Stone Creek Haven: The Annual North Dakota Wild Chicken Hunt

Happy Weekend,
I hope yours is as peachy as can be.

A bit belated, but well worth the posting, here are some pictures and details of our annual hunting trip to North Dakota. Every year for opening day of Pheasant, we pack up and head east to meet up with our Colorado friends at the Stein's place north of Dickinson for bird hunting. I am the only lady invited, probably for good reason. Clearly, it is man bonding time including shooting, cocktailing and hunting, but the kicker is that we jammed 6 people and 8 dogs in a single wide trailer for four days of festivites, and really no privacy. But I love it, and the boys keep inviting me back, as the only lady with first right of refusal. I would be silly and stupid to give up my spot! Really all the boys, after they limit early, strategize and help me to bag a bird or two. This experience provides for belly laughs, multiple dog howl offs, plenty of Bloody Marys and whiskey. Oh goody, our annual red neck hunt, and it was such a blast.

Bella, our Brittany, is on injury reserve. She tore her shoulder muscle hunting and probably powered through it. She showed no signs of being lame or whimpering until we were in the truck and headed home. Bella cried and wined from the Steins to Glendive, MT....well I may have cried that long too. It was torture. Currently, she is on the mend after pain killers, anti-inflammatories, and muscle relaxers. We start physical therapy next week and she is getting better, slowly. So as quickly as our bird hunting season began, it quickly quieted to a whisper until we get our star pointer back to racing form.

With great elation, I did limit one day on Pheasant and also shot a Hun that same day. 4 birds is the most I have bagged ever in a day with a total of 9 birds on our hunt. Thank goodness all the training, skeet shooting, and Fletcher hunting strategy has come to fruition. In past years I have nearly chewed through my plastic whistle in annoyance and angst, but not this year. My bird hunting zen has finally found a home, and with the help of Bella, all the Fletchers are having way more fun hunting. Shooting better doesn't hurt either. We ended up bring home two dozen Pheasants, 4 Sharptailed Grouse and a few Huns, a nice mixed bag of wild chicken.

Disclaimer: It may be quite possible that some of you as readers will find the below photos of our birds to be offensive or gross. But I would rather have it this way. We harvest birds that we have worked hard to find and hunt, it is just not that easy, for me at least. There is something very serious and wholesome in taking a critter's life to sustain yours. The Flethchers have seemingly built a lifestyle around this philosophy and take great pride in personally harvesting our meat, knowing where it came from, taking the time to process and freeze our game, to picking out the ideal recipe to compliment the game's wild and yummy flavor.

Thanks for reading and thinking a bit :)

Another good reason for fingerless gloves,

you can still shoot your gun.