Well, another hunt in Canada and back to Montana (& decent internet.....lol).
Left on Sept. 9th (opener) for the prairies of Alberta, but it was so dry, hot, and smoky. We only stayed one day.....Every slough was dry and the only birds (honkers) we found were in a wheat field and because of fire danger, the farmer didn't want us driving in it.
From there we drove to our old haunts in the parklands.....The habitat and conditions were just the opposite lush, green, and sloughs were mostly full.....In fact, pretty much from the time we got there we never saw temps higher than 69, lows in the 30's and rained a number of days.
The 1st couple of days we hunted with our local Albertian's with honkers being the bird of choice.....We also hunted just my cousin and I with great results (don't need a ton of birds when there's only two of you.....When the colder temps really hit, we saw a big increase of specks and a major migration of sandhills (illegal to shoot in Alberta....boo!).....Had one epic shoot with 3 locals that gave us 15 specs and 24 honkers.....Dogs were in full retrieve mode.....lol
After that, it started to rain and we went from not going into fields because of fire danger to can't drive in the fields because of mud.....One thing about Alberta.....If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes.....lol
Here's a few pix from the 1st part of our trip.....The boys were to show up Wednesday (21st).....Lots of stories and lessons in part 2.
ps.....1st spoonie of the year in the books.....lol
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Left on Sept. 9th (opener) for the prairies of Alberta, but it was so dry, hot, and smoky. We only stayed one day.....Every slough was dry and the only birds (honkers) we found were in a wheat field and because of fire danger, the farmer didn't want us driving in it.
From there we drove to our old haunts in the parklands.....The habitat and conditions were just the opposite lush, green, and sloughs were mostly full.....In fact, pretty much from the time we got there we never saw temps higher than 69, lows in the 30's and rained a number of days.
The 1st couple of days we hunted with our local Albertian's with honkers being the bird of choice.....We also hunted just my cousin and I with great results (don't need a ton of birds when there's only two of you.....When the colder temps really hit, we saw a big increase of specks and a major migration of sandhills (illegal to shoot in Alberta....boo!).....Had one epic shoot with 3 locals that gave us 15 specs and 24 honkers.....Dogs were in full retrieve mode.....lol
After that, it started to rain and we went from not going into fields because of fire danger to can't drive in the fields because of mud.....One thing about Alberta.....If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes.....lol
Here's a few pix from the 1st part of our trip.....The boys were to show up Wednesday (21st).....Lots of stories and lessons in part 2.
ps.....1st spoonie of the year in the books.....lol
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