Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Hunting and Trapping Fall/Winter 2009/2010

That's a picture to frame and give back to him in about 20 years!

Looks like he shows some pretty good potential in this crowd.

Maybe at a wedding rehearsal dinner!

More than I've got - it took me longer to hit the darn thing than it took him!

Love it Todd. Wyatt got a little bow as well. We went in the yard and too cold for long but he kinda got the hang of it with some help.

It's pretty awesome to see them pick things up, isn't it?! I just love the fact that I can kinda redo childhood all over with my son!

I still have one anterless deer tag left, so went deer hunting this afternoon. Snow is too darn deep to chase pheasants, anyhow. So, I saw 22 deer this evening. Did I shoot one? Of corse not! It was -10 F!

Why not? That'd be a way to warm up your hands (while you field dress it).

I was out yesterday afternoon and had 2 does about 80 Yds away (late archery season). They were working their way towards me, but before they got any closer a neighbor about 1/2 mile away decided to see if his left-over fireworks still worked. The firecrackers didn't bother the deer much, but the aerial bombs did!

2 more days left in the season here.

To change the subject a little. Here is a video of our last goose hunt of 2009. This hunt didn't last an hour and we had a 5 man limit. The dog in the video is only 1.5 years old and his first year hunting. Best dog I have ever hunted over. Here is the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsmP9Ik3F9s

Hunted today on our field with a group of guys working on a hunting show sponored by drake waterfowl. Shot 24 geese and just about enough video for a show. Doing it again tomorrow to finish the show up hopefully. It is really a production doing this and takes most of the fun out of hunting. Definitely not my future job.

I was wondering how you did. The weather sure changed from 2 days ago!

I couldn't watch the video, got the message: The URL contained a malformed video ID.

Try it now, I think I fixed it. Really cold out there today but what geese did fly worked us pretty good. Hope tomorrow is as good and I can sleep in on Sunday.

Looks like you had a good shoot. Whack some for me tomorrow!

Lassig - talk some more about why the video-ing took fun out of the hunt? I'm not questioning; just curious.

Great job by the pup on those big birds!

OK, that looks like very close to houses and traffic. What are the regulations there?
Funny seeing that pooch wrestle with the big bird. He needs to learn the choke hold.

The dog is a British Lab and only about 50 pounds. A lot of these geese are 9 to 12 pounds and just about too big for his mouth to get around.

The rules in Illinois is 100 yards from houses, 50 yards for the center of a roadway and you cannot shot over a roadway. The houses are over a half mile away and the roadway is 500+ yards away. A lot of the footage was shot on 10 to 15x zoom making them appear much closer than they are.

Its not the videoing that takes the fun out of the hunt. We video with our group of 4 to 6 all the time. What isn't fun is the extra production of shooting a hunting show that takes the fun out of it. They brought/invited a lot more guys than we like to hunt with to make sure they could get enough footage. We only hunted 6 guys at a time to keep it safe/manageable and I am not use to rotating in and out. I am used to sitting in the decoys calling and having fun with the guys. For most of the shot we where sitting on the sidelines and not hunting. Maybe it was this situation that didn't sit well with me and if I was more involved I would of felt different.

If its your field, I definitely wouldnt bother with letting a hunting show and film crew in there. Many, Many of them guys take advantage of that situation and you typically get nothing in return.

It is one of our fields, the one we hold off on till this time of year since it is right next to the river. With everything else frozen the birds roost and fly the river alot so it puts us right in their path.

Wasn't looking for anything in return just wasn't looking for an army to show up. Glad we got enough footage yesterday for a show since only one flock worked us today (as of 2:30 when I quit) and we shot 3. Very Very few geese flying, I think they all went south to the nukes

Thanks for the video, Love the dog work and the live decoy. Ben really slow for me, three ducks all year on 6 hunts. Busted several hundred ducks (lots of GA)out this morning trying to get setup to shot when they leave roost. Cold for us 22 and that way next several days this hole will be frozen over.

Some of the ducks were working back in and I got a hooded merganser and idiot starts yelling at us. We are close to apartments but have permission from landowner. He says if you do not have permission Im calling cops. Friend says we do so go ahead and call. I stayed with dog and dekes but told to come on out later. You could hear yelling DNR came and so did 4 cops. Basically guy accussed us of waving guns in his face, etc etc. All lies of course. Cops and DNr wildlife ranger gave it to him. TOld him he was the one trespassing, he was not to bang pots and pans that would be harrrasing wildlife etc. He claimed propected wetland and we had no rights to kill the poor defensless animals. Gotta Love metro ATL hunting, if not for the high number of ducks it is not worth it. Just glad our rangers and cops were behind us, glad to see them wokring so hard for the hunter. I just worry what will be left for Wyatt to hunt without traveling to remote locations.

Drake is a wonderful young lab, I have never seen a dog work and mind so well. If my kids behaved half that well I wouldn't have any gray hairs.

I hear you about the metro hunting. You can see we are doing the same. The houses in the video are on the field that we originally started hunting on in the area. When the houses started coming in on the field next door, they would call the cops. The cops would explain that we where within our legal rights to hunt there and tried to smooth it over. They where not happy about it. But after a summer of the local geese eating and crapping in their yards they changed their minds and would cheer when we shot them the next year.

Went duck hunting on a friends pond this morning.

Here is my dad with his first duck ever.


My retriever.

LSHIFIMP!

Classic, Chris, absolutely classic.

Chris:

Are those 2 drakes and one hen Ring-billed Ducks? If so, I've never seen them before.

He does good with ducks but has a little trouble with those huge resident canada geese.



From left to right: Drake Ringneck, Drake Ringneck, Hen Ringneck, Hen Gadwall, Hen Ringneck. They finally showed up at this pond last week. You may have a good chance at shooting one when you are down here.

Chris awesome thanks for sharing. Congrats on your Dad's "gray duck". I love shooting ringers they are little jets.