After cancelling two prior hunting road trips this season due to family health issues, it was nice to get out of town finally. After a stop in Tulsa to visit a sick aunt I moved on to West Central Oklahoma, did a little waterfowl scouting. To tired to set camp, so I slept in my truck, then got up early to visit with some NWR staff and do a little Quail hunting with Dash Rip Rock.



I found out a new area on the Refuge with some excellent Quail habitat had been opened to access recently, so that is were I started. Dash did find Quail. Sure been nice to be able to find wild birds this year. Like a Drug...




That evening I set the big camp and relaxed while waiting for Steve one of my goose hunting partners to arrive. I never spoil my hunting dogs, so I put Dash to work guarding the tent.



The next morning I slept in, but ran out late morning to sit on a main lake point to pass shoot. I used tumble weeds for my blind. I would have to stick my feet into the tumble weeds to keep them from rolling away in the wind. When I got up to shoot, they would roll off into the water and I would have to go find more tumble weeds.



A front and high winds had pushed out the ducks I scouted the day before and was unable to hunt where I had planned anyway for fear of being killed by giant rolling tumble weeds. It really was that bad. Buffleheads, Mergansers, and a few Geese were just about all that remained.



I killed my first ever Common Mergansers. I was surprised how large they were. When the first flock flew in and landed in range off the point, I did not shoot as I was working some big Canadas with a flute call. Dash and his on the job training got a little too excited with the calling back and forth. One of my tumbleweeds broke free and rolled off into the water exposing us and giving our position away to the geese. The Mergansers now where not sure about the tumbleweed even though there were several floating across the lake. I wanted to hold out for some drakes that were just out of range, but had to settle for closer hen as it ran across the water trying to get airborn.



Beautiful long slender birds, drakes and hens both. I might have gotten a pair mounted if I had taken a drake, but I only killed hens and afterall they are trash birds. They will be fine in sausage makings though. Dash did not know what to think with fish falling out of his birds.



Sig1921 showed up in time to join us scouting and to prepare for the next morning's goose hunt. It looked bad. Reports were that the area's 50,000 Canadas had reduced to less than 5000. White geese were plentiful. Plan was to throw the kitchen sink at them and put out every decoy I had in the morning. Maybe a hundred Canada decoys, couple hundred Snow decoys, and a spread of 4 dozen crane decoys.





Saturday morning we used layouts and the conditions were tough. Being his first field Goose hunt Dash surprised me by being very manageable at the layout. Ten to Twenty thousand White geese settled in the next field and sucked in every Goose that wanted to stop. Nothing would decoy to us. Dash got credit for the only Goose taken. At the end of the hunt there was a single Ross Goose Way out in the wheat field. No idea how it got there or who shot it, but it had a broken wing. I sent Dash. He had fun running it down and tackling it. He carried that goose around the entire time while we picked up decoys.



Saturday afternoon we ran to a pond on a local WMA for an evening hunt, but found it occupied. So we moved on to plan B to hunt an area city lake. Nothing taken, but it was mostly a scouting mission as we had never hunted either place before. That night it snowed and got even colder.

Sunday we moved to a pit blind and only put out our best Canada decoys to try and pull some Canadas away from the live Snow Geese.



Dash looking regal.



It did not work, and we killed nothing. It was a nice morning just the same and enjoyed watching the Snow Geese move around.

Snow and Ross Geese



More Snows



Dash watching the show. I wonder what he might be thinking.



In the Pit.



Dash staying warm. Note the over under. My Ithaca Mag 10 broke a part on the first shot this trip, so my 10GA #2 hevi shot reloads never got used. I was stuck with factory 12 GA steel BB loads the whole time.



We picked up camp. Steve headed back to dallas, Jason on to Kansas as point man to scout and find us a motel, I detoured to visit with a 98 year old Great Aunt in a nursing home.



On the drive to SW Kansas the temp guage in the truck read 2 degrees and falling. That warm motel was nice after living in a tent. Next morning on the drive to hunt it was as low as -10. And not talking -10 wind chill. By the time we started setting up for the hunt it had warmed up to a toasty -6 degrees.

We met up with a couple Kansas locals, one who I had hunted with before, combined decoys and devised a plan. First using my kayak and safety rope to place decoys on the ice, but I ended up getting out a double blade axe and cutting a hole in the ice. It was work and I had uncovered my nose and mouth while I cut the hole. I found later I had a little frostbite on my nose.







We used layout blinds on the beach.





I made Dash wait in the truck until the temps got into the teens, but he did eventually get to do his job. At no time was he in any danger. I had been on the ice with a kayak, cut holes in the ice it to check the thickness, and we had the kayak, axe, and safety rope at the ready nearby.







Having aclimated I never really got cold. The frostbite smarted for about three days though. I think they really call it frostnip. It has already pealed off my nose. The Kansas hunter Bryan sent one bird to a taxidermist to give to his son.



Next day we tried it again. I cut a new hole a little farther out. Too deep to stand in it this time I had to work entirely from on top of the lake and kayak. I was able to stand on the sheet of cut ice till it started to sink, step off of it onto the lake, bury my axe into it and pull it under the lake in one solid piece. Very cool.

What was not cool was the Snow Geese again. They had a hole in the middle of the lake they were keeping open with body heat and agitation. One could see steam coming off of the birds early. These Geese like in Oklahoma sucked up every Goose and Duck that flew into the lake. Others just did not want to stop and kept flying past the lake. Nothing decoyed for us and we shot nothing.



Wednesday it was just Jason and me. Same snow goose problem, almost no Canadas now. We tried to push the geese off the lake and pass shoot, but no luck. Jason headed home and after trying a nearby WIHA for pheasant I headed for the Oklahoma panhandle.



I hunted north of Texhoma for Pheasant, found nothing and slept in the truck.. Tried other areas till I was west of Boise City. Everything was cut, baled, heavily grazed, or bare ground. No birds found. Game warden Rusty ran into me and I learned from him no one was finding birds. I found I had lost a few decoys and most of my decoy heads off my rig, so though Dash had fun running around, it was not my best day. I took no pictures here.

I headed in the direction of home, but at Rusty's recommendation stopped over at one of the NW OK WMAs for Quail. It saved the day. Dash in two hours time found one covey of Blues and Two of Bobs. For a couple hours it was like the old days and both Dash and I had quite the time.











I was to go home this evening, but decided last minute to stay and hunt the next day. Again, slept in my truck. But the morning hunt was very windy. It gave Dash trouble and made it no fun for me. so we picked up and drove towards home, which was promptly followed by a tire blowout I had to take care of.

Of all my hunting road trips, this one had the worst conditions and the hardest hunting. Lots of things went wrong or broke on this trip. More than I presented in this thread. But overcoming it all made it that much more of an adventure. I think it really toughened Dash too.

Great story and pictures. I have family in West Central OK. I hope to go quail or pheasant hunting up there one of these days.

Nice story

X2. Thanks for sharing! Dash sure is a good looking dog and he doesn't look a bit spoiled

Excellent story and pics John!! Great job of multi-tasking by Dash.

Great story & great pics as usual man.

Great story and great looking dog!

Had to laugh at the bed picture with Dash in it. That would be my red dog too, sleeping soundly in the comfy bed...

looks like a great hunt

Nice trip. Hopefully the ice has melted by the time we get to KS.

Nice story. Thanks for sharing. Looks like a good dog you got there.

VERY NICE!!!

Good read...and pictures!

#%$#%^ sky carp!

Great pictures. How long did it take you to do all the uploading and downloading for this thread?

With fototime I can do batch uploading or drag and drop. I do some simple edits with some pictures, cropping mostly, and that does take some time. But each time I do I put an "a" at the beginning of the name of the ones I want to save, so it stacks those photos together on top in the folder. That way I can drag them all to upload at one time. There is also a way to get all the pictures as ubb links in a single list that I can cut and paste from. Less time involved than you would think. During this trip I was down to a couple backup cameras, my phone, and stills with an old gopro, and none of them worked all the time. So I did not have as many pictures to choose from and they are not as good of pictures as I would have liked. It's just for the memories.

And I do hope in some way showing all the hunting Blaze and Dash has done by posting pictures presents them as ambasseduers for the breed as working hunting gun dogs, not just pet, show, and akc event dogs. I wish there were more people using these dogs for what they were born to do. Even the Vizsla Club of America mentions nothing of hunting within the objectives of their bylaws. That is sad.

Your stories and pictures never disappoint.
Thank you for sharing them with us.

Awesome trip, John.

Great story.

Awesome story and awesome pictures!

Thanks guys. You know after I returned from this trip, now when I watch the weather and see it is going to be 40 degrees with a low of 30 for the next day I'm like "awesome, it's going to be a nice warm day tomorrow". And something that I missed that was the reason I got frostbitten. I found out the blood pressure meds I am on make me susceptible to it in those conditions. I should have been more careful than the average person.

Awesome story and awesome pictures!