Grouse Hollow Journal for the week of October 24, 2013

Grouse Hollow Journal for the week of October 24, 2013 by Greg Koelker

Monday mornings come early in North Dakota, or so it seemed on the Monday morning  I was there when duck commander Doug starting rousting us from our sleeping bags at early-thirty.  I stumbled out to the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot I had prepared the night before and then took a long last look at my bed before I got dressed.  Jim went out, slowly, heading outside for a cigarette before making his own instant coffee.  Doug was already outside letting the dogs out to do their business and get some breakfast. After a trip outside myself, I poured myself a steaming cup of strong coffee, and started some scrambled eggs with sausages on the stove, and turned to making toast. The boys apparently appreciated that I didn’t mind cooking breakfast. Bachelor Jim even mentioned hiring me to work at his house.  Anyway, we had a plan for the day, and we shuffled about loading gear and dogs and were off to Doug’s property long before light.

I am sure glad Doug knew where he was going as the maze like grid of miles
long, straight paved, gravel, and dirt roads cut through bean and corn fields had me totally lost.  (Ellen would probably add that this is pretty much normal when we travel.)  After off loading decoys, guns, seats, and dogs, we had a short walk through a corn field and then a cattail marsh to get to the pothole where the boys
intended to set up our first ambush of the trip.  Things were looking pretty good
as Doug and Steve were setting out decoys in that half light that turns the  eastern horizon gray and then red just before dawn. While they and the dogs were still standing in the water, a couple of dozen mallards came drifting in and landed in among our decoys!  Those surprised birds scrambled skyward when the dogs started splashing after them, but the promise of more added to the tension and excitement.

We were set up on the end of an oblong pothole with a light wind at our back.  With a somewhat startling whoosh of wings, the birds came out of the dark into our decoy spread and we shot. The dogs raced to retrieve the downed birds, whether or not we brought any down. Steve's long legged Josie was the quickest, joyfully bounding out through the knee deep water to beat the older Brock.  Jim held Ollie as best he could at first.  The boys tried to have them take turns, but the dogs were having none of that.  We had a couple shot ducks crash in behind us in the corn, but with a minute or two of searching, the dogs collected them.  We saw a few geese in the distance, and the boys called to them but there were no takers.
  
As it got full on daylight, despite all the deadly drama of the pothole, life for normal people was going on around us. Pickups rumbled by on the gravel road.  Grain semi's whined by on the highway. I could hear cattle lowing in the distance from every direction. Tractors and I think even milk machines (although I never saw any dairy cows in the area) come to life in the far distance. I saw the flashing beacon of a school bus pass on the nearby town road.  I heard a horn honk, and few minutes later, the students and bus went back the other way, most likely heading for nearby Wishek and a day in school.  I thought about my friends back at good old DHS for a moment, and then was startled out of my reverie by gunfire.  

As the morning wore on, we talked quietly from out stands to wile away the lulls, mostly about how we could have set up better or where we might find more ducks and geese.  I would have killed for another cup of coffee or even a drink of water; I resolved to bring a thermos with me the next morning.  By midday, we called it quits on the pothole.  We had 18 ducks, mallards and gadwalls.  I accounted for a couple of them I guess.  

Back at the ranch, we grilled some hot dogs and cleaned the birds, picking off the downy chest feathers and filleting out the breasts. After a break to build up our strength, with a nap, we went on a scouting trip.  Doug drove around and we scoured the skies for birds.  We saw them too; flocks of geese and ducks swirled up and down out of picked grain fields on land we couldn't hunt.  But they were around.    

That evening we sat facing into the sunset at the first pothole.  Between the four of us we got six more birds.  It was a long sit with the sun in my eyes, and I got a bit chilled as the constant breeze/wind sapped heat from my neck and ears.  I fixed toasted cheese sandwiches while Doug warmed up some hamburger casserole for supper.  I talked to Ellen for awhile, and then the boys and I had cocktails. As the night on the prairie cooled, none of us needed to be told to hit the sack. 

Anyway, we got 8 ducks on Tuesday.  Jim bought lunch at the  Home Plate cafe in Fredonia.  The Home Plate is across the street from the Third Base bar.  To get some perspective on Fredonia, think Readstown only flat with huge grain silos and railroad tracks.  I found Fredonia on a website called The Ghost Towns of North Dakota.  The Home Plate is the number one rated restaurant in Fredonia according to Trip Advisor online; it is the only one I think.  Regardless, those “ghosts” know how to make a great hamburger and fries and the place is nicely decorated with a case full of sticky rolls and pie.  Steve spent the afternoon preparing duck breasts for the grill.  He had put them in a marinade of Italian dressing the night before.  He got them ready by slitting the breasts lengthwise and putting a mixture of chopped jalapenos and cream cheese in the cavity.  He wrapped each breast with fatty bacon and tacked the strips in place with toothpicks.  The whole batch sat on the kitchen table under a cover of paper towels until supper time when he grilled them.  They were exquisite.  

Wednesday proved tougher hunting. After a breakfast sandwich of egg, smoky turkey link, cheese, and toast, we had to walk nearly a mile around a soybean field to get to the chosen pothole, in the dark.  I stepped in holes and took tumbles - twice, once jamming my gun barrel.  We got some shooting but not as much as Monday. Doug and Steve decided to move the decoys, so I waded out to get the ones in front of me.  I lost my balance in the muck and fell to a knee.  Doug walked out and took the dekes, then I fell again.  He had to help me up as my knee boot was coming off.  I was wet up both of my legs.  At least the water was warm.  I walked off the wetness with a hike back to the truck to get some seats for Steve and I.  At the trailer, I twisted the water out of my socks, before heading back.  I could see the drama as a goose came over and then crashed far out in a bean field.  Jim came out with Ollie and Josie to look for it.  After racing to and fro in the long grass and beans, Jim called the dogs off.  The sharp nosed hunters must have been frustrated by the distance I think.  I think we ended the morning with one gadwall.  That evening Bill Brunkow and his friend “Mossy” pulled in from Wisconsin.  We had Ellen's homemade chicken soup and  burgers for supper.

On Thursday morning breakfast was free range, and in the marsh, the sun lit the sky with rosy-fingered streaks over the cattails behind me, setting fire to the cornfields across the pond from me.  It was cool; it was a bluebird day, and the ducks that flew into the decoys ahead of me flew out.  How do you miss such easy shots?  Anyway, we all got skunked.  
   
Due to the weather and the dearth of ducks, we decided that night to head home in the morning. On Friday we stopped in Lehr to see Donnie and for Doug to do some business with the home owner he was buying from.  Then we stopped in Ashley at the McIntosh County courthouse to sign some papers. I went in the courthouse to use the facilities.  It is a beautiful old building that is well-kept.  I walked downtown to the Shed Cafe to refill my coffee mug.  People there were talking about the freak blizzard in South Dakota.  The lady who checked me out said that she and her husband were traveling east from Idaho when that storm hit.  They got off the interstate at Wall, South Dakota (you know, Wall Drug) and got a motel room.  She added that the next morning the cars in the parking lots were buried over their roofs in the snow.  Yikes!  

I got home Friday night in time for the Highlight Zone football scores.  It was great to honor my old friend, Greg, get reacquainted with Doug, get to know Steve and Jim and Bill and Mossy, watch some really good retriever work, and see the sunrise on the prairie.  Next trip to North Dakota may be for ice fishing.  We shall see.

Until next time, get out - Ellen is gleaning the last of the bounty from her garden: peppers, tomatoes, raspberries, zucchini, basil, and flowers.  The recent frosts have taken their toll.  She has fixed stuffed peppers, basil brie and tomatoes, zucchini bread and zucchini chocolate cake, and she canned some tomato soup, that I have tested along side a grilled cheese and pesto sandwich.  It is good to be home.  Enjoy.