| | What's new on Iowaz iowaz@swbell.net's "Photo Albums" pages Recently created and updated albums: | Copyright, for private/educational/personal use only. | - Levi Keithley Family Cem 2009 Ralls Co MO
- (Nov 6, 2009)
- On a chance stop at Norton Cemetery, I met Bruce Howald who is in the Keithley/Keithly clan, and escorted me to the Levi Keithley Family Cemetery. The album starts with a list of burials and a family tree for both Levi Keithley and Henry Couch. The sequence of pics then leaves Norton Cem to the Keithley Cem. There are pics of the markers found and pans of the landscape. Maps of interest to the cemetery and area area at the end of the sequence. Pics of interest can be downloaded by clicking a thumb to open a med pic, then clicking the 'get original uploaded photo' link under the med pic to open a larger version, which can be right clicked and saved. Henry Couch died at the Battle of Vassar Hill. I had speculated about that battle a few years ago and uploaded some thoughts to a web page http://www.iowaz.info/missouri/vassarhill.htm
iowaz@hotmail.com - 92 photo(s) (62 MB)
- Album was created Today, 17 hours 9 minutes ago and modified Today, 16 hours 51 minutes ago
- No comments
- Hits today: 300
- Visitors today: 37
- View album
|
| Copyright, for private/educational/personal use only. | - RRvarmint AR15 2009 July 13
- (Jul 13, 2009)
- Comparison of 40, 50, 55 gr Nosler bullets at 200 and 300 yds in a Rock River Varming AR15.
- 16 photo(s) (13 MB)
- Album was created Yesterday and modified Yesterday
- No comments
- Hits today: 0
- Visitors today: 0
- View album
|
| Copyright, for private/educational/personal use only. | - Rt J Reservoir Mark Twain Lake MO 2009
- (Nov 5, 2009)
- Route J Reservoir north of Mark Twain Lake, Nov 2009. The reservoir supplies water for Monroe City who turned over the park and lake operation to the MO Cons. Commission. iowaz@hotmail.com
- 51 photo(s) (40 MB)
- Album was created Yesterday and modified Yesterday
- No comments
- Hits today: 1
- Visitors today: 1
- View album
|
| Copyright, for private/educational/personal use only. | - Lick Creek Trail Short Loop Mark Twain Lake Missouri 2009
- (Nov 5, 2009)
- Lick Creek Trail Short Loop at Mark Twain Lake, Northeastern Missouri. A walk from the Ray Behren's parking lot on the Lick Creek Trail taking the Short Loop and back to the parking lot. Pics taken every 20-40 yds down the trail, plus pans to the sides or something of interest such as lake views, deer rubs, sink hole, primitive camp site, flora, old cabin site, pond, etc. Most of the trail pics are generic but show the terrain along the entire route. The trail is marked with yellow dots on trees and relatively easy to follow and walk. The surface is irregular, cluttered with debris, sticks, rocks. iowaz@hotmail.com
- 326 photo(s) (281 MB)
- Album was created Yesterday and modified Yesterday
- No comments
- Hits today: 0
- Visitors today: 0
- View album
|
| Copyright, for private/educational/personal use only. | - Hannibal MO 2009 October
- 420 photo(s) (309 MB)
- Album was created 1 month ago and modified 6 days ago
- No comments
- Hits today: 5
- Visitors today: 1
- View album
|
| Copyright, for private/educational/personal use only. | - Sean Washington Upland 2009 Oct 17
- (Oct 17, 2009)
- Watshington State Upland Game Season Opener: Headed out in southeast WA, Walla Walla Co., on Saturday bright and early to get on some pheasants and quail in hopes that my buddy, Darin and I could find some roosters and quail before it was time to leave for my son, Kyle's football game at noon. I was a little concerned on the drive and while I waited for the sun to rise about the prospects after having hunted this spot on the quail opener and not seeing the numbers of birds that I have become accustomed to seeing.
The dogs were fired up and ready to go after having over a weeks worth of rest from a the last MT trip in which their time off was earned. Since we only had about 3 hours to hunt and this would be the only spot of the day, all the dogs were turned loose. Heading out with anticipation, I glanced towards the east and was treated to an above average sunrise over the Blues: (Pic attached)
When we hit the creek bottom where the birds are generally found, I noticed several pheasants flying out of the grass into the habitat strips into what appeared to be turnips. They had really grown up since the last time I had been there. There were enough birds that got out that I changed the hunt plans and decided to run the upper edge to cut them off while Darin pushed through with his dog in hopes that we would pin them in between. If nothing else, we would push them back into the creek bottom where we could do something with them. Before we headed into the turnips, I noticed a rooster had been flushed off the adjoining property and landed ahead of us in the creek bottom. Before long, my top dog, Rose had found him and was pointing down toward the creek. I had Darin come over to back me up and it was a good thing because with the uneven footing and a poor gun mount I missed him, but Darin didn't and Rooster #1 of the WA season was in the bag. The lighting conditions were too poor for my camera's capabilities so no picture.
So back to the turnips we went and I headed up the hill with my dogs. I was beginning to wonder where the birds might have gone when all 3 dogs locked up. Before I could get there, a rooster jumped up and flew almost at me, but ended up hooking left for a crossing angle and this time the shot was true. Here's Rose bringing him back and you can see the lighting conditions are still tough: (Pic attached) Just after I snapped the picture and Rose handed me the rooster and I still hadn't reloaded, a rooster jumped up right at my feet (he had been there the whole time through all the commotion) and he almost timed it perfectly for an escape, but I was able to recover and get a shot on him at the end of my gun range to knock him out of the air. Junior, my pointer, brought to hand and we were off to a good start.
Darin made it up to my location and we decided to cover the rest of the top section of turnips. Before long, Jock, my GSP pup was on point and Rose and Nappy backed. Judging from the picture, I would have to say this bird was in a tight situation: (Pic attached) Unfortunately, this bird didn't have the colors we needed to fire a shot and the hen flew off safely. After a few long wild flushing roosters in the turnips that didn't provide any shot opportunities we headed back to the creek bottom where we were able to finish up our limit of roosters just in time to get back home for Kyle's game.
I snapped several more photos of the dogs' finds (mostly Rose cause she's the one who finds most of them). Here she is on a rooster in the thick stuff: (Pic attached).
She has a quail nailed here: (Pic attached) And the retrieve on one of the few quail I managed to hit: (Pic attached) If we would have shot at all the quail and hit half of them, we could have limited on those as well, but I hold off on the quail until the roosters are in the bag. I really struggled on my shooting on the quail this day.
Jock got in on the act of pointing quail from time to time. I captured one of those moments: (Pic attached)
Rose retrieving the last rooster of the day: (Pic attached)
On the way back to the truck, the dogs were finding them again: (Pic attached) It was hard to pull them off.
We had a nice opening day hunt, but I felt the bird numbers were still below average for this area. I don't anticipate too many quick limit hunts like this one the rest of the season.
We were headed to Whitman Co. the next day and I had been getting mixed reports on bird #'s in that area. The only way to verify the truth was to put some dogs down and see what we could find. My next report will detail that hunt.
I headed for Whitman Co. on Sunday with Darin and our dogs on what is our traditional opening day hunt, but with kids and sports, tradition can sometimes get altered. I had mixed reports on the bird numbers in this area ranging from poor to pretty good. The only way to verify it was to put the dogs down and let them show us. We decided to hunt a large CRP field bordered by wheat stubble with soybeans planted in the bottom of the draws. The cover was outstanding - the best I've seen it on this farm. It was obvious the moisture had been friendly to this area over the spring and summer.
It was going to be a nice day to hunt with the temp's at 25 degrees to start warming to the low 50's. The first 1/2 hour produced only numerous sightings of deer without the dogs getting birdy at all. Finally, Rose went on point in the CRP facing the edge of wheat stubble in a place we had found roosters in prior years. Junior was oblivious to Rose's point and ended up in front of her and he immediately stacked up on the scent as well. We got lucky, the birds didn't flush out of gun range. As I got closer, a covey of huns (awesome - huns are my favorite) flushed on the edge of gun range and I picked one out and dropped it. Darin was facing directly into the rising sun and even though he was closer, he wasn't able to shoot. So a hun over a point to start the day, I'll take that.
The next hour was a fruitless search by some hard working dogs. The frost was melting and I would have thought scenting conditions would have been ideal. We moved off the hillsides where pheasants typically roost and headed to the grocery store in the form of Roundup-ready soybeans in the flats below the hillsides. Here's what the cover looked like: (Pic attached) I tried to capture the beans amongst the weeds and failed, but you get the idea - it's good cover for pheasants. We pushed through the 5 acres of soybeans with not a single bird found until we got to the very end and 3 roosters flushed long ahead of us. I had Darin go over the top where I was pretty sure that had dropped in quickly and I ran further up the draw in an effort to cut them off and then pinched back towards Darin. His GHW, Nappy, struck scent and the squeeze was on. As we got closer, a rooster flushed and went right at me so I elected to let him pass over and then took him on his flight going away. In the meantime, another rooster flushed in the ditch on the edge of gun range below Darin and he wasn't able to get him. We never found the other one - sneaky son of a guns!
That was it for that spot so we moved on to another area where Darin and I split up so I could run Jock alone for awhile (I have to do that more this season to get him further along in his development). Darin didn't see any birds and we had 2 roosters and 1 hen flush wild too far ahead for a shot through no fault of the dog. So we headed to the area that is generally the most productive on the farm - a creek bottom with flowing water and thick grass/brush. This spot didn't disappoint and we should have been able to finish the hunt right there, but a lost cripple and a few other missed opportunities and we walked out of there needing a couple more birds for Darin. Granted, there are some shooting obstacles to overcome in this spot with a barn and grain silos, etc. I call them ready-made excuses and we used them to the fullest. I recollect seeing a total of 8 roosters which is nothing in a good year, but would be the highlight of the day for bird numbers in one area on this day. The last pheasant I shot to fill my allotment for the day was sporting a dark turquoise ring when Junior delivered it: (Pic attached) This happens once or twice a year on this farm with a release site being about 2 miles down the road. Still amazes me that they can get that far away, but that indicates to me how much hunting pressure there must have been in that creek bottom to get that far away. I don't give these planters a lot of respect and always feel a little cheap when I shoot one, but for him to get that far away and still be alive is very surprising to me.
So off to the next spot which is further down the creek bottom and adjoins a public hunt location. I didn't have much confidence in this spot to produce because I was highly confident that it had been hunted several times that day and the prior day by trespassers from the public spot. I wish I had been wrong, but I wasn't and we only saw 1 rooster that appeared to be of the planter variety and he survived by flushing in front of Darin and heading straight for the landowners barn. This was not Darin's day to put it mildly, but he does an admirable job of taking it in stride. He and I split up shortly after to cover two different strips of CRP and while I was walking across the stubble to get to it, Junior slammed on point right in the stubble a hundred yards or so ahead. As I got closer and stopped to snap a photo, I could see a couple of heads sticking about 20 yards ahead of him - HUNS! Did I mention huns were my favorite? Rose was backing intently 20 yards behind him and the picture I took didn't do justice for the beauty of the sight: (Pic attached) Enough of the gooey stuff, it was time to see what I could do with the gun and a double was clearly on my mind as I made a wide loop to get out in front of Junior's nose. A huge covey of huns, I'm talking at least 20 of them erupted in flight and the first barrel struck gold, but I must not have swung hard enough on the second barrel to complete the true double. Oh well, there will be one more the next time I find them. Junior got to make the retrieve on a very nice find: (Pic attached)
After talking to the landowner for about an hour, we had time to hunt one more spot before making the drive back home. This spot had been very productive in the past so I was hoping we could find a couple of roosters for Darin to finish out. After an hour of searching with only one hen found, I sent Darin up a fence row that usually holds some pheasants and he flushed a rooster and knocked him down hard, but there wasn't a dog around when it went down. Well, the rooster still had legs on the search was on once we got the dogs over to the area. Rose found him with a snappy point and Darin walked into to get him, but the bird tried to half-fly and was quickly back down to the weedy ditch where he first fell and the chase was on again. He managed to get away from the near vicinity and Rose was back at the task of finding him. She looped well ahead of where we last some him and went on point in some thin grass. I didn't think there was any way he would have stopped in that location and as we got closer she left and ran up on the road to check ahead further. After not getting any scent, she came back to the spot and went back on point. As we got closer, I saw this: (Pic attached) Amazing how a bird with that much color can blend in. We put the squeeze on him and this time Nappy grabbed him as he attempted to get away again. Reason #46 to hunt with a dog. So we ended the day with 5 roosters and 2 huns. Not a bad day, but considering the miles we covered it doesn't bode well for a great season. It's going to be another tough pheasant season - the numbers just aren't there, but the dogs have to hunt so we'll keep plugging away.
- 14 photo(s) (12 MB)
- Album was created 10 days ago and modified 10 days ago
- No comments
- Hits today: 0
- Visitors today: 0
- View album
|
|
Add to friends 
My friend 
