Avery Outdoors Canada 2003

Avery^® Hunting Journal Entries Iowa 2003

Honkers Honkers EVERYWHERE!
Swisher, Iowa, November 29, 2003
By Travis Mueller, Avery^® Territory Manager

DATE: December 24, 2003
LOCATION: North Liberty Iowa
SUNRISE/SUNSET: 6:50 A.M./ 4:42 P.M.
WEATHER: light snow showers
TEMPERATURE: 32 degrees
WIND: Northeast 15 mph
EQUIPMENT USED: Greenhead Gear Life-Size Mallards, Greenhead Gear Full Bodies, Finisher Blinds, Finisher Dog Blind, Migrator Blinds, Pit Bags, Fleece Neck Gaiters
HUNTERS: Matt Richards Scheels Assistant Manager, Rob Beeson Scheels Assistant Manager, Jeremy Krall Scheels associate, Ryan Harland, Ryan Rentschler, Luke Cote Avery Regional Pro-staffer, and Travis Mueller
JOURNAL NOTES: Hunted a cornfield this morning for geese and it was one of those day's where things just fell perfectly into place. Had a perfect wind perfect spread of GHG decoys, with Migrator and Finisher blinds that just disappeared.

For the last 3 days of the season the town of North Liberty opened up a few select cornfields that were within city limits. I was fortunate enough to fill out all of the red tape and get one. The field that I received permission was a field just south of a golf course where the geese had been roosting. The geese started using the cornfield we were in just a few day's earlier. As the sun began to brighten up the snowy morning,

geese began to line up as if they were headed to the cafeteria for breakfast! Flock after flock came in perfectly and as fast as it started it was done. We were still allowed only 2 geese a piece and as fast and furious as it was, it didn't take long at all. As a matter of fact we were done at 8:00 a.m. (plenty of time to get to work!!) We were about to start picking up when a lone goose dropped out of nowhere right into a few GHG full bodies and began eating! You have to look close to pick out the real bird (see photo)! It was obvious he had no clue, and that's all that matters!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One more day of this and then were done. Good luck to everybody south of the corn state.

(L to R) Avery^® Regional Pro-Staffer Luke Cote, Ryan Rentschler, Scheels Assistant Store Manager, Rob Beeson Avery^® Territory Manager, Travis Mueller, Scheels Assistant Store Manager, Matt Richards Ryan Harland, Scheels Associate Jeremy Krall

NORTH SOUTH EAST OR WEST?????????
Swisher, Iowa, November 29, 2003
By Travis Mueller, Avery^® Territory Manager

DATE: November 29, 2003
LOCATION: Corn Fields south of Cedar Rapids
SUNRISE/SUNSET: 6:40 A.M./ 4:46 P.M.
WEATHER: Sunny and cold
TEMPERATURE: Highs in the lower 40's, with lows in the 20's
WIND: South 20 mph
EQUIPMENT USED: Greenhead Gear Life-Size Mallards, Greenhead Gear Full Bodies, Finisher Blinds, Finisher Dog Blind and Migrator Blinds
HUNTERS: Mark and Jason Struzyinski, Ryan and Steve Graap, Glen Hebele, and Travis Mueller
JOURNAL NOTES: The ducks are scattered everywhere.

With the numbers that I saw in Arkansas I really didn't think I'd see the numbers I did last night in Iowa. A few buddies called me and told me ducks were again hitting cornfields in the area and we decided to try our luck in the afternoon on Saturday. Sure enough around 2:30pm in the afternoon mallards began dive bombing our decoy spread. We had quite the tornado of mallards on us when I called the shot. On the first volley we had five drakes down. We had a few more flocks come in only to be interrupted by us taking a few out of each flock. We had three ducks to go and thousands were still on their way.

A flock of a hundred or so began working us, this was going to be it when all of a sudden a beautiful black duck dropped out of the flock and turned into a spinning wing decoy right over our ghg mallards. I yelled black duck as loud as I could and the mimicking spinner ran out of batteries in a hurry! We ended the afternoon two mallards short, but had a wall hanger of a black duck!

It seems to me like the ducks are scattered all throughout the Midwest and Arkansas still has a lot of fresh ducks up north. So boy's don't get discouraged if things get a little stale down there, there are plenty of birds up here yet to freshen things up. Good luck!

Hurry up we need ya!!!!!!!
Swisher, Iowa, November 19, 2003
By Travis Mueller, Avery^® Territory Manager

DATE: November 19, 2003
LOCATION: Near Cedar Rapids
SUNRISE/SUNSET: 6:18 A.M./ 4:46 P.M.
WEATHER: Sunny and warm
TEMPERATURE: Highs in the mid 40's, with lows in the 30's
WIND: West 15 mph
EQUIPMENT USED: Greenhead Gear Life-Size Mallards, Greenhead Gear Full Bodies, Finisher Blinds and Migrator Blinds
HUNTERS: Mark Struzynski, Luke Cote (regional pro-staffer), Rob Beeson Scheels, and Jeremy Krall Scheels
JOURNAL NOTES: Sunny 65 degrees??? Sounded like they should have been golfing until I saw their results. I had been traveling today and was headed back home to catch a plane to Stuttgart for the Arkansas opener when I received the phone call. "Get over to Fhurmeisters field we need ya bad!!!!!" I was only 15 minutes away and decided to stop by to see what the problem was. I was greeted by 4 limits of some of the most beautiful drakes I had ever seen. It seemed they needed me to take their picture for them because they all wanted to be in the picture. The ducks had started feeding in the field the night before and there had to have been 10,000 mallards going to this field. As I was taking their picture mallards were still pouring into the south side of the field!!!

It was the ultimate "salt in the wounds" until I realized that I still had 45 minutes to go. I made them all unload their guns and I laid down in a finisher blue jeans and all and proceeded to shoot my limit as well. Ten minutes later we had 5 beautiful limits and it still wasn't dark yet. We took a few more pictures and got out of the field as fast as we could as ducks were still pouring into the field to eat. I tell you not many people can say they worked all day and still managed a limit of mallards in roughly ten minutes. It is nice to see the numbers of ducks around here, but the water boy's are still struggling, as the ducks we have are VERY VERY smart. Eat and sit in the refuge. That's it. Sounds like some weather this weekend in Iowa and I mean weather!!!! Good luck all.

Some wanted to watch a football game and we wanted to chase mallards!
Swisher, Iowa, November 15, 2003
By Travis Mueller, Avery^® Territory Manager

DATE: November 15, 2003
LOCATION: Corn Fields near Cedar Rapids
SUNRISE/SUNSET: 6:18 A.M./ 4:46 P.M.
WEATHER: Partly cloudy and Windy
TEMPERATURE: Highs in the mid 40's, with lows in the 30's
WIND: Southwest 15 mph
EQUIPMENT USED: Greenhead Gear Life-Size Mallards, Greenhead Gear Life-Size Pintails, Greenhead Gear Full Bodies, Finisher Blinds, Remington Hevi-Shot and Remington 870's and 11-87's
HUNTERS: Mark Struzynski and Travis Mueller
JOURNAL NOTES: The migration seems to have come to a standstill here in Iowa. We haven't had any weather to get new birds if there are many up there, and the birds that are around here are preaching refuge to any bird that will listen. With that being said I was not going to sit on the water and watch ducks sleep in the refuge all day to get up and eat in the afternoon, and then come back and sleep. We have been lucky enough to get permission to hunt most of the fields around our refuge so we decided to sit for two hours on Saturday to see if we could fool a few mallards. We threw out a dozen GHG mallards, a few GHG pintails and a dozen GHG Full Body geese. We also put out a few spinners for visibility.

The only regret we had twenty minutes into the hunt was that we didn't have enough guy's. The Hawkeye's played the gophers today and nobody wanted to pull away from the game. They should of because the Hawks handed it to the Gophers, and we handed it to the mallards. We were done in 45 minutes just picking out drakes and towards the end trying to watch the feet! It was a great hunt and they don't happen like this very often! As a matter of fact my buddies went back out Sunday and saw nothing. The birds here are smart and in order to get into a few, be patient and don't get into a groove! Be mobile, move, and scout anything you have to do to find these birds. Stagnant birds can be the toughest to hunt and can also be the easiest if you can find their comfort zone and mimic it. We have found with these wise birds that calling only when necessary especially this time of year can really be deadly. A drake whistle and a few quacks or to hook them back has been our mainstay when hunting public areas with "world champs" around us. 9 times out of 10 these guy's will blow them out of the area. Good luck the rest of the season and be sure to learn from the birds, they are the best teachers.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky??!!??!?!
Swisher, Iowa, November 7, 2003
By Travis Mueller, Avery^® Territory Manager

DATE: November 7, 2003
LOCATION: Near Cedar Rapids Iowa
SUNRISE/SUNSET: 6:33 A.M./ 4:56 P.M.
WEATHER: Sunny and Cold
TEMPERATURE: Highs in the mid 30's, with lows in the teens
WIND: Northwest 10-20 mph
EQUIPMENT USED: Greenhead Gear Life-Size Mallards, Greenhead Gear Life-Size Pintails, Greenhead Gear Over-Size Mallards, Greenhead Gear Full Bodies, Finisher Blinds, Migrator Blinds, Remington Hevi-Shot and Remington 870's and 11-87's
HUNTERS: Travis Mueller, Steve Heston, Mark Struzyinski, and Jason Struzyinski.
JOURNAL NOTES: The ducks have shown up in full force here in Southeast Iowa! Weather patterns have been pushing new birds into Iowa for the past week. Waterfowlers have been greeted by weather as well as flights of new birds headed on their southward journey. Saturday, November 1st saw the beginning of new ducks. The morning started with a southeast wind, which then switched to the Northwest in full force by the afternoon. New ducks have been trickling in and most likely out since. I have talked with numerous hunters saying they have done ok, but haven't seen that major push. I believe we won't see a major push like years in the past, because we have been getting steady weather all week rather than a 40 mph north wind with 12 inches of snow like years in the past. That type of weather forced the birds out rather than the weather patterns we have been getting lately which are right for flights, but not essential if they don't want to.

With all of this said, lets get to the hunt. With the influx of new birds into the area, the demand for REAL food has increased as well. Began seeing birds using the cornfields pretty heavily so we locked up a field for Thursday. The ducks didn't eat all morning, so we were pretty excited to get out and get them in the afternoon. As we were setting up around 2:30 3:00 we saw our worst enemy. The moon was almost full and we knew they would more than likely come out late and may not even come out before shooting hours were over. Our worst nightmare came true and we had one flock come in right before time. It was a flock of 15 with honestly one drake. We had five guys and I truly believe every one of us shot that Mallard!

That night it was 17 degrees and we hoped with the colder temps that they would be out to feed a bit earlier tomorrow. Our hopes came true, and we had our wish. Flocks anywhere from 20 to 200 were dropping out of the sky. Time ended before we wanted it to, but we ended up with 14 nice drakes! Had some pintails work, but the season had closed a few day's earlier. Go figure! Like I said the flight is on here in Iowa, so were getting closer southern states. Pray for more of what we have been getting in terms of weather and you might have a better season than the last few.

Being at the right place at the right time!!

Eastern Iowa, April 24, 2003
By Travis Mueller, Avery^® Territory Manager

I will be the first to tell you that turkey hunting is not my favorite hunting hobby. But there is nothing like the gobble of toms or the sound of a gobbler spitting and drumming amongst plastic hens to make it contagious! Besides, there isn't a waterfowl season open, so what else is there to do? [FULL STORY]