Out of Luck

Well I missed two weekends in a row of getting out and hunting.
I'm going through some medical treatments that have kept me from getting out.
I'm feeling better this wek so hopefully I'll get out for a while this weekend.

My Pointer Fergie did in fact have an injury. She tore her shoulder muscle.
The doc said out for at least two weeks. I might sit her out a third just to be sure.
Started 10 min walks and she is still definately limping. She'd be all for hunting though.

First Grouse Hunt Of 2006

This past weekend hunted in the Ely, MN area.
All predictions say more grouse which also means more grouse hunters.  There were more people out this weekend than I saw on the same weekend for the past two years combined.

I did see some decent numbers of birds.

Saturday was cloudy and about 45 degrees.  Hunting before lunch saw 10 shot at 4 and got 2.
The 2 that I missed were easy ones that I should have had.  The other 6 were in the thick leaves which haven't really started to come down yet.

Saturday evening went out to another spot but a bow hunter was heading to his stand which was in the area that I wanted to hunt so I went the other way which isn't as good. Ended up going to another spot and saw another hunter starting to pull out. Drove around the area a bit and then went back to that spot and tried to hunt it. Didn't get a flush and Marge, my setter, wasn't even that birdy.

Sunday was a nicer day. Sunny and 45- 50 degs. Returned to the same spot from the first day. Saw 4 and got 2. Another group was in the same area and got 6 birds out of the area that I got my two the day before. The joys of public land. Ended up just hunting until lunch.

The dogs did a good job and paid attention and worked hard. Fergie the pointer has come up lame. The odd part is that she was fine when I put her into the travel kennel for the trip home. Off to the vet tomorrow. Hopefully it isn't a big deal.

Another Trip to The Club

Went to Metro Gun Club in Blaine, MN this past weekend. It was windy as all heck.
The guy I shot with, shot 5 and 7 on the 5 stand sporting clays. Made my 8 and 10 look good.
It was only the second time shooting this season and it was WINDY so that's what I'll blame it on.

I have been hearing good reports out of northern MN about people seeing more ruffed grouse.
Season started last weekend but I haven't gotten back any reports yet.

I'm heading up to Ely, Mn this weekend so I am hoping that it doesn't rain this weekend.

New Used Gun

On Saturday I went to the Oakdale Gun Club to try out the new used gun I got at the Gander Mountain flood sale. It is a Beretta Urika 391 trap with a 30" barrel. I thought it would be a good waterfowl and backup pheasant gun. It seemed to have an issue of miss-firing when I took off the safety. I stopped using it and switched to another gun for the rest of the shoot. the next day I took it out to a farm to just run a bunch of shells through it. It seemed to work just fine through the 2 boxes I shot. I think maybe I had used too much lubricant on it and maybe my hand was slipping. I'll try it a bunch more times in a controlled environment before I take it out into the field.

Gouse season starts in just a few weeks. Dove and early goose start in a few days.

Another Sign That Hunting Season Is Near

Another Sign That Hunting Season Is Near
Game Fair is opening today.
Game Fair is basically an fair that has everything hunting. Dogs, lodges, guides, gun reps.
It is open Aug 11-12-13 and 18-19-20 9 am - 6 pm
Gamefair.com

I'll be working Sundays at the Minnesota Outdoor Sports booth.
We have 1000's of acres of private land available for hunting in MN and around 250,000
available nationwide. Stop by and visit. If you can't make it check out our website.
www.MinnesotaOutdoorSports.com

It is never too soon to start to plan your hunting season.

It's been almost 2 months since my last post as not much has been happening but....

Today Gander Mountain in Forest Lake had a huge ( 1000 + guns ) sale.
There were 2 main sources of guns. They had a store that got flooded out and some of the guns came from
there. They had also brought in a large number of closeouts and used guns from their other stores.

A buddy ended up getting a Browning Lighting Feather 16 ga that is going for close to 2k on most websites
for $1299

Might check it out Saturday am to see what remnants are there - might have to pick up a cheap squirl gun for the off season.

Went to Ely, Mn ( www.ely.org) to do some fishing.
It was cold and windy and didn't catch anything.

But, I did hear a couple of grouse drumming up there which is
something I haven't heard in that particular area for a few years
so hopefully that means we'll see more birds in that area this fall.

Also saw two wolves running out of the woods, they even had their
trakking collars on.

Money For Pointer Rescue

Well the GSP that we sponsored was adopted so that is cool.
We have now sponsored a Pointer named Dooly.

We have also put up a page on one of our websites that
has all of the revenue earned from it going to the rescue.

http://www.grousecreekkennels.com/dog_rescue.htm

So visit and click away and all of the revenue (not earnings, too easy to fudge)
will go directly to recue efforts. It might only be 3 - 10 cents a click but if we drive enough traffic hopefully we can get some decent money to give to rescue efforts

Ruffed Grouse Society Banquet

Attend a RGS ( www.ruffedgrousesociety.org ) banquet in St. Cloud, MN last night.
As usual I didn't win anything in any of the drawings.
Almost won something in one of the silent auctions.
They had a pretty good selection of guns for some of the raffles.

My buddy that went with me won a nice print in one of the raffles.
It was Pointer and Grouse. I said he should give it to me since I
have a pointer and he has GSPs.

Access to private land for hunting

Went to a seminar at the local Gander Mountain last night.
It was put on by www.places2hunt.com
They have access to about 250,000 acres of private land for all types
of hunting.

It looked like a decent deal and a well run program.


Also went to http://www.available.onpointrescue.com/
and sponsored a GSP for adoption.

Just Walking

Well now that we are shut off from public land until mid July all of the exercise that the dogs get is from walking.

Saturday we walked around the lake and it took about an hour.
Sunday we went to a new are and walked for 90 minutes.

Next time I'll have to take my GPS along and figure out how far I went.




I used this a fair amount last fall with the MapSource software to save all of my hunting locations and to make sure I didn't get too lost. It is a nice small unit and worked pretty well. Decent screen. Software worked well also.

Pheasant Hunting at Cabela's

Went to Cabela's in Rogers, MN this past weekend.
Met up with a pheasant hunting buddy and his family there.
Didn't buy much but did look at a couple of new shotguns.

Bad news was delivered as they said no more sidewalk sales.
I'm pretty bummed as I had scored a lot of great deals there over
the past years.

Last Public Run Of The Season

The birds are starting to nest so we made out last run to a WMA for a workout.
We went a couple of miles outside of Fairibault, Mn and ran my English Setter, Marge and my Pointer Fergie. My buddy brought his two GSP's with also.

Ended up seeing a half dozen pheasants, 3 turkeys (the first we've ever seen there in 5+years of running dogs on this unit)

Afterwards headed over to Cabela's (Owatonna) to see if they had any deals. One of the guys said that they weren't going to have any more of the big sidewalk sales. I was bummed.