The Latest Happenings

of Our Hunters and Duck-Hunting Dogs

Stay up-to-date on the latest happenings of WTG Hardcore when you read our detailed hunting log. We frequently participate in hunting events and competitions throughout the area, and we encourage you and your duck-hunting dogs to head out and join us during these fun-filled events. Contact us today for details.

Hunting Log
Opening Weekend (11/21/2009)
Day 1: WTG in flooded rice field—first 30 minutes was fast and furious. Sissy could barely keep up. Shooting was way above expectations. We left with 14 on the stringer. We saw tons of high-flying ducks.

Day 2: Sissy broke the 1,000 mark! Sissy brought back a woody drake and that made #1,000 retrieve.  Sissy is 3 years old and this is the beginning of her third season.

WTG at The Festival! (10/4/09)
Mack's Prairie Wings Fall Festival is basically like the county fair for waterfowl enthusiasts. Instead of a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, and carnie games, they have the Super Retriever Series Dog competition, duck dog challenge, five-stand sporting clay shoots, Tommy Browning shooting exhibitions, and a Team Waterdog Retriever seminar. It is a place you can walk around and see everything having to do with waterfowl hunting. You can even bring your dog and participate in the events. We brought Sissy Louise and Diesel.

Sissy was holding onto first place in the duck dog challenge until the late afternoon. Sissy had a time of 27.6 seconds, but then we got bumped by another dog with a time of 27.06 seconds. I am pretty sure they cheated. The winner got a $500 shopping spree at Avery.

Diesel was entered in the amateur SRS Superfly competition. This is something that he had never even seen. Diesel finished 6th out of 13, with a 14-foot, 1-inch best jump. The first place amateur in our group laid down a 22-foot, 8-inch jump. It was that dog's first competition as well. The pros had competed prior to the amateurs and did not produce a jump this long. This event marks the end of summer and the beginning of duck season. That means it is time to get ready to go back into the field.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (9/20/09)
Last week's Teal hunt went well. This week's Teal hunt, however, was pretty bad. Sooner or later, it's going to get ugly. Fortunately for the WTG, today just fell to the bad category. We've had constant rain since last week and we could see water way up in the bushes when we pulled up in our truck. We could hear millions of mosquitoes buzzing when we stepped out of our truck. We spent the next 45 minutes loading, dragging, and paddling our flat bottom boat to get to a spot that was no better hunting than the truck we got out of.

The highlights of the morning were criticizing Zach's decoy placement (I still think that's why we didn't kill any teal) and listening to James complain about the mosquitoes. Sissy became quite proficient at snatching the flying bloodsuckers out of the air. Although none of the birds we killed had bands, one was very mature and in full plumage. That one is definitely headed to the taxidermy.