2011 Highlights of your season. Have any?

Good topic! Had a lot of great days this year. Harvested a lot of birds and some very nice drakes of a wide variety of species. One of the most unique birds (for WI) we shot was a monster drake pintail in late October. Just a beautiful specimen, for anywhere! Conditions were next to impossible that day (55 degrees at shooting time, no wind and not a cloud in the sky). We managed a few bills right away but when that bird came in at about 10AM after a long lull and crumbled on the first shot... I couldnt wait to see it up close. Also had a few hunts were we had 4 to 6 different species of nice mounter quality drakes ranging from cans, red heads, bills and goldeneyes to black ducks, wigeon, gadwall, hooded mergs, ringnecks and greenwing teal... I think that is what keeps many of us hooked... variety. You never know what you will shoot/see on any given day on the water/in the marsh. Have a safe and productive off season!

My buddy and myself jump shot an pond in Kansas, full of mallards. We shot 10 mallards, only one hen. unbelievable the number of birds on that pond. Up close and personal. What a rush.

Goose hunting with my 6 year old Ryan. I had just purchased a Big River long honker call for my son to practice with, He was producing some ummm unique notes out of it when this goose came into the decoys, now you could have been blowing farts thru a bull horn and this goose still would have came in but in his eyes, it was all him!. He made sure to tell everyone "he" called in that goose for dad, and I will never let him think anything different.

i had a cut corn field(silage) early season goose that was hot. set the lay out blind and 12-18 decoys out and birds wanted in( there was 150+ feeding this field) i dropped a bird outta a flock of 20+ and ran to get it since it was semi crippled and i had to kick it down lay on it cause more birds wanted in. all in all. i ended up with 3 shoulda limited out but these birds were so close i was shooting golf balls at them, ive never had birds this close, with me laying in the field outta my lay out, just laying inbetween the rows. its was awesome. wish i coulda had a buddy with(or 2)

Highlight was definitely seeing this pintail helicopter down. A flock of 6 or 7 were coming in like silver bullets, from the way the sun was reflecting off of them. I saw them coming from a long ways off and told my friend to get ready, he was messing with his gun had it apart adjusting it back down to cycle 2 3/4 shells more effectively. I told him we were going to have a split second to shoot and its now or never... these birds are moving fast. He wasn't ready as those pintails started over us they began to flare left, circled wide and very high... higher than the huge oak tree at the far side of the pond. As I brought my gun up to shoot by the time I had the lead right and the bead set I was shooting full off of my right forearm all on instinct and with one shot I had a drake Pintail whirling down. which felt like it took forever to come down wings spread straight out it slowly helicoptered down in perfect 360's. I just couldn't believe it. When I recovered the bird I saw that I had put one BB under the eye and two in the neck. I wore that bruise from the butt of the gun on my forearm for over a week, but it was well worth it.

Warm weather really hurt the season imo. Just too many days with nice weather where the ducks did not fly. Heck they are still holding 150000 snow geese in northern missouri at sqauw creek.

With lack of snow the nesting next summer could be pretty poor unless we get some big spring storms. My guess is we could be in for a shorter season for the first time in a long time.

My kill numbers were up this year. Way up! Great season for me, one of the best i have ever had. As far as highlights go there are a few. We got a 2 man limit in about 3 hours one morning. Also, that same morning i got my first 2 in one shot.

Overall, my kill numbers were down 25-30% over last year, but still shot quite a few ducks. Harvested a number of beautiful drakes during the season; Gads, Widgeon, Bluebills, Ringnecks, Redheads, Goldeneyes, a Pintail (mallards of course).

The highlight of the season was seeing my 12 yr old son kill his first ducks. It was priceless seeing him admire his first pair of ringnecks and redheads.

Wouldn't gyfo be go find your own? Just ribbing badger! If we didn't bicker. What would we talk about? This is the highlight of the season! Hope you and your family enjoy as well!

Regards

gfy???

Such a elitist using profane abbreviations?? WOW! Ringing in the new year with guns blazing!

Yes 1st is still up at Horno. That was my main stay when I was state side. Semper Fi.

Getting 2 families of Woodies right by our feet. So not even opener and they are just swimming down the stream don't even know we were there.

I wish hayward....errrr...badger would post some pics of his kills. I sure do miss that yellow box over his face!

Well said Badger Hunter, Not to change what you said but I had great luck the week of and after gundeer. But like you said Give or take a week. Also im sure we were not hunting the same place. so it is what it is. As my notebook shows me the the two days before our first accual snow fall up north were my best numbers the storm pushed south a bit more then what the almighty weatherman said. lol so they were moven out of our area about 6hrs ahead of what I had planed. I have a good short clip from 2days before this storm hit. Great number of Greenheads. I would say this year was like last year. but the "push" of birds was in many small 1-3 day windows. Last year we had more "pushes" almost back to back so it seemed a bit longer. I read also about how many birds are said to just fly right over and past wisconsin as they make there move. Im sure that has been going on for many years. No question tho I enjoyed this year very much. Learned a lot which is my fav. thing about waterfowling and dog training. You never stop learning.

Here is that link for the short clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkpG54NGQVg&list=UU6AJhSdRj5Ympl_k2AD8VRQ&index=1&feature=plcp

My best Highlight for the year tho was getting togeather with a few Fellow Jarheads that I served with in Iraq We got out for a few days to hunt some geese and ducks. It was a BLAST. we might be doing our 3/1 India Co. Reunion up here next year because so many other guys that couldnt make it want to do it next year. CANT WAIT!!

GNC- Yes Sir it was. Reel and I thought that 2010 was slow, this year was worse. Don't really have any answer for it either