Black Forest HP
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| 02/27/2006 2:28 PM |
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Well I hope everyone had a great hunting season. We managed another great year here in the Panhandle. For the second year in a row our group of hunters managed to put 700 wild birds in the freezer.
Conditions were very dry, but bird numbers were well above average so things really worked out good. We managed several pheasant but these came as bonus birds on our quail hunts.
The dogs performed very good in spite of the dry scenting conditions we had day in and day out. My only wish was that we could have hunted some of the dogs more, but we were unable to because of the fact they had pups on the ground. One of the things I will never forget was letting Zado out with her pups one day at lunch and she actually went on point near the edge of the yard. This in and of itself is not out of the ordinary here, but what was unique was the fact that while she was on point one of her pups went up to her and started to nurse! Where is the camera when you need it!!!
Well I hope everyone had a great season. Hopefully I will get to see several of you at the spring events
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Shawn Hoover
BFK of the High Plains
Booker, TX
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CK_Ranger
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| 02/27/2006 3:36 PM |
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I would have been impressed if you told me all of the pups were backing their mother!!! JK, Very cool!
Let me know if you ever need help on those quail;) |
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Air Castle
Claremore,Oklahoma
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| 02/27/2006 7:40 PM |
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Shawn
Glad to hear you did well again I heard alot of mixed reviews on those late season birds.
looks like there was alot of birds left over for breeding season. Hope it rains soon we are still dry here less than an inch of rain since Oct. 1st 2005 |
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Tom McCool
Air Castle Ranch
Pointing Labs Do It All
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Black Forest HP
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| 02/28/2006 8:39 AM |
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Tom
We are still in great shape as far as carry over birds for the upcoming breeding season. However it is VERY dry even by our standards. If we do not get some rain it will significantly affect next season.
We have been busy getting our spring disking and fire breaks in place. Our next project is to plant our terraces east of the kennel into grass. I talked with the biologist this morning and he made his recommendations, so now we are getting the seed and drills to get this project underway in the next few weeks. I am really looking forward to getting this done as it works great for working young pups as we have discussed privately before.
Another project is to put two ponds in south and west of the kennel. We have the dimmensions now we have get bids from the dirt contractors. Then we will plant several acres of the wheat field into a mixture of various food sources which will be left unharvested.
Things are definately changing since the last time you were out here. We have covered the old garage north of the kennel building with tin and it looks like a brand new building now. I am having a new house build and it should be completed by July or August. Then we will be putting tin on the old dairy barn and converting it over to the whelping barn. When it is all complete we will have a world class operation in place.
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Shawn Hoover
BFK of the High Plains
Booker, TX
www.blackforesthighplains.com |
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Air Castle
Claremore,Oklahoma
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| 02/28/2006 9:00 AM |
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Shawn
Glad to hear things are going good. I'm in the process of building new kennels, well adding on to what I already have. Just picked up a trailer load of metal panels from a customer at no cost well I will trade him for a bird hunt. If all goes well should be completed by end of March this will give me eight new Kennel runs will be putting in septic and all the bells and whistles. I have a 100 new Homers coming in on Friday never previously flown all registered racing stock and an unlimited supply of trapped birds. hope to see you this spring if not definately this fall test season. Just starting to get dogs in for training after the fire. That yellow dog is doing well ha spointed alot of birds this season and is honoring other dogs on point. not to bad for a hard headed yellow dog out of a decent yellow female. just kidding |
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Tom McCool
Air Castle Ranch
Pointing Labs Do It All
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Doc_E
N.E. WA state
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| 02/28/2006 9:04 AM |
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We don't normally have great quail hunting in our part of WA (other areas are awsome), but for the last couple years, our quail population has been booming.
We would go out for a quick quail hunt at least once a week (after the morning flight of waterfowl). We got quite a few nice bunches of quail this year. Our pheasant population is looking better too.
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Doc E and Cujo Casey boy. |
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2Blackdogs!
Kansas City Area - GO CHIEFS !!!
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| 02/28/2006 10:20 PM |
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| When I was in Tx hawg huntn' picked up the "Lonestar outdoor news". In it they talked about record numbers of "Blue" Quail in the sw part of the state-and i mean big time record numbers. Would be neat to see one of them types. |
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h4everything
Blanchard, OK
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| 03/01/2006 6:31 AM |
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| Blue Quail are pretty neat birds they will run in huge covey. Sometimes over 100 birds. They tend to run alot to unless they are in really thick cover. OK had a really good bird season. Never kicked up less than 4 coveys on my little hunting lease. I went Pheasant hunting a couple of times up by Perryton. South Dakota doesn't have anything on Texas from what I experienced. There was birds everywhere and a group of 8 limited out (2 birds) in less than 2 hours. W/O dogs. It was amamzing. |
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Black Forest HP
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| 03/01/2006 7:24 AM |
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H4everything
When were you in Perryton? That is in my backyard. Do you have a lease in OK or TX?
You are right about blues... they run like crazy. We have found that using a hawk call slows them down about 30% of the time. It is also fun to hunt them in the snow. If you get about 2-4 inches and it is cold as can be, that is the time to go after them. THey do not run near as much in the snow and you can really limit out fast.
Blues are also easier to hit (in my opinion) than bobs if they flush within range. They are bigger and do not seem to weave as much as a bob does in flight.
Having never hunted the Dakota's, I have nothing to compare our pheasant hunting to, but I did have a few guys who were out hear this year tell us the same thing. One guy was out getting a pup and he wanted to see the dam work, so we walked our stip of milo. When we got to the end, pheasants went everywhere. He then made the comment that the numbers of birds he was seeing out here was better than what he had seen in S.D. the year before.
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Shawn Hoover
BFK of the High Plains
Booker, TX
www.blackforesthighplains.com |
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2Blackdogs!
Kansas City Area - GO CHIEFS !!!
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| 03/01/2006 8:56 AM |
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| I never knew there was good Pheasant numbers there-Took a look at the map and see the areas you are talking about are way up in the panahndle right on the Tx/Ok border. Is this a localized hot spot or is the pheasant population good in a wide area? Could be a fun trip going south instead of west or north sometime... |
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Black Forest HP
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| 03/01/2006 9:09 AM |
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It is a sleeper area. We do not get the press that other area do because we get press on the deer and quail hunting instead.
Pheasant numbers are good across most of the northern TX Panhandle and OK panhandle. It is not uncommon for me to see in excess of 15 roosters to over 30 every night on my way home from work (10 miles). Just two nights ago, I saw 18 rooster (did not count hens) and 32 prairie chickens. ( We can not shoot them however, still they are neat to see. |
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Shawn Hoover
BFK of the High Plains
Booker, TX
www.blackforesthighplains.com |
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h4everything
Blanchard, OK
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| 03/01/2006 9:54 AM |
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Shawn,
My name is Jason. I am the young man that works for the oil company. I came up up to your place back in October.
I was hunting on a friends place right outside of Perryton in milo and tail water pits and on some CRP over by Farnsworth. I unfortunatley have never been up to SD but the from what I have heard and seen on TV they have nothing on the TX panhandle. BTW I ended up getting a BAR H yellow pup from Dan down in Mustang. I hope that I didn't let out the secret. Maybe next year if I am headed up there you could meet me over there and unleash some top PL and show some people what it is about.
Jason |
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Black Forest HP
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| 03/01/2006 10:10 AM |
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| I remeber you. I just did not put it all together from your post. |
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Shawn Hoover
BFK of the High Plains
Booker, TX
www.blackforesthighplains.com |
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