2019-2020 Hunting Journal
August 23, 2019
Table of Contents 2019 Season The 2019 hunting season has arrived. I keep a log of every hunt I go on, and it will be shared here! September September 1st Opening Day of Dove Season
I love keeping track of hunts and looking back reminds me of so many amazing memories. So I started keeping a brief hunting journal of every single hunt I go on.
While I do not keep updates as consistently as I used to, look forward to more posts in the 2023-2024 season.
Table of Contents 2019 Season The 2019 hunting season has arrived. I keep a log of every hunt I go on, and it will be shared here! September September 1st Opening Day of Dove Season
Table of Contents 2018 Season The 2018 to 2019 hunting season was one of my favorite years so far. It started off with a great early teal season, and then we had 7 inches of
The 2017 season is when I first started to keep track of my hunts with a journal. After the teal season though, I started to film some hunts so I stopped keeping up with the journal. At the end of the season I realized there were a lot of hunts that I didn’t film or the video quality just didn’t turn out very well. So I started back up with the journal for the 2018 season. Checkout the posts above to see a log of every hunt I went on. Or, see below for some logs from my 2017 journal.
I took off work an hour early for the season opener for doves. It rained for the 1st hour once we got to the field. Even still, we managed to shoot 12 doves between Myself, Dad, and Dakota. We were hunting the South Pond, setup by the windmill. It was a little slow at times and before Dad arrived, Dakota and I spent about 15 min in the trucks sheltered from the rain. Still, it was just exciting to get back in the field after a long off-season. Looking forward to a great year!
Woke up in the morning to hunt some public land with Dakota. We decided against hunting the sunflower field in hopes of avoiding the crowds. It was a beautiful morning and we saw some ducks and had a group of wood ducks fly by. Saw only a few doves and shot 1.
After a slow morning and the weather from yesterday, we decided to give the South Pond and try again. It worked out well resulting in 17 doves. Dakota spent the last few days trying to baby his new Browning A5 but by the end of this hunt, it had been rained on, covered in dirt, and smeared with blood. Before long, he won’t even blink when it gets dropped in the marsh! After the hunt, headed back into town to grab some food and catch up with friends.
Took the morning off to relax and headed to the East Pond for the evening. Had to call Dad and ask for directions after I drove right past the turn off looking at cows on the other side! Dakota came along. It was another decent hunt with 17 again for the evening. They both got their feet wet after dropping birds in the pond. We had a bird come into the dove mojo and Dakota shot it. Turned out it was a pigeon! But he cleaned it and is planning on eating it.
I have hunted more doves this year than I do most years, and am really gearing up for waterfowl season. So far the weather has been unseasonably cool. Staying in the upper 80’s for the most part. Doesn’t quite feel like the miserable early September hunts I am used to which has been a nice change.
Having Monday off from work has been nice. I didn’t want to be out late because of work tomorrow so hunted the morning at the South Pond. Not a big fan of morning hunts for doves so far, but did see a nice group of ducks and had 2 fly right by us. Shot 4 doves and stopped to talk with Uncle Kevin for a bit.
I am a little disappointed in my Remington shotgun. The stock is loosening on it after only a few shots. I will need to call and get a new bolt because I think the threads are a bit stripped out on the current one. Going into the 2nd season with this gun and have not been overly impressed.
Overall this weekend we shot 51 doves and a pigeon. This was probably the last dove hunt for the year as next Saturday starts teal season!
I was out scouting on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday this week for the teal season opener. Good numbers on Tuesday, but a cold front pushed a lot of the birds out. Scouting on Friday predicted poor results. Thought about going to a different public land marsh but didn’t want to deal with the crowds. Dakota and I went out about 8pm Friday to spend the night at the spot. It was not need, as there were very few hunters Saturday morning, but it was fun to get out early and setup. Dakota ended up having to pick me up after work because my truck wouldn’t start.
We spent the night in the kayaks and I would have slept well if it weren’t for the constant buzzing of mosquitoes. On the way out there I also found out my hip waders leaked! Before shooting hours we cooked up some bacon to help pass the time. Shooting was limited with a total of 3 birds. Dakota water swatted 2 of them with one shot, while also filling a decoy with shot!
I have an unpleasant cold that along with the lack of birds, almost kept me home this morning. But after a long off season I couldn’t pass up and made it out the spot. Another slow day, we only saw 2 teal over our pool and we shot both of those. It was a disappointing opening weekend after the last 2 years of limits on opening day, but it was nice to not have to deal with all the people. Hoping some birds come in before next weekend, but if not we might venture out to a different spot. For now, just thankful for the time spent in the marsh and the start of duck season!
The lack of birds opening weekend has kept a lot of other hunters home. It has been nice to sleep in a little and still have the place to ourselves. The ducks didn’t want to decoy very well today but I still ended up with 4 and Dakota shot 3. It was a much better hunt than opening day. We did have a thunderstorm popup and got rained on. The sun was low enough though that it stayed bright and clear, just large raindrops pouring down. Saw a lot of large groups of teal. Not sure if they were arriving or getting ready to leave ahead of the cold front.
It was very cloudy and overcast this morning with a 10-15mph north wind. Noticeably cooler than yesterday. With the clouds, it was very dark early morning and we had a lot of birds fly by us that we either couldn’t identify or just flew by too quickly. We would hear the rush of wind as the teal screamed by and then by the time you could see them, they were out of range. As it got lighter we were shooting some birds, but still, the teal didn’t seem to decoy very well. Just a quick pass by.
I shot 2 this morning and Dakota shot 3. Dakota had some trouble with his gun not working and after a misfire with a group of ducks he announced, “If this happens one more time I’m throwing my gun in the water” and I had a good chuckle at that. After that the gun worked just fine!
Weather was warm this week, mid 90’s. That didn’t seem to help the duck numbers. We saw a few good sized groups early but during shooting hours there wasn’t much movement. We wrapped up about 8am and hadn’t seen a single duck since 7am. I shot 1, and Dakota went home empty. We had one duck decoy and had a nice pass from a good-sized group. It was a slow hunt and was getting hot pretty quickly, but it’s always good to get out to the marsh.
The mosquitoes were terrible today. It was a humid morning with no wind and there just seemed to be a cloud of them hanging around us. We hunted a different pool for the first time this season. Getting there was a huge pain! I was wearing some boots over some lightweight stocking foot waders because of the warm weather. Boots got pulled off in the shin deep mud and I had to dig them out. The water levels are way down, and we ended up setting up on dry land next to the edge of the water. We had a group of 4 teal headed right for us but someone else shot as they were about 80 yards out and the ducks flared off.
The game warden was out this morning and we stopped to talk with him a bit after the hunt. He figures this was the slowest teal season in all 11 years he had been out. We ended up with 23 ducks for the 3 weekends. Not bad but a little slow considering we shot 18 on opening day last year. Hoping for some serious rain to bring in some water, and a few cold fronts to bring in the ducks. We have one weekend off and then regular duck season starts up!
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