breed today, they would be thrilled to know that Brittanies have conquered the world.
I’ve seen Brittanies in European trials. I’ve shot roosters and ruffed grouse over Sporty, Bandit, and Buster, three tremendous Brittanies owned by a good friend. I’ve spoken at length with Brittany owners and breeders and some of the best trainers in the world. The more I learn about the breed, the more I admire it.
If you really want to understand why hunters fell in love so quickly with the little dogs from Brittany, watch a couple work a cattail slough in North Dakota and pin rooster after rooster for their proud owner. Or attend a spring field trial north of Paris and watch the cream of the Épagneul Breton crop fly across the ground seeking wild partridges. Or ask any Brittany owner how their dogs are around the house and hear nothing but praise for the breed’s loving temperament.
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Field goldens typify these traits and more. For instance, field goldens have all the affection of a show golden, but with the sky-watching, duck-loving, cold-water-plunging nature of a lab. Field goldens don’t lumber. They glide like a German Shorthair. Their thick necks and brawny shoulders taper down into sleek frames like that of a cheetah. Unlike a show golden’s flat white coat, field goldens have much shorter, insulated, honey-colored fur, ideal for camouflage in winter sedge. Underneath all that hide and muscle lies the high drive and birdy instinct required to brave freezing temperatures. Top it off with a nose that can snuff out a half-dead green-winged teal hidden in an endless swamp of woven cordgrass, and you’ve engineered the perfect duck dog.
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Have you ever returned to a quail hunting spot later in the season and failed to find the birds that provided such a great hunt just weeks before? Whether it’s a public wildlife area, a Walk-In Hunting Area (WIHA) in Kansas, or any other type of publicly accessible property in whatever state, there are definitely strategies that hunters should consider, especially when pursuing bobwhite quail.
Fellow wildlife biologist Frank Loncarich and I spend many days afield together each year chasing quail, and most of our trips involve some type of public land. Over the course of our lives, we have hunted thousands of hours, conducted years of research, and observed enough birds to create a pattern that guides our hunts. We often get questions regarding hunting strategy from folks that see or hear about good bird numbers, but then spend several days afield that end with empty or light game bags. Or, hunters that saw birds early in the season but struggle as winter takes hold.
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Perhaps no upland game bird embodies the ruggedness of western hunting better than the chukar. They inhabit the wild, mountainous terrain that defines the vast wilderness of the Great Basin, the high desert, and the inland northwest—places where water is scarce and survival depends on adaptation to the harsh environment. Because of the physical challenges associated with reaching chukar habitat, a certain element of machismo and bro-culture has come to define the subculture of chukar hunting. It’s basically the CrossFit of the upland world.
Chukar hunting isn’t an easy stroll through a cut wheat field, but neither is it some sort of death-defying ascent limited to the youngest and fittest among us. A little bit of off-season hill training, a willingness to sweat a bit to reach the top of the next ridge, and plenty of water-carrying capacity are all you need to pursue these wild birds in their wild habitat. The extra effort required to reach them is rewarded with incredible views and a true sense of accomplishment when you do find them, even without a whack-n-stack tailgate photo.
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Thousands of hunters venture afield across the Midwest on the opening weekend of pheasant season. Opening weekend is a tradition, and regardless of the state agency’s pheasant population reports, hunters head out in pursuit of wily roosters. Although, in the case of opening weekend, plenty of roosters have yet to reach the status of “wily.”
The fact that early season roosters have yet to be educated on our hunting techniques doesn’t mean opening weekend guarantees limits of the colorful imported game bird. However, it certainly increases the likelihood of success when compared to the late season.
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We sat on the tailgate of my pickup overlooking a cover we had just hunted on a late October day as the sunset. The whistling sound of woodcock wings began while the sky still held mute signs of the sun hidden behind the mountains. We counted the birds with excitement. One after another, a tangle of “there is another” and “here comes two” was complemented by big smiles. It did not take long to debate whether they were moving to eat or to migrate. I relish this end-of-hunt tailgate tradition each autumn when the woodcock migration begins.
I love woodcock. Relying on unfrozen ground to eat, woodcock are a fascinating species that migrates from parts of Canada to the southern United States each fall. They are a low barrier of entry for young pointing dogs and new hunters. They provide the best opportunities to train superior grouse dogs in the off-season. When one speaks of the dark arts of the woodcock migration, it is with great debate as they have alluded, defied, and fascinated both hunters and scientists alike for generations. Alternatively, as George Bird Evans said, “You know where to expect them and almost when, but when they show up is something else.”
The fall woodcock migration coincides with their hunting season. We try to predict the moment of their arrival, and more often than not, we are surprised by the vanishing and reappearance of these wonderful upland game birds. From early classics like The Book of the American Woodcock by William Sheldon, published in 1967, over 38 studies according to the U.S Fish and Wildlife between 1927 and 1978, and more recently, the ongoing Eastern Woodcock Migration Research Cooperative (EWMRC), we have taken leaps and bounds to understand how, why, and when woodcock migrate.
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One of the most important things I have found while navigating the wilderness with a toddler in tow is involving them in the activity. No, this doesn’t mean having your toddler go and retrieve birds for you. Instead, it means something as simple as listening to different songbirds while hunting and asking, “Did you hear that?” or identifying different trees, mushrooms, or animals.
I often find myself narrating a large majority of a hunt when my daughter is on my back. How much of this she can actually hear is debatable, given that she’s wearing hearing protection. Still, I believe it helps my daughter’s understanding of certain situations, like a dog working scent or training their ears to hear the twittering wings of a woodcock and the thunderous flush of a ruffed grouse.
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What makes an ideal grouse gun, or what Gene Hill would call “a gun of specialist function?” Does action type matter? What about gauge? How does the environment play into it? How has the modernization of gun-making changed grouse guns? How different is a grouse gun from a clays gun? How different is a gun built for ruffed grouse hunting versus shotguns used for other wild game? While I don’t have all the answers, I do have theories. Like any evolving tradition, they’re built on the backs of those who came before me.
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Birds primarily rely on sight and sound to evade predators. We know that ruffed grouse are far more jumpy in high winds because their hearing is impaired. Living in dense cover has heightened their dependence on sound. In my opinion, their sense of hearing is often greater than sight. When we factor in transgenerational stress inheritance, we gain insight into sound’s profound impact on ruffed grouse hunting.
No matter how good the dog’s work may be, its bell’s jingle alerts grouse. The birds understand the threat, beginning evasive movements well before a dog has a chance to catch scent. Between scenting conditions, bird locations, and weather, a million variables stack up against us in unknown ways. These odds are daunting enough to dissuade us from adding another variable that would put a dog at an inherent disadvantage. However, the efficiency of killing is far from the pinnacle of the true love of grouse hunting, and interpreting the language of a dog bell is often part of that joy.
Bells, talking, and walking through cover all impact grouse well before contacts are made. This is no new theory, and while I have experimented in recent years by leaving the dog bell in the truck, one can go back as far as the late 1800s to read from our forefathers on the topic of grouse and sound.
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If I could smell a bird, walk effortlessly through thick brush, and cover ten times as much ground as the average human, Woodcock hunting would be a breeze. If I had a dog which could do all these things, Woodcock hunting would be even more of a breeze.
Unfortunately I can’t smell birds, I’m a slow walker, and I don’t have a dog.
The problem is that I’ve grown increasingly fond of hunting American woodcock. I am a dog-less hunter with a young family and limited time to hunt, so pounding the ground in search of good woodcock cover just isn’t an option. As a lifelong deer hunter and avid trapper, I do more than 50% of my scouting on a computer. It might seem a a bit unorthodox to adapt this aspect of my deer hunting to woodcock hunting. But so far, it’s paid off.
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One of the most constantly changing topics in the field of veterinary medicine is flea and tick prevention for dogs. Hunting dogs are some of the most exposed and susceptible victims to ectoparasites such as ticks, fleas, mites and other insects. Every year, it is important to purchase preventative products for your dog and to ask your veterinarian what new products are available.
In this article, I will discuss the three different types of preventative products and why they are so important to protect your hunting partner. This includes collars, topical treatments, and oral preventatives.
I highly encourage every dog owner to have this discussion with their veterinarian because insect prevention is a transient part of this field. Remember, it is rarely the insect itself that’s the issue. The parasites that insects transmit through their bites are what cause issues in our dogs.
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Generally speaking, grassland grouse are not the most adaptable critters. Both prairie chicken species need large expanses of grassland, while sage grouse must have large expanses of sagebrush to thrive. The one exception to this rule is the sharp-tailed grouse.
While generally considered a grassland species, sharpies range from the shrub-scrub grasslands in Wisconsin through the vast prairies of the northern U.S. Great Plains and Canada, culminating in the shrublands of Alaska. That’s a huge geographic range, encompassing a wide variety of habitats, meaning there are lots of plants that are important to sharptails. That said, some plants stand out above all others, and they are found and utilized across most of this bird’s vast range.
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During my childhood in southern New Hampshire, kids competed to shoot a limit of “pa’tridge,” my brother and myself included. I admit, I lost just about every time to my older brother. However, we thought shooting the limit was a good idea. After all, it was the 80s.
These birds gave an air of boundless existence. Hunting the droves of ruffed grouse in the Berkshires of Massachusetts when our grandfather was setting up a stand seemed almost too easy. We believed the grouse there and in the woods by my father’s house would be there forever.
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Sage-grouse need large, connected, and mostly treeless swaths of sagebrush to survive. Without this, sage-grouse cease to exist. It’s that simple. Sage-grouse are what scientists and biologists call a sagebrush obligate species. You can’t have sage-grouse without sage.
Sage-grouse occupy western sagebrush (Artemisia sp.) prairies of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and into the province of Saskatchewan. Although sage-grouse still live in all these places, their populations have shrunk. The largest core populations still thrive in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon. Uncoincidentally, these are the same states with the most intact and healthy sagebrush landscapes.
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Each September, an inexplicable reverence stirs within me as I patiently await the chance to roam Wyoming’s boundless public lands in pursuit of the bird that holds my heart—the iconic sage grouse. There’s something almost spiritual about stepping into the vast sea of sagebrush and feeling the landscape’s timeless pull.
For many hunters, pursuing these majestic birds is a rare, once-in-a-lifetime adventure, often meticulously planned months or years ahead. Preparation and knowledge are key in order to appreciate and succeed in this journey.
Sage grouse populations stretch across eleven western states—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Yet only seven states still permit sage grouse hunting, and season lengths and bag limits are carefully controlled.
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