Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you...

So the answer to the question 'how was the hunting trip' depends on how you decide to measure sucess!

Spending time with granddad was great... it had been over a year since I had seen him. It was so great to get a chance to spend this dedicated time with him, not phone calls and letters. Hard to believe that at 84 years old he's still out in the field, 'pushing the corn' and shooting at birds. We should all hope to be in such good shape at 84!

Now, as for the hunting, that wasn't the best we had ever had. Turns out the area of SD we were hunting has had a very wet fall. That has led to 'lots of cover' for the birds, meaning 2 things:
1) there is A LOT of corn that still has to be harvested, meaning birds hang out in the corn, which is hard to hunt with a small group of guys and a couple dogs and 2) all of the other cover (sloughs, shelterbelts, etc) are all overgrown, again making for flushing birds a chore!

The other really great thing about the trip was the dinners we were able to do with the Bratland family. It is really funny to hear my granddad and his friends tell stories about hunting 30+ years ago when the 'Bratland Kids' were kids. Now here I am hunting when the grandkids are all just kids... the next generation of hunters is seeing the next generation of Bratland's grow up (albeit 1 week at a time in the middle of October every year).

So the summary is 3 birds in 3.5 days of hunting (rained out the last day and a half) for the group... not a great showing. Close to the least birds they have ever gotten!

On the upside, I did hit the 1 pheasant I shot at... the downside of course was that was the only pheasant I got to shoot at... :(

The drive on both the way there and back was uneventful. Very little traffic either way. I never paid over $3.00/gal for gas, which was nice.

Weather was great for the first 3 days (sunny and cool). Then the rain set in. We hunted the morning of day 4, but man was it cold and windy. After a couple of hours of not seeing many birds and getting colder and wetter with every step, we called it a day... Then the next morning we woke to the same darned weather.

So we had breakfast and decided that we weren't going to hunt that day, instead we went back to the house and all packed up, getting on the road early.

Now I am finishing up my vacation days staying at our friend's house before finishing up my time in the states with a couple days of meetings in Oregon... Have loved my time in the US, but really miss Steph and the girls.

More later.

Cheers,
Joe

Birds or no birds, I am looking forward to next year's trip... Which I am sure my wife is rolling her eyes at as she reads this! :)