Last March I took Cade to his hunter's safety course, and in May we went Turkey hunting (that's another story) during that trip we saw lots of birds, but never were lucky enough to pull something in, he never got to pull a trigger.
This weekend I got him out and we really had some luck, well the second day we did, the first day was a guided / planted hunt. I generally don't enjoy planted birds but I will say I'm a fan when you have a brand new hunter and your really concentrating on safety and muzzle control.
Now for the trip report. We got up early Saturday morning and headed out for the Cook Hunting Club. Its about 1 1/2 hour drive and I have to say it was one of the highlights of my trip. Nearly the entire trip we talked one on one with the conversation ranging from his sports, school, or what direction he really wants to go in life. It seems that in today's world its hard to get that one on one time and the conversations really change when it's just dad or just mom versus both. The trip was off to a good start for me anyway.
Later that day we pulled into the hunting club and met our guide who advised we'd would work behind a German Wired hair (Zeek). All the people at the club were great and we headed out. I let them know that Cade was a new hunter and I'd be giving him first shot on the 10 birds that were put out.
As we headed out Zeek is working back and forth and goes on point.
1st Bird: Gets up and flies around some scrub brush giving Cade no shot. Boom, I shoot it thinking dang I really wanted to get him that shot but we have 9 left.
2nd Bird: Gets up and I'm waiting on the shot. I wait, I wait, I wait its getting out of range and I shoot it. Cade had trouble with the safety. I'd chosen a Franchi over/under for him and the thing about the saftey is it needs to be all the way left or right then up. We went through that, again and headed off.
3rd Bird: Bird gets up and he gets a shot off missing.
4th Bird: This one is a new hunter mistake, someone forgot to reload and as the bird gets up click no shell.
5th Bird: Boom, Cade gets his first pheasant
From then on Cade shot the next 3 without missing and in total we were able to go 10/10 on the birds. It was a great start to the trip.
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From there we headed over to Moses lake about 45 minutes away for a guided coffin Goose hunt. We woke up around 5:30AM and it was around 28 degrees. We got a little to eat and met our guide who gave us the general overview and safety talk. After hitting the field we helped unload all the decoys and set up the coffin blinds. You can get an idea of the blinds from this picture
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We hunted for 6 hours and ended up with around 10 birds, one of which I'm sure Cade shot it could have been two. I would say out of the 10 birds almost all of them were shot in a one hour period, we had lots of geese around us but later in the day had some trouble getting them to come in.
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I asked Cade at the end what he liked better the Pheasant or Goose hunting and he said the Goose. I was kinda disappointed because I'm really more of an upland guy but when I asked him why he said "Well I like the pheasant but it didn't really feel like hunting because they placed the birds we knew they were going to be there, the goose hunt felt more like hunting we were surprised when they came in" I get that.
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Originally Posted by Captain
