Andy Dostal
Active member
Well the trip is all over, and it was great fun. But we certainly didn't get into the ducks. First off I want to say thanks to George Goodsell, for all the valuable info and also for allowing us to stay at his house and saving us the expense of a hotel room! He and his wife even cooked us supper, and I am constantly amazed at the hospitality of the members of this site. I have all ready met a great bunch of friends, and hope to meet many more.
This second pic is of our diver decoys along the firing line near the tip of Dresbach Island. We made it to our spot off George's helpful navigation info. I had a very nice shot at a buffy here, but was behind on all three shots. New spot jitters we'll call it. This was our 3rd day of hunting, and would have been our 3rd duck, so the shooting wasn't good at all. But the new places and people we met will probably bring us back next year, and hopefully we can time it better!
We had seen large numbers of Mallards, Gadwall, Cans, Bluebills, Buffys, and GEs on pool 5 on our way down to Dresbach. So, we decide on our 4th day to try it out. Every single duck had a PhD in decoyology, and as we seen thousands, never fired a shot. The only shootable birds we saw, were the swans below.
On the fifth and final day we went to the east, to hunt my home waters of Castle Rock and Petenwell Lake. In 2 days there, I shot a GE a Hooded and a Goose. The hooded was for a mount for my five year old daughter, and after 45 min. search by the dogs, it was not recovered. So [font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]apparently[/font] we were a day late and a dollar short.
However, since the season was over, and I had a line on a used Pintail, I drove down to Painesville MN and bought me another boat.
She needs some work, but I plan to use it on the local rice lakes next early season. Hopefully it will help me get at all the ringnecks I watched fly over "the middle of the lake" next year. Thank You George!
This second pic is of our diver decoys along the firing line near the tip of Dresbach Island. We made it to our spot off George's helpful navigation info. I had a very nice shot at a buffy here, but was behind on all three shots. New spot jitters we'll call it. This was our 3rd day of hunting, and would have been our 3rd duck, so the shooting wasn't good at all. But the new places and people we met will probably bring us back next year, and hopefully we can time it better!
We had seen large numbers of Mallards, Gadwall, Cans, Bluebills, Buffys, and GEs on pool 5 on our way down to Dresbach. So, we decide on our 4th day to try it out. Every single duck had a PhD in decoyology, and as we seen thousands, never fired a shot. The only shootable birds we saw, were the swans below.
On the fifth and final day we went to the east, to hunt my home waters of Castle Rock and Petenwell Lake. In 2 days there, I shot a GE a Hooded and a Goose. The hooded was for a mount for my five year old daughter, and after 45 min. search by the dogs, it was not recovered. So [font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]apparently[/font] we were a day late and a dollar short.
However, since the season was over, and I had a line on a used Pintail, I drove down to Painesville MN and bought me another boat.
She needs some work, but I plan to use it on the local rice lakes next early season. Hopefully it will help me get at all the ringnecks I watched fly over "the middle of the lake" next year. Thank You George!