North Dakota Trip

The trip to ND this year had three days of bird hunting planned and two days of chasing coyotes. This trip would kick off my bird hunting experience and hopefully give me a good taste of what bird hunting is all about. Do to the copious amounts of Pheasants in ND, that was the bird of choice for the trip. My Brother-in-law had several different places setup for the hunting and was impatiently waiting for my arrival.

The first day out was a nice blistery ND day, there is nothing like trying to hold on to a shotgun when frost bite is trying to take you finger tips. Something to do with my aversion to gloves with fingers, wind speed and air temperature. A quick trip to Wal-mart the next day secured me a new set of gloves that actually had finger tips. Back to the first day, spent lots of time walking and seeing birds but very few minutes successfully connecting shot with the birds. It would appear that shooting a shotgun was a lot more difficult than the B-in-L made it look. The cold temperatures made for some interesting malfuntions with the Semi-auto shotguns in the field, which made me glad that I still prefer the break and pump action variety.

After all the malfunctions that were experience the first day in the field a few hours was spent stripping down and cleaning all the firearms to make sure they were back in tip-top shape. The second day in the field resulted in mileage on the hunting boots and empty hands at the end of the day. The lack of Pheasants in the area we were hunting resulted in a change in plans, and we decided to get back to the first area that we were in where we knew there were plenty of birds.

The third day of hunting was a quick trip and we were able to find sharp tail grouse hiding in a sunflower field. We made a couple of passes through the field, dropped a few into the game back and than headed home for Christmas dinner.

The last day of hunting was back into the fields of Pheasants and the trip wrapped up with some great hunting. There is nothing quite like the last day of hunting, the day when you know that tomorrow it is back to the real world. In a few shorts hours, live will involve electronic leashes, e-mails, computer and the busyness of life around you, and the last ditch effort that is made to make sure that you enjoy the last day out.


Now I am back in the 'real' world and the vacation is over. The planning stage of what the upland season will look like next year, but there is still time to get out in the field and look for some coyotes in MT.