# 2011 ND trip



## johnsd16 (Sep 15, 2009)

Here's the results of our 2011 freelance trip to ND. Again, lots of birds and great folks, the few we ran into.

Five of us left MN at 10:30pm on thursday, and rolled into an area we wanted to hunt at 4am. With no place to set up or knowing if there were birds in the area we took a nap in the truck and waited for the light. At first light we started scouting and after a few hours and a lot of miles we found a few geese and then found some birds in a spot we felt we could set up.









It was wet, but we set up basically our whole spread in the shallow water and small grain field the geese were feeding in.

The geese wanted back in while we were setting up and after we were all set we had steady action for a few hours and knocked down 37 between 11am and about 6:15. The dog was the star of the day especially with all that water for the birds to glide into. Breakdown from the day showed mostly Ross's about 20+ out of the 37 and only a few Juvies. 

















One band on the first day was a Ross's with a white neck band to match. It was banded in August of 2004 in Nunavat. 

















We were tired so we decided to stay set up in the same spot for the next morning which brought thick fog and light shifting winds. We had to move some of the decoys and the rotary machines several times that morning. I found myself without a gun moving decoys twice with birds at less than 20yds that morning. With some sub par shooting as a group we had only 10 down by 10am or so. Highlights were a group of 30-40 mixed adults and juvies that broke off from a flock of 200+ that came tumble rolling into the decoys and the other four guns brought down several. Then half way through picking up we still had the machines on and I again had no gun when three Ross's (one of which was blue) came blowing through the decoys like teal about 10' off the ground and not 20' from me(with no gun). All of those escaped with their lives.

Two day total at 47.









We finished picking up and scouted for the last morning and found a huge corn field that had thousands of geese spread out all over it feeding and loafing on numerous pieces of sheet water. The morning brought rain, north wind, cold and a field too muddy to get the wheeler and trailer into. We set up only our home made sillosocks and rotary machines and waited for light. 20min into shooting and it was still too dark to positively ID snows, there were tons of specks around. We had large flocks trying to sit down in the decoys but couldn't shoot. By close to 7am we started taking whites down. The action was steady for the next two hours with many large and small flocks decoying. Mostly snows. 76 total on the morning with about 20 Ross's and about 15 or so juvies and the rest nice big adult snows/blues. No more bands but a great trip for us, and rewarding with the last and best hunt any of us have ever been on being over our home made tyvek sillosocks and e-caller, plus two rotaries and a couple other flyers.

Trip total of 122

















The trip saw a Beretta Extrema II break, a benelli and a remington 870 malfunction and turn into single shots. The conditions were wet and dirty/muddy in a big way.


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

THanks for sharing....but even the 870 malfunctioned??? Then you know it's muddy!


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## Codeman (Mar 9, 2010)

Sounds like it was a good time.

How many socks were you running?

Also what are those blue goose decoys in the trailer pic? They look like a nice shell? JC. I have issues when it comes to decoys haha.


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## johnsd16 (Sep 15, 2009)

I think we had around 400 hommade socks. The shells up top are Ghg T&T 5/8.


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## snow (Dec 7, 2007)

johnsd~

One of the best picture reports I've read in a long time,very good! A+ Thanx for sharing. :thumb:


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## 870 XPRS (Mar 12, 2003)

johnsd16 said:


> ... a remington 870 malfunction...


I'm not buying it.....must have been an issue with the ammunition.


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