Andrick, BVF, and Wyoming

We snuck up to Wyoming when that last cold front came through after Thanksgiving hoping that the weather would push some new birds down to the river but it was pretty slow. We hunted all day the first day and killed 9 mallards and two geese which we were pretty happy about but most of the action came in the last 30 minutes of the day and it was brutally cold. It was right at O when we set up and never got above 16. As you can see in the video I think the cold temps made two of my buddies delirious.

The Dirt Pig

It was real cold

Killed this beautiful drake green wing teal on Thanksgiving morning out at Andrick ponds. It was bluebird and we managed to scrape out 5 birds which we were happy about. I think this place will be great later in the season.






The Sunday after Thanksgiving we ended up having an awesome hunt out at BVF. We killed a limit of geese and 11 ducks. I shot poorly but fortunately Grassman and Whit were there to pick up the slack and Dex did a great job except for breaking on the first group of geese that came in. I think this hunt ranked right up there with the best since I moved out here. I am very grateful that Matt Grassman, John Gable, John Moritz, and Mr. Culver have been so generous in sharing this special place with me. My water fowling experience in Colorado would have been pretty pathetic if it were not for Boulder Valley Farm.

Big Ole Goose

Grassman and I had a solid hunt at BVF on Sunday. Killed a hand full of ring necks, a monster goose, and a couple handsome bull chuckle heads. Once again the wind did not really cooperate but it worked out pretty well none the less. There are a bunch of geese using the farm and the plan is to set up for them next week, so hopefully we will have a good report.Dex retrieving a green brain with flatirons in the background.
A little flavor saver on his mug after the retrieve.
Got a goose that sailed on me and Dex made a ridiculously long retrieve. This bird landed over the embankment in the picture, and Dex had to hunt for a spot in the fence that was big enough for him and this huge honker to squeeze through.

Just Pictrues Wyoming, North Dakota, and Canada

High five to the first person that identifies all the species in this pic correctly in the comments below.

These 3 are from a buddy of mine in North Dakota but some of the pics are from Canada. RIDICULOUS!!!!!

Barney Ford Hunt 2009

We had another great hunt this year for the group that generously contributed to the Barney Ford diversity scholarship at the Leeds School. Thanks to Donal Culver, Matt Grassman, and John Gable of Boulder Valley Farm for making this hunt possible two years in a row.

Everything went smoothly besides Matt and I getting stuck in the mud when we were scouting the day before. Everybody shot straight and we killed 8 different species of ducks.

Bling Bling

Second week in a row with a banded bird. This bird was banded in Saskatchewan in 2004 and the one from last week was banded somewhere in Colorado in 2008. The certificates will not show up for a couple weeks.

This was definitely the coolest duck hunt I have had in Colorado thus far. Sarah and I scouted this spot the night before we hunted and we barely saw any ducks. We picked a spot on an island that had plenty of cover and some slack water and decided to book it because it was getting dark and a big front was rolling in from the north. To make a long story short the wind picked up by about 15 mph and the temp dropped from about 50 to about 25 in less than an hour. I also proceeded to get us lost in the dark and soaking wet. Fortunately Sarah has not called off the wedding yet.

Over the course of the night about 2 inches of snow fell and temperatures dropped down to 17 degrees. As we walked in we hoped that the cold front would bring a bunch of new ducks down and we were not disappointed. After a pretty major decoy adjustment at about 8:00 mallards just started dumping into our spread. We had a big group commit and dropped 3 green brains right in front of us and then I got one that sailed into the woods and thick brush on the opposite side of the river. We sent Dex on the 3 birds in the current before they were swept out of reach. The next 30 minutes were ridiculous because every time we were about to get settled and send Dex after the bird in the brush new ducks were showing up and dumping into our spread. 4 more greenheads died before I got a chance to send Dex over to the other bank. I was worried that we might have lost the bird because the cover was really thick and the duck looked like it might have had a little life in it when it went down. Dex made me sweat it out for about 5 minutes as he charged around with no results but then he came trotting out of the woods with a big ole bull chuckle head jewelry and all.

Opening Day O9

Dex standing proud. He made a couple really long retrieves on cripples.

Banded Gadwall. What a way to start the season. Will post info when it comes in.

Blue bird day until around 10:30 and the wind showed up finally.

Part of our spread. We had 11 dozen dekes and 3 robos rockin.

I can't remember a hunt with such a diverse bag. We killed 2 drake red heads, 2 drake mallards, 5 widgeon, 2 greenwing teal, 1 bluewing teal, 1 pintail, and 9 gadwall. We hunted till 2:30 in the afternoon so it was by no means hot and heavy but a solid day. A lot less work was involved this year thanks to Chris McReynolds and his drift boat. In my experience opening day is always a comedy of errors but this year things went pretty smooth. There was some minor hiccups with the motor on friday, the snail inspection by DOW, and the fact that Winchester and I both forgot our calls. Fortunately for the ducks we remembered our calls on Sunday and scared everything away before it could get in shooting distance.

Bucket Face and Fat Daddy part deux

Another Thug from the Colorado River

Average Fish At the driving club

gotta love top water action

Diddy needs to learn how to show off a fish

Both of these places are aquariums.

Worst Blogger Ever

I am officially the worst blogger ever and to top it off I shaved my mustache which crushes the credibility of this blog. My main excuse is that I have been working non-stop on CW.com and as a result I have not been doing as much cool stuff to talk about. (this is kind of BS) So in my attempt to record a personal journal I am going to dump as much info here about the last 4 months before I forget it all.

Music

Ryan Bingham - Sarah, Sheats, and I all went and saw him play in Denver at this little hole in the wall bar and it was incredible. I highly recommend his new album Road House Sun.

Chatauqua - Sarah and I saw Neko Case and Lucinda Williams here and both shows were solid, but I would have to give Neko the upper hand. Lucinda is getting old but still rocks

Telluride Bluegrass Festival - I hope to make this a tradition. I could write all day about how cool this was. Ran into a bunch of old friends and some long lost cousins plus we saw Emmy Lou Harris in a shop downtown which made Sarah's year

Fishing

Had a great couple of days up on the Northe Platte in Wyoming pre-run off. All deep nymph rigs but all nice fish. The wind up there is the worst I have ever experienced.

Go to go back to the Lazy 7 with Morgan, Blair and Crabtree and this time we brought the ladies and go to stay in the new ranch house which was awesome. Maybe a little too awesome as we were all so comfortable we did not fish quite as hard. Still caught a ton of nice fish on streamers despite the fact that the water was a little off. I caught another super thug but Blair is a slacker and has not sent me the pics/video yet. Here are some pics of a pig blair caught and Sarah caught a bunch of nice fish too.

Couple weeks later Chris and Travis and I lowered Travis's boat over a cliff into the Blue River Canyon and had an epic day of catching really nice fish almost exclusively on dry flies. We did not catch any monsters but a bunch of nice fish. Actually got to the point where I was sick of catching fish


Travis and his friend Ben make unbelievable fishing movies. Check them out at http://feltsoulmedia.com/main.html

Just recently we slayed some nice king salmon up in Leland with our buddy captain Bill Crandell of http://cworthy.wordpress.com/


I am sure I left something out time to get back to work!!!!!!