You poor man!
David

I wouldn't have it any other way!





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Oyster River in New Hampshire in Pete Lester's boat on the way to a duck hunt.

lovely sun rise....just a big frost here this morning...charlie

Frank
That i stunning!
David

sunset and sunrise from the cabin this fall in the UP--one of the few days I got in before dark. Got my limit early that day

I experienced a smoky sunrise myself this fall. It was on a sandhill crane hunt in south east Colorado. Unknown to my group that morning, a forest fire had been started about 150 miles to the west of where we were hunting. It made for a spectacular sunrise. It also made for a weird sky the rest of the day with the sun looking hazy.

It didn't effect the crane hunt though. Unfortunately I wasn't shooting a Parker on this one.

Paul, please report on how fantastic they are as table fare.





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I've been told that you shouldn't use a dog with cranes. Understand they will peck a dog's eyes

This was my first experience hunting sandhill crane. After what I experienced, I would never think of using a dog to retrieve them. They are very well equipped to defend themselves. They have that long neck & beak along with the long legs & big feet with serious claws. The few cripples we had would lay on their back with their wings spread along the ground for stability and then use their legs, feet & beak to claw & peck at you. They are quite intimidating to get under control as a cripple.

As a disclaimer; the dog in the picture was just a dog at the farm yard close to where we were hunting. He didn't go afield with us.

As far as table fair goes. So far I'm not real impressed. I think it was the way I prepared them. The way I cooked them, they had a fairly strong liver flavor. I'm going to try other ways to prepare them & I'll let you know my thoughts then.

Now I need to come up with a heavy fowler Parker and work up some non-toxic loads for it. I'll be hunting these again next October.