Avery Outdoors 2003

Avery^® Hunting Journal Entries Texas 2003

Chasing Pheasants in Texas!
Lubbock, Texas, January 8, 2004
By Rob Jepson (left), Associate Avery^® Pro-Staffer
and Avery^® Pro-Staffer Derek Rambo (right)

What a day to remember in the Texas Panhandle!

Avery Floating Duck Strap doubled as a pheasant strap for this afternoon hunt.

DATE: January 8, 2004
LOCATION: Lubbock, TX
SUNRISE/SUNSET: 7:36 A.M./ 5:55 P.M.
TEMPERATURE: low around 25 degrees, high around 62 degrees
WIND: SSW 15-25
EQUIPMENT USED: Avery Finisher & Migrator Blinds, Avery Finisher Dog Blind, Greenhead Gear Life-Size Canada Goose Full Body Decoys, Greenhead Gear Life-size Mallard and Widgeon Decoys, Avery Square Bottom decoy bags, Avery Floating Blind & Pit Bags, Avery Neck Gaiters, Yukon Hoods, & TurtleHead, Avery Fleece Pullovers & Fleece Wader Pants, Avery Fleece Callers Gloves, Avery Power Belt & PowerPak, Avery Floating Gun Case & "Pocket" Field Case, Avery Neoprene & Fleece Handwarmers.
HUNTERS: Lynn Burkhead, Scott Curtsinger, Casey McDermand, Brandon White, and Avery Pro-Staffers Derek Rambo, Rusty Hallock, and Rob Jepson
JOURNAL NOTES: Yesterday's awesome hunt filled one of my personal objectives of going to Texas, and that was if given the opportunity, to try and put some Sandhill Cranes in the bag. We were more than successful; putting 14 Cranes ("rib eyes in the sky") in the freezer and I was satisfied in thinking that I had participated in all the wing shooting that the Panhandle had to offer. Boy was I ever wrong!

Day three was going to be another slam-dunk on Canadas as Brandon had located another disked Milo field that had a sizable portion of the wintering residents. The decoys were set, the blinds brushed, and the guns loaded; all we needed were the geese. Thousands of them were ˝ - ľ miles away on an industrial warm-water effluents pond and it was only a matter of time before they flew out to feed. And fly they did, wave after wave of geese, rising with the sun and flying north …the only problem was we were set up west of the pond! Well you don't see that many geese without a few checking you out right? Of course you're right and one Canada managed to fly to the spread, lock his wings, and fall to a shotgun blast. So the skunk was off and we waited a little while longer only to call it an early morning and pick up the decoys with mumblings of "What the hell happened?...", and "I can't believe they didn't...!"

We still had a ˝ a day open on our schedule before we had to begin our drive back to Dallas and Brandon suggest we try for pheasants. Pheasants? I knew about Texas quail but nothing about "ditch parrots" in the Panhandle. I was about to be in for a pleasant surprise! We met with Danny Swoap of Broken Wing Outfitters in Littlefield, TX and he with his English Pointers "Tiny"(can you believe it?), & Tinker, set out to walk a quarter section of CRP ground outside of town. Having brought only "waterfowl" hunting equipment we quickly adapted what we had into upland gear: Neoprene Power Belt to hold shells instead of a vest, a Floating Duck Strap to carry our pheasants and an orange Greenhead Gear Field Staff Cap for safety. The weather had warmed to around 60 degrees and the wind was gusting around 20-25, nice and mild for us hunters, but unfortunately, poor scenting conditions for the dogs. This was to be Tiny's (Rusty) and Lynn's first pheasant hunt while Derek and I, both veterans of campaigns in Iowa and Nebraska, were ready to begin but had no expectations of how great a hunt we were about to participate in.

We began by putting the dogs up into the wind and walking to the first corner of the field and then sweeping around and basically continuing the process at the next corner. Only one hen emerged from the first sweep, but now we were pushing a ditch between two sections and it was only a matter of time before the birds ahead gave up the relative safety afforded by their legs and stretched their wings to really put some distance between themselves and the dogs. And then it happened, with cries of "Rooster, rooster…" the first cock bird took flight and I managed to make a crossing shot on him and bring him back to earth. By the way, a Patternmaster and #4 Hevi-Shot makes for some good pheasant medicine!

Over the next 45 minutes the dogs pointed and the birds flew like crazy and before we could make a turn at the last corner for the trucks we had our 10 bird limit! We went back to Danny's to clean the birds and while that chore was being tended to, we sat around his small wood stove in the barn, drinking the official soft-drink of Texas (Dr. Pepper) and gaping in awe at the Mule deer skull mounts he had hanging on the wall. His most recent, a 199 5/8 B & C buck taken in the fall was shown in a photograph with the 170 Class-monster on the wall in front of us, resting INSIDE his rack! Phenomenal!!

And that is probably the best word to describe our three days in Texas…phenomenal hunting, phenomenal steaks, and phenomenal memories!

(L to R) Avery^® Pro-Staffers Rusty Hallock, Rob Jepson and Derek Rambo on a great afternoon pheasant hunt.

Short Bills & Long Legs
Lubbock, Texas, January 7, 2004
By Rob Jepson (left), Associate Avery^® Pro-Staffer
and Avery^® Pro-Staffer Derek Rambo (right)

(L to R) Avery^® Pro-Staffers Rusty Hallock and Derek Rambo after celebrating an excellent hunt on their 2nd day of the Texas Panhandle hunt.

(L to R) Associate Avery^® Pro-Staffer Rob Jepson and hunting partner Rusty Hallock with a limit of Sandhill Cranes!

DATE: January 7, 2004
LOCATION: Lubbock, TX
SUNRISE/SUNSET: 7:36 A.M./ 5:55 P.M.
TEMPERATURE: low around 22 degrees, high around 51 degrees
WIND: SSW 15-20
EQUIPMENT USED: Avery Finisher & Migrator Blinds, Avery Finisher Dog Blind, Greenhead Gear Life-Size Canada Goose Full Body Decoys, Greenhead Gear Life-size Mallard and Widgeon Decoys, Avery Square Bottom decoy bags, Avery Floating Blind & Pit Bags, Avery Neck Gaiters, Yukon Hoods, & TurtleHead, Avery Fleece Pullovers & Fleece Wader Pants, Avery Fleece Callers Gloves, Avery Power Belt & PowerPak, Avery Floating Gun Case & "Pocket" Field Case, Avery Neoprene & Fleece Handwarmers.
HUNTERS: Lynn Burkhead, Scott Curtsinger, Casey McDermand, Brandon White, and Avery Pro-Staffers Derek Rambo, Rusty Hallock, and Rob Jepson
JOURNAL NOTES: Day two of our Texas hunt started intentionally late and full of promise. The night before we decided to hunt the small playa lake that was full of geese, ducks, and sandhill cranes seen on the afternoon scouting trip. This made us happy for two reasons… we saw thousands of waterfowl that would soon return to the open water after feeding on grain fields all morning and we could sleep in, which is hard to come by hard core waterfowlers. We met Brandon at his house around 8 am to load up the decoys and blinds. Stopping a quarter mile short of the lake we watched wave after wave of waterfowl leave the small body of water over the next hour. Glassing the water we could see exactly where the geese and cranes were flocked up on the playa. This is where we would set up. The closer we got to the playa we could see open water that the birds kept open all night. We set our decoys all along the shore and on the ice up wind of the open hole of water. We also threw out a dozen or so Greenhead Gear Wigeon and Mallard decoys in the water for added realism. What happened over the next four hours was nothing short of spectacular.

Skeins of cranes and geese began to appear in the sky from all directions. As each flock of birds got within calling distance we began to "pour the coals" to them with aggressive calling. Some groups would finish and some would not, but we soon had our 21 bird limit of Canada geese. Because of the impressive numbers of cranes in the area we decided to stay and attempt to fill the 21 bird limit as well. Due to the wary nature of the cranes and the lack of crane decoys the larger groups would not finish. We satisfied ourselves by slowly picking away at decoying singles and pairs. This took extremely disciplined shooting however as cranes and geese would be in small groups together as they came in. A few times we actually landed Canada geese in the spread only yards from the invisible Finisher and Migrator blinds. When all was said and done we managed to kill 14 cranes… seven short of the limit. Wow! What a day. This afternoons scouting will take us further north of Lubbock to a new corn field for tomorrows hunt.

What an amazing hunt for Sandhill Cranes and lesser Canadas!

Little Geese in Big Texas
Lubbock, Texas, January 6, 2004
By Rob Jepson (left), Associate Avery^® Pro-Staffer
and Avery^® Pro-Staffer Derek Rambo (right)

DATE: January 6, 2004
LOCATION: Lubbock, TX
SUNRISE/SUNSET: 7:35 A.M./ 5:54 P.M.
TEMPERATURE: low around 5 degrees, high around 40 degrees
WIND: Light & Variable
EQUIPMENT USED: Avery Finisher & Migrator Blinds, Avery Finisher Dog Blind, Greenhead Gear Life-Size Canada Goose Full Body Decoys, Avery Floating Blind & Pit Bags, Avery Neck Gaiters, Yukon Hoods, & TurtleHead, Avery Fleece Pullovers & Fleece Wader Pants, Avery Fleece Callers Gloves, Avery Power Belt & PowerPak, Avery Floating Gun Case & "Pocket" Field Case, Avery Neoprene & Fleece Handwarmers.
HUNTERS: Lynn Burkhead, Scott Curtsinger, Casey McDermand, Brandon White,and Avery Pro-Staffers Derek Rambo, Rusty Hallock, and Rob Jepson
JOURNAL NOTES: Ask any goose hunter to pick a location to hunt Canada Geese and you will more than likely hear several notable and traditional destinations; Rochester, MN, Crab Orchard, IL, Maryland's Eastern Shore, and Oak Hammock Marsh in Manitoba to mention just a few. Those same destinations conjure up visions of skies filled with geese and sub-freezing conditions that try the metal of the hardiest of hunters and their equipment. One response you are not likely to get is Lubbock in the Texas Panhandle. This sea of cotton, corn, milo, and tumbleweed winters countless numbers of Lesser Canada Geese and receives very little hunting pressure. That is why we were here along with Brandon White and his Longneck Outfitters.

On the first day of our three day hunt we found ourselves pulling out of the hotel parking lot with the truck thermometer reading 17 degrees. As we drove north to meet Brandon and the others, we watched in amazement as the temperature continued to drop. When we arrived at the field after the 30 minute road-trip, it read 5 degrees. Definitely not what we envisioned when we began planning this hunt 12 months ago. We quickly worked up a sweat setting the Finisher and Migrator blinds within the Greenhead Gear Full Body decoy spread. Fifteen minutes later the sound of geese had us scrambling to our hideouts. The next two hours had us working a constant flow of hungry geese looking for grain fields to forage on. This was a sight to be seen as groups of geese from pairs to flocks of 300 or more birds would lock up on our decoys. Early on we decided that we only wanted to take finishing birds and passed on. We passed up several 40 to 50 yard passing shots and single geese lighting in the spread as we were feverishly working large groups above them.

Although the numbers of birds that were seen were great, the lack of constant wind and the bright sunshine made it very difficult for the geese to finish. However, some geese fell to our deception and by the end of our morning hunt 11 Canada Geese were in the bag. Day two is full of promise as more new geese will surly be arriving behind the arctic air pushing south through the central flyway. Scouting this evening has us deciding to either hunt a corn field full of geese or gunning on a 5 acre playa lake that has been kept from freezing by several thousand geese, ducks and sandhill cranes. Decisions, decisions…..ahh the work at Avery is tough and we are glad to do it.