It is just about to get really busy at the high school I teach at. Next week is homecoming and all the foolishness that goes with it plus Mon is 9/11. My NJROTC unit is going to be going 10 different directions come Mon morning. So I decided it was a good weekend to run up to CO. Hunting season is kicking off and I carry a hunting license, fishing license and a furbearer license for the state. So bright and early this morning I headed to the Comanche National Grasslands. This is the same place I filled my antelope tag last year and is a place I know well.

Dove season opened on Sept 01. I haven't hunted doves in a long time but just got ahold of a 410 single shot and decided to give it a go. The 410 isn't the best tool for the job but the gun is new and I wanted to play with it. I knew the gun wouldn't have the range or the pattern density of a 12 ga or a 20 ga so I decided to pull what my late father used to call an "old Indian Trick" on them. The Comanche National Grasslands is a checkerboard of private and public land and has very little surface water but it does have stock tanks filled by windmills and nearly every one of the stock tanks has some trees around it. And they always hold doves.

Since I knew where there were several of these tanks I made this my plan. I would park at least a half a mile from them and slip in and get close to the trees and take my shots as the doves left the trees. Since there would be no vehicle and no noise I would not flush the birds early. The plan worked and I got 3 at the first stock tank which you can see in the background.


I was really happy with how the 410 worked. The only shells I could find were 2 1/2 inch shells with #9 shot so it was a real short range game. But the 3 tanks I hit all paid off with a couple birds apiece. I have no doubt that if I wanted to spend enough time that I could have taken a daily limit of 15 birds but I am kind of one of those limit your kill guys rather than a kill your limit guy. I stopped at 7 birds which will make a couple of meals for me. As soon as I was done with the doves I cleaned them and got them on ice.


I had another Old Indian Trick up my sleeve that I wanted to play. The CO teal season opened today and they normally have a limit of 3 but for some reason it is 6 this year. Teal are a very good eating duck and I had an idea that I may know where to find some in this very arid grassland. I knew where there is a natural creek that is nearly completely on private land except for a section about a half a mile long. Not many people know about it and I don't tell anybody, including my brother, where it is. For the most part the creek is shrouded by reeds and cattails but there are 2 places where it opens up into small ponds.


Since water is scarce in these parts of CO, all the animals use the available water sources. Deer, antelope, turkeys, coyotes, bobcats and most importantly today, teal. Because waterfowl has to be taken with non-toxic shot the little 410 stayed in the truck and I broke out my old Win 12 ga pump for the creek and loaded it up with #5 steel shot. Teal are not a big duck and you don't need big pellets and the #5 patterns well in this old pump. I knew I would bust any ducks before I could get to the place I wanted to set up but I also knew they had limited places around there to set down. And so I put plan #2 into action.

As I neared the creek I flushed teal right were the reeds and cattails thinned out. I am guessing somewhere around 50 birds took to the air and I moved quickly to a place where I could sort of get covered by some trees and see both directions on the pond. In a few minutes the birds began coming back in, mostly in singles or small groups. The old pump still worked and I unloaded it when I had 4 birds, all bluewing teal. I could taken taken more, but these will make a couple of tasty dinners. I took the birds back to the truck and then plucked and dressed them and got them on ice.


But I wasn't done for the day. This creek is also the only place I know in CO that has native green sunfish. According to a game warden I once talked to, the creek has never been stocked and nobody knows for sure how they got there because there is no other natural water around. I grabbed an ultralight spinning rod and a small box of spinners and jigs and went back to the creek, leaving the shotgun in the truck so I wouldn't be "tempted." Nothing wanted the spinners so I tried a black jig. They wanted that. I took a dozen of so green sunfish on the black jig and then decided to try yellow and they wanted it as well.


None of the fish were huge, the creek just isn't going to support large fish but I got a couple that were in the 6 inch, give or take a little, range. Most of them were 4 to 5 inches with a few dinks, and they were full of fight. They were all released to fight again another day. I have never seen anybody else fish here and have never even seen a footprint from anybody but me. This is one of my little "special" places that I am very protective of and I only go there once or twice a year and sometimes it is every other year. Someday when I can no longer do the walking required to reach it I will tell one of my nephews about it. But until then. it is my little secret.

Cheers Y'All.
Life is good.

Great read! Sounds like a blast!!

That's awesome!

That was a nice trip.

That sounds great, I would love to do something like that again one day. As a boy most of my hunts were mixed bag hunts, I miss those days

Nice hunting and fishing trip!

That really takes me back. I grew up fishing for those green sunfish in the creeks around our place in Kansas. They were always a thrill to pull out of a small fishing hole.

Looks like a great trip. I just got back from CO and with the low water flows this time of year, the fly fishing was outstanding.