New Yorker goes to NoDak

[Mike Bard]

DATE: October 15th – 20th, 2006

LOCATION: North Central North Dakota

SUNRISE/SUNSET: ~8am - ~7pm

WEATHER: Partly cloudy to Cloudy for the week with no precipitation

TEMPERATURE: Well below average temps ranging from 24 – 55 degrees

WIND: North winds from calm to 25mph

EQUIPMENT USED: Avery® Floating Pit Bag, Avery® Pro Camera Bag, Avery® Finisher Blinds, Avery® Fleece Vest, Avery® Fleece Jacket, Avery® Ankle Garters, Avery® Fleece Skull Cap, Avery® Game Hog, Avery® Fleece Neck Gaiter, Avery® Floating Gun Case, Avery® XL Sportsman’s Travel Bag, Avery® Sportsman’s Travel Kit, Avery® Sportsman’s Brief Case, Greenhead Gear® Full Body FFD Honkers, Greenhead Gear® Full Body Pro-Grade Lessers, Greenhead Gear® Full Body Hunter Series Honkers, Greenhead Gear® Full Body Snow Goose Full Bodies, Greenhead Gear® OS Canada Floaters, Greenhead Gear® OS Snow Floaters, Greenhead Gear® Full Body Mallards, Greenhead Gear® Full Body Pintail, Greenhead Gear® Full Body Black Ducks, Greenhead Gear® LS Mallards, Greenhead Gear® LS Pintail, Greenhead Gear® LS Gadwall, Greenhead Gear® LS Ringneck, Greenhead Gear® LS Blue Bills, Greenhead Gear® LS Widgeon, and Avery® and Greenhead Gear® Field Staff Cotton Caps.

HUNTERS: Frank Clifton, Jody Dennison, Dwight Flanders and Avery® Pro-Staffer Mike Bard

JOURNAL NOTES:
After months of planning, my three hunting partners and I headed from Syracuse, NY to Northern North Dakota. It was a 27 hour uneventful drive to get to our location; we did it in one straight shot. We arrived at our rented house in the middle of the night and unpacked what we needed, then hit the sack for some much needed sleep. Around sunrise we hit the road to do some scouting. We found the majority of the potholes to be drive and only larger ponds (lakes) seemed to be holding water and birds. Still these bodies of water held decent numbers and we anticipated some good hunting. Once we had secured permission on a few pieces of land and felt we had a good idea of the area, we headed back to prepare for a quick afternoon hunt. With a small mixed spread of GHG® decoys, on a large rock bottom pond, we encountered several very small groups of divers of all kinds. They bounced around the pond all afternoon; many came over the decoys to get a better look and offered us some good opportunities. Surprisingly we didn’t see many puddle ducks at all.

Moxie's first retrieve at 6 months. We let her hunt a couple days to get a little experience.


The next morning we set up our small field spread (4 doz. FB Canadas, 1 doz. FB snows, and about 3 doz. FB ducks) we had brought where we had seen thousands of snows, Canadas and mallards feeding the previous day. We quickly learned that the snow geese run the show here and that our spread just wasn’t big enough to attract them. Once the snows picked a spot they liked, then later rising mallards and Canadas quickly were drawn to the large mass of snow geese about 500 yards away from us. We did manage to get a few small groups of mallards and Canadas to give us a look early, prior to the snow geese settling in.



The next couple days we continued to scout about half the day and hunt the other half. Knowing we just didn’t have the numbers to draw and compete with the snows, we kept falling back to hunting different bodies of water. We used many different decoy spreads, some half land and half water, some all water, puddle ducks and divers mixed, just puddle ducks, etc. We had the best success using both floaters and Full Bodies in shallow water and on land to help break up the outline of our Avery® Finisher Blinds as there was little cover along most of the small lakes.



Towards the end of the week, we gave field hunting another shot, again setting up on the X for snows, Canadas, and mallards, but again the snows landed about 500 yards wide and we picked up a few small groups of mallards early. This was a valuable lesson and confirmed my suspicions from our hunt early in the week.

We split our group in two and hunted a large pot hole/pond that we’d seen a variety of birds use for a rest spot all week long. Jody and I set up some GHG® Full Body Pro Grade Lessers along the shore and ice shelf, then added a dozen GHG® Full Body Mallards, finishing off the set with about a dozen mixed GHG® puddle duck decoys. The morning started slow, as we figured it would, but then a lone lesser came over the pond and I got on my Zink Little Man, the goose did a quick 180 and dropped down for a look. Every time I got off the call, the goose would get a little higher, so I decided to keep on him hard and it worked out well, as he came in feet down. Just after that we had some teal work in and then a couple ringneck. Once things settled, I went out to pick up the birds and the goose was banded… after 15 years of waterfowling, my first band!!!

[David Rearick]

Congrats on the band Mike, sounds like a great trip!

[Joe Fladeland]

Mike,

Sounds like you had an awesome trip here in NoDak.

Nice job.

[Jason Mears]

Nice hunt, congrats!

[Heavy G.]

Very nice hunt. Congrats on the band, still looking for one myself. Ever get along the southern tier or north Pa. let me know, maybe we could hook up for a hunt.

[Kevin Addy]

Congrats on the band Mike. Did you get the info back yet......tell me it wasnt banded in NY

[Angelo Casbarro]

Nice band! I like that photo with the birds in the blind. The smile says it all. Great job!

Ciao,

Angelo

[Aaron Hitchins]

Sounds like you guys enjoyed a nice jaunt to the Promiseland!!!

I love the hero shot in the blind and congrats on the band!

Aaron

[Craig Silvanic]

Great job, nice hunt. Thanks for sharing

[Mike Bard]

Bird was banded in July 2002 in the Canadian province of Nunavut near Coral Harbour. It was a male.