Hi All,

About a week home now from my second trip to Lafleche Saskatchewan for waterfowl hunting.

I guess I won't go on at length about all the in's and out's of the hunt, to summarize, it is a real treat.

Thompson Lake is immediately north of the town of Lafleche. I wouldn't hazard more than a guess at how many birds it holds during the migration, but it surely has to be in the 100's of thousands. Snow and Blue geese seem to be the predominant bird, but puddle ducks of all varieties, white front geese, at least a couple different subspecies of Canada geese, and the occasional swan and crane are available. (Swans are there but no open season,)

We stay at a motel/ bar/ restaurant in Lafleche that is very accomodating to hunters. I don't think this particular place is that unusual since I have not met an un accomodating person in Ssakatchewan yet! Seriously, it must be something in the water. As I mentioned before, this was my second trip, but the fourth for my usual hunting partner. Neither of us have even once had a conversation with anyone in Saskatchewan that wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. What a great community to visit!

For gear, this year I shot a 12ga Red Label for the first time and used #3 Hevi Shot. I seemed to shoot it well and didn't miss the third shot from the repeaters. I don't think I'll go back. Hevi Shot of course works quite well. My friend shoots a Benelli and uses Black Cloud. After trying some of his ammo, I don't think I'll go back to Hevi Shot. That load of steel shot just works! I'll cleanly kill big geese like the old lead did. We drove up from the Boise area and towed an enclosed trailer with around 150 full body and shell Canada goose decoys. Layout blinds were of course part of the deal, and this year for the first time I used a layout blind for the dog. It brushes up the same as a hunters blind and if properly trained the dog stays in and down all the way thru the hunt. On our best decoy hunt the birds were quite close and there were lots of them so I'm fairly certain the dog and a blind were'nt an issue. I'll use it again!

Crossing the border was a breese going both ways and I am so impressed and appreciative of the agents on both sides. Nice folks but at the same time taking their job very seriously. On the way back I snipped a handful of un harvested wheat from the corner of a harvested field. I suspected they wouldn't let me cross with it, but I wanted to bring it back to Alaska for a feather/ wheat/ vase arrangement I have for decoration. I told the officer on the American side what I had, and like I suspected he said "No you can't," and they just let me walk back across and put it in the Canadian dumpster after I told the Canadian officer what I'd tried to do. The whole operation was conducted with smiles and courtesy. It just couldn't have felt more comfortable.

The hunting this year was a little different than what we've had in the past. In a weeks time we only had one good decoy shoot. On Tuesday we found a good size group of Canada geese feeding near the lake and obtained permission to hunt for the following morning. By about 9:30am Wednesday we had decoyed into the bag 10 giant Canada geese 2 whitefronts and a drake mallard. The rest of the week we spent un successfully hunting over decoys in the morning, (scratch a bird or two,) and scouting/ pass shooting in the afternoon. The winds blew fairly hard more than a couple of evenings and as the birds flew off the roost on the lake to eat for the afternoon, it made some really good pass shooting opportunities. Both my partner and I would prefer to decoy but we will take advantage of what we are presented with.

The best part of the actual hunt was the work my 2 1/2 year old female lab got. In all we reduced about 85 or so birds to possession and she retrieved around 50 of those. The snows, specks, ducks and 7-8# Canada geese she handled really well, but the 14# giants! Well they gave her a hard time. In the end the dog figured out how to grab a bird at the intersection of the wing and breast, (armpit,) and she'd come running back with the bird all the way off the ground. I was very proud, excited, pleased and relieved to see her handle so many birds and so well. Next month we'll be off to North Dakota to hunt pheasants and geese some more, and I'm really looking forward to building on what she learned last month.

In all a great piece of country to visit or live in. I really respect and admire the life the folks of that area have made for themselves. Good waterfowl hunting with plenty of opportunities. Farmers/ Ranchers/ Landowners are hospitable with their acreage and we were only turned away once due to the proximity of the proposed hunting area to his wifes day care center. We thought that was funny and of course happily complied.

Wow I'm surprised to see Lafleche mentioned here. My wife's family is from that there and I've hunted deer in the area a lot. It's a sportsman's paradise and if you can ever get there for upland game birds you'll be blown away. I've probably seen 700 pheasants in a week and literally thousands of grouse in the same time. I plan a week of birding next year and if anyone wants to tag along I'd love to have company.

the chef

Yo, Chef !!! Pick me !!! I'm going to be down in Montana and South Dakota doing my best to find a pheasant ... it would be great to hunt in Saskatchewan too ... I got the time and several boxes of shells !!!!

Scruffy we should start talinkg about it next august or so. I'd like to get a little group together, t'would be fun!!

CUrrently pheasants are only available for Sask residents.
That area should have very good hungarian and sharptail hunting.

Murph is that only late season or the whole season that pheasants are for residents? I'm fine with ducks and grouse anyway.

I understood pheasants to be for residents also. Loads of Huns in the grain fields. We mostly passed.

Great Waterfowling!

I went on a fabulous snow goose shoot yesterday and one chap was from South Dakota ... He told me that on a good day he would see 3,000 pheasants .... easy to see a 1,000 .... I would be fine with leaving the roosters to the fine folks from Saskatchewan and content myself with ducks and grouse ... (I still need a blue goose !!!)

quote:

Originally posted by calgarychef1:
Murph is that only late season or the whole season that pheasants are for residents? I'm fine with ducks and grouse anyway.

Pheasant is restricted to Sask residents durring both the regular and late seasons.

Those who pass up huns are missing out on some great shooting. Two weeks ago i took several hunters from Montreal and Ottawa out for upland. Durring the week the guys got 82 huns and 15 sharpies. They are very tough targets and when conditions are windy as durring the week it is difficult to get more than 1 or 2 birds per covey rise even with 3 good shooters. The boys must have averaged only 1 bird on those coveys we could even get shots at and we were unable to get shots at several coveys for each one that worked.

I went and looked at the regs last night and Murf is right. I'm origionally from Sask and they really should get their heads out of their asses and allow non-res hunting of more species. I'd pay big dollars for a non res mulie tag if it was available and I'd drop lotsa dough hunting pheasants. Considering that the winter kill for upland game birds including pheasants is 70-90 percent it wouldn't make a difference if we shot the hell out of them every fall-they would just die anyway.

I'm still up for sharpies, rabbits,pigeon etc.

cheers

One potential problem with openning pheasants to non Sask hunters is that the birds are found in a few relatively small areas. It would be very easy to over shoot them and also getting access would be very difficult. As it is many groups and individuals are involved with stocking programs and cutting their opportunities would reduce bird numbers greatly. Good habitat for pheasants is becoming rarer due to large numbers of cattle and severe over grazing.

As for mulies it is only fairly recently that mulie numbers have increased. When I started hunting in the early 1960's the tag was good for one deer, either species and either sex. Due to a number of reasons the mulies were hit very hard and had to be totally protected for 20 years or so. As it is mulie are draw only so numbers can be controlled and quotas adjusted on a yearly basis.

I saw the largest mule deer buck I think I've ever seen west of Lafleche on the highway 4 years ago. Truely magnificent.