Charles
My Griffon and I had another great hunt this weekend in [location deleted]. Lots of birds and seeing all the hunters patrolling the roads on opening day was a reminder of how good we have it in this organization. Thanks for all your hard work in making it happen.
Thought I'd share this picture of TJ (Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) displaying her new pointing style. She seems to prefer this posture toward the end of a hard day's work, when fatigue sets in, and her feet are sore. I just have to be careful I don't spoil her too much. Charles
Another.
Happy New Year Jon and Crew:
I hope all is well for you all. Just wanted to drop you a note with a report on our hunting so far this year.
As always the service from the office staff has been great this year. I'm always greeted with a pleasant and patient voice. That means so much since my calls for reservations are often the first step in a hunting trip and your helpfulness really sets the tone. I know how busy and hectic it gets for you folks and I never feel like I'm bothering someone. Nicole even guided me to my hunting reservation area one day when I was out in the boondocks and had forgotten my maps at home.
Congratulations on the conversion to CD for the maps. For me this is much handier than the old system. Having been involved in computer activities, I know it takes a lot of work and expense. Thank you.
We've had good hunting this year. I'm fortunate to be able to hunt a lot and we'll be eating pheasant, quail and ducks for many months. For those who haven't seen the new Duck's Unlimited Cookbook, it'' got some great recipes (try the Pheasant Marsela and substitute Wild Rice if you can get it).
We also moved more into duck hunting this year with some investment in equipment. It is certainly more complicated than when I hunted with my dad 35 years ago in Minnesota. For one thing the ducks in Minnesota are pretty stupid compared to their level of education by the time they migrate all the way down here. It's also almost a full time job managing/charging and replacing all the batteries that new technology requires. I'm still working on my calling. This year calling worked best when I left the call in the glove box of my vehicle.
My 3 y/o Wirehaired Pointing Griffon really came into her own this year on pheasants. The past two years I've adopted a training method recommended by a NAVHDA Judge from Maine.
The key component of this method is that: birds train dogs on how to hunt...the best bird dog training device is a strip of duct tape placed firmly over the mouth of the handler. Some of the methods fly in the face of traditional theory and training of upland bird dogs. Interesting stuff.
Again, Jon and Staff. Thank you so much for another great hunting season. I look forward to many more. I'm sending you some pictures through snail mail of our hunting success. Sorry I haven't moved into the digital world of photography yet.
Take care. Charles
Another.
Dear Jon, Jennifer and John, I hope your New Years are off to great starts.
I wanted to thank you for the good hunting, and great service my son and I enjoyed this year with Mid-America (M-A). We hunted strictly for pheasants and quail and hope to do more variety in the future. This was our first year with you; we are very satisfied and have renewed our membership for next year.
Jon, our association with you was positive right from the start. When we were considering a membership last year, I really appreciated your candor about what to expect from MAHA. I remember you pointing out that this was not a "game farm" with a guarantee of limits of birds for every hunt. That was important for me.
During earlier years in my life in northern Minnesota, I'd done a great deal of hunting "wild" upland game birds (mostly Ruffed Grouse), with a couple trips to the southern part of the state for pheasants. But over the last 20 years my hunting had been limited to occasional outings at game farms with planted birds and rented dogs. I wanted something more authentic and genuine for my young son. I wanted him to earn his shots. Well, needless to say, with this last year's tough winter and poor nesting, and Conservation Reports in all three states predicting pheasant and quail population dips of 40% to 70%, we knew going into the year that it was going to be challenging.
We started the year with the Youth Hunts in Iowa and Kansas and had to end our season early in mid- January due to an injury to the most important member of our hunting partnership ("TJ," our 14-month old Wire-Haired Pointing Griffon). I think we hunted 29 days, with my son having to limit his trips to weekends. I'm fortunate to have considerable time off during the holiday season, so TJ and I hit the second half of the season hard. We split our time pretty equally among the three states, and with only a couple exceptions, tried new areas for each hunt. And we hunted hard. I bought a new pair of boots before the season and noticed the other day that the leather on the toes is worn through. We averaged 8 to 10 miles a day. TJ is a very hard working dog. [Actually, we recently discovered she has a broken bone in one foot in a very unusual place. Our vet asked how much we hunted each day and suggested 8-10 miles a day is too much for a young dog. Jon, any thoughts you or John might have on this would be appreciated].
Your prediction was right that the hunting was better the further from Kansas City we traveled. But we found birds on all by one hunting day. I was particularly pleased with the numbers of quail we found. This was especially surprising as we did not specifically hunt for quail on timber edges or close to beans. We basically hunted pheasants and were shooting full chokes and 3-inch #4s when we encountered quail (by the way, we made only a little dent in the quail population with those loads). Given the state reports and the number of times I have heard the disgusted statement from other hunters: "There's no quail left at all", I concluded any quail we found would have to be at the local game farm.
TJ and I raised five coveys on our best day and we typically saw two coveys per day. On our best day, we saw 60+ pheasants and as I said, we had one day without a feather in the air. Typically we saw 10-20 pheasants with the hens outnumbering the roosters about 3 to 1. For pheasants the rule of: "further nom K/C = more birds" was especially true. At the end of that 60+ bird-day, I talked with a local fanner-hunter, who told me: "After the last two tough winters, we don't have any pheasants left here at all." When I told him I'd seen 60+ that day, he responded: "Well, yeah, there's a few birds around, but nothing like it was two years ago." Jon, as someone who grew up hunting in northern Minnesota, a fabulous day of upland bird hunting for me was seeing 5 or 6 Ruffed Grouse and maybe a covey of Sharp tails. If 60+ pheasants in a day is nothing, I suspect my son and I are in for some unbelievable hunts when conditions improve.
I guess a parallel I can relate to is walleye fishing. Growing up in northern Minnesota, walleye fishing involved a short drive to "Lake of the Woods" which bordered Minnesota and Manitoba. We'd buy fishing licenses for both sides. In those days we could take 8 walleyes in Manitoba and 6 in Minnesota. In a few hours in Buffalo Bay, we'd have our limit of fourteen 2- to 3-pound walleyes each and be on our way home. Down here, I spend all day on Stockton lake for 2 or 3 keeper walleyes.
I also want to give you folks feedback on your customer services. I looked forward to calling for reservations or stopping by the office so I could visit with Jennifer, then Kris, then Jennifer again (after the stork made its delivery). Everyone was open to, tolerant of, and helpful with my various questions (e.g. "When was that area hunted last? How many hunters?" etc.). Jennifer, I've heard and seen the volume of phone calls you get at busy times and I know the phones must drive you nuts at times. A hunt could get off to a bad start with a sharp word or a bad attitude while making a reservation for a hunt. Your friendliness and patience were so much appreciated. Thank you. Again Jon, Jennifer and John, we enjoyed the season and our association with you. With the winter weather we've had to far (actually I guess the lack of winter weather we've had), we look forward to an even better season next year.
Thank you very much for all your hard work. Sincerely, Charles
Another.
Happy New Year:
Thought I'd share some pictures of hunting in challenging weather. To go along with the pictures I have to tell a story about my dad and goose hunting. I first heard this story before I was old enough to carry a gun and my job at that time was carrying his extra box of shotgun shells. That task made me feel I was an integral member of the hunting party.
My dad (Bob) was a serious goose hunter, who had an equally dedicated hunting partner, an old Norweigan bachelor-farmer nick-named "Yep."
It was December in North Dakota in the early 1950s. Dad and Yep arrived at the rainsoaked stubble field at 3:00am. They had permission from the farmer to dig pits for maximum concealment from the wiley Honkers. They trudged in hip boots through the rich Red River Valley mud, packing their burlap sacks of full bodied (and thus weighty by today's standards) Herters decoys. He described how after the first few steps into the field the mud lumped onto their boots so that they left tracks the size of snow shoes behind them. The wind was out of the northwest at 30mph, the sleet stinging their faces as they set up decoys and shoveled the nearly 3 foot deep pits.
At last they finished their preparations and well before shooting hours, they settled into their respective blinds. Dad said the final insult of the North Dakota weather came when he had to sit down and the water pooling in the bottom of the pit soaked through his pants and chilled him further.
So there they were: in the dark, in December, in the middle of a sea of mud, during a sleet storm, soaked to the skin, chilled to the bone, and exhausted from all the physical effort expended thus far.
Dad said he was reflecting on his sanity as he waited in the dark, in the mud, in the cold. Then Yep said in his heavy Scandinavian accent, with complete earnestness and disbelief:
"Oh, Bob...just think...there are people out there who would stay in bed on such a morning and miss all this."
I guess I've always been challenged to live up to those images and thus feel an additional excitement when the weather and conditions are a little difficult.
Picture of ducks on a snowy deck. The best duck hunting I had this year was during a snow storm. I woke early that morning with a reservation for a blind. I was excited to see 4 inches of snow already on the ground and visibility reduced to a block or two. I drove the 35 miles relying on road signs and the slope of the road shoulder to keep me between the ditches. I suited up in my neoprene chest waders and waterproof parka. I carried two dozen lightweight decoys in my shoulder-strap equipped carrying bag across about 200 yards of short cut grass to a rippy grass covered blind. By the time the decoys were out and I settled onto the bench in the blind I was barely breathing hard. And I was snug as a bug in a rug. Yep would have been embarrassed by this level of comfort.
Flock after flock sailed out of the snowy skies and into the decoys. After two flocks, I had 4 ducks and decided to set down the gun and practice my duck calling. Despite the odd sounds coming from my call, the ducks continued to cooperate. After an hour of this, I determined to collect my last two ducks for my limit and head home. About that time, the sky cleared and so did the ducks.
Pictures of two day limit of roosters 
and a bonus male prairie chicken: The other two pictures are of a recent two day hunt during and following an ice storm. Every blade of grass was encased in finger-thick ice. Every step sounded like shattering glass. But the late season birds, which had been flushing wild the weekend before, now had to be nearly stepped on to fly. Instead of the usual flurry of wings flapping or a cackle at the rise, each flush sounded like a bag of drinking glasses bouncing and crashing down a flight of marble stairs.
Oh, the walking was a little tough and TJ's (my Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) nose was rubbed nearly raw from plowing through the frozen grass. But compared to easing one's buttocks into an inch of near freezing muddy water, it was a piece of cake. And the rewards of taking on the challenge of tough conditions were tremendous.
Good luck on the rest of the season, Charles.