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-   -   Travels With Charlie-Somewhere in North Dakota (https://parkerguns.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2546)

Bruce Day 10-07-2010 12:23 AM

Travels With Charlie-Somewhere in North Dakota
 
24 Attachment(s)
Sharptail grouse hunting in North Dakota. Finding lots of birds, sometimes limiting out, doesn't matter. Great country, lots of walking.

Some people think North Dakota is flat.

If you are wondering about the picture with Charlie and his bandaged thumb, the shooting was so hot and heavy that he closed his thumb in the gun while loading. I'm shooting my old P grade 16, CH a GH 20 or a CHE 12 and Larry Thompson some sort of Spanish thing.

T shirt weather. Too warm.

Heading for the Black Hill tomorrow, staying at my old favorite, the Blue Bell Lodge in Custer State Park. More photos to follow.

Dean Romig 10-07-2010 06:07 AM

That sure looks like fun!

It truly is "big sky country" out there - bet you guys did a lot of walking!

Hey Charlie, I did that once too, with my Ruger Red Label - the one I sold to help finance my first Parker.

Francis Morin 10-07-2010 08:04 AM

Not quite like a "M-1 Thumb" but maybe close
 
Yeah- gonna be a Bluebirdy opener this Sat for ducks and Geese- so a short early field set up in a cut over corn field- hope to get a shot or two.

My partner, a retired Dr. is, like my son-in-law, a "Southpaw" and he has a fine Binelli fully camo 12 autolaoder- in LH mod. We had the Trius foot pedal clays trap out this past Sunday afternoon- I had my Smith 12 2E- I tried a few shots with his Binelli- loading and the safety was a bit tricky, but those Federal 1oz. light loads- shattered the orange discs and the recoil- like a .410

Guess I'll have to get lucky (again) at a DU Banquet and win one- at $1700 plus retail- a fella could get a good 12 VH shooter for that dinero- I did have trouble thumbing in the second shells, not used to an autoloader- but my sympathy goes to Charlie and his taped-up thumb. You never realize how useful those thumbs are until you rack one up-- Good fotos too bruce- Thanks for sharing:bigbye::bigbye:

Eric Eis 10-07-2010 09:44 AM

beautiful country Bruce hope you keep the pics coming. Wish I was there

Gerald McPherson 10-07-2010 07:44 PM

Hey Bruce; What do those people do for fire wood? In pic 014 is that a white dog on point? My goodness a fellow could sure let his pups run loose up there. That is sure stange country to an ol Georgia boy thats never been west of the Mississippi or north of Kentucky. There is sure nothing in the way of shooting. Thanks for sharing. Gerald

John R. Richards 10-07-2010 10:42 PM

Bruce:

Great photos. That terrain comes as a real surprise to me. We hunted Isabel, SD last year, my first time in the Dakotas, and it was almost completely flat. Walking was a breeze. Are you hunting public lands, management areas and CRP or are you on a private ranch? Looking at the draws and cuts and hills you're hunting must really put a "hitch in your giddiup" after 2 or 3 days. We will hunt SD again in about 3 weeks and I can't wait, just hope we find as many pheasants and sharpies as last year.
Congratulations on such a fun hunt.

Kurt Densmore 10-07-2010 10:44 PM

Very Nice....!!

Looks like some country I have hunted along the shores of Lake Sakakawea. Never knew if a sharp-tail, Hun or Ringneck was going to flush.

Have a great hunt,
Kurt

Bruce Day 10-08-2010 10:10 PM

I've lived in and flown jets out of Grand Forks, Minot in NoDak and Rapid City in SoDakota. Got a Master's degree from U of North Dakota. We used to fly low and fast across these hills in B-52's so I've seen a lot of this country.
My great grandfather homesteaded near Dickinson, ND.


These photos are from the Little Missouri Badlands area of NoDak south of Medora, about 30 miles east of the Montana line. Its Teddy Roosevelt and cowboy country. Its a patchwork of private and public lands. Great to hunt and full of game but a person has to like to walk and accept that he may not limit out. We must have seen 50- 70 sharptails, and further east , maybe a thousand pheasants but up here, I like the native sharptails.....to me they are a treasure because we can hunt pheasant anywhere and I have so many opportunities to hunt wild pheasant that it becomes common. But sharptail grouse are always special. I'll post more photos later. If a person really wants to go and can stand the terrain and distance let me know.

Charlie and Larry wanted to see the big animal range so we drove down through the buffalo, antelope and elk range where we saw hundreds of animals....I'll post photos in a couple days. Saw plenty of golden eagles, prairie falcons, etc.

Somebody asked if that was a dog on point off on the far hillside. Yes, but not on point. Sharps won't hold after the first couple weeks and so the dog was just searching. If we got a far flush, we might have to walk a half mile but we could raise the bird again.

You don't measure the available hunting land in acres here, but we had over a hundred square miles of land to hunt, so maybe thats 100 x 640 acres, 64,000 acres. We ran 5 dogs, four setters, one Brit. I left my old pointer Shortstop at home for this because he could not have lasted. In a few weeks I'll take him to South Dakota where he can manage better.

Both Dakotas and Nebraska have lots of very hill terrain. South Dakota has real mountains. Nebraska has areas that look just like Colorado with pine covered ridges, steep cliffs and clear lakes.

Bruce Day 10-09-2010 03:58 PM

14 Attachment(s)
Charlie and Larry wanted to see South Dakota, and they had not been to the Black Hills before, and I lived in Rapid City as a kid and was later stationed at the air base there myself, so we went.

Mount Rushmore. We were unable to substantiate the rumor that the federal government was going to add Pres. Obama as a fifth great president to the monument.

The timber walled place is the Blue Bell Lodge by Custer, where I had been many times before and is one of my favorites. Old time cowboy bar.


The Chances R restaurant is in York, Nebraska, where we spent Friday night. We had a PGCA pheasant hunt there about 5-7 years ago and many times ate in the Chances R.

John Dunkle 10-09-2010 04:26 PM

Wow.... Just wow...

Thank Bruce for sharing the pics..! Someday - I hope to see that part of the country. Looks beautiful..!

John


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