Mine would definatly be the duck season. I like duck season for several reasons.. I like the fast action! Always on the lookout for a flock or that loner that seems to buzz the tower from nowhere!

I also like hanging out, bs ing with my buddies while hunting.

What is your fav small game season?

Guys I'm going with coon hunting. What a great time setting on the tailgate on a starfilled night after a hectic day at work listening to a good hound telling you a story about the chase.

Ducks and geese. Lots of shooting (and missing for me!), usually lots to watch, even if they don't come your way.

I also like the fact you have to fool them, generally, if you are to get a good shot. Granted, knowing you are smarter than a duck might not be much ;) but for those who have seen LOTS of ducks that don't come into your dekes, you know you did something wrong, and figuring that out is fun.

I also like the "stuff" that goes with duckin. Dekes, shotguns, different shells, calls, kennels, dummies (sometime the dummy has nothing to do with retreiving, ha!), and the dogs. I also love the water and hunting over it. My brother and I have even sat in our walleye boat, in the reeds, with dekes out and slip bobbers with suckers, and he shot a duck while I was reeling in a pike. Now it doesn't get any better than that :) And yeah, the BSing with buds in a boat or blind is great way to make great memories.

My wife likes grouse cause she hates sitting still, and all the walking through pretty forests is great for her. I like it too, but not like duckin.

-Box

http://www.walleyecentral.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=103808

I have to go with pheasant! For me there is nothing like hunting over my shorthairs. I think the best part is watching the dogs work, those points are beautiful! It's satisfying seeing all the hard work I've put into my dogs pay off. Those big cackling roosters get my heart pumping! And of course, they taste mmm,mmmm,mmm!

BIRDDOG

FOR BETTER OR WORSE FISHING AND HUNTING COME FIRST

My first 32 years were spent in Northern Minnesota and my favorite season was waterfowl. My favorite target was bluebills, especially late season bluebills. When I was in my 20's Dad and I would use the mid-season lull in Northern Minnesota duck hunting...and go to Saskatchewan to hunt geese, mallards and pintails. It was there that I got also into hunting Huns and Sharptails. (Which was pretty awesome there in those days).

Then I moved to Montana, and after being here 25 years I have gradually become purely an upland bird hunter. The dogs are the deal. I love our upland bird season here.
It starts Sept.1 and runs through December. That gives the dogs, the wife, and me ample opportunity to get plenty of exercise.
We hunt Huns, Blue Grouse, Sharptail, Pheasants, and even a few Sage hens.

My answer: Upland bird season!

T Mac,

What does a blue grouse look like compaired to the ruffed grouse? Is the meat as white, or is it darker.

Iv'e had sharptail and spruce and they are both darker meat than ruffed, but iv'e never even seen a blue before.

They are larger than a ruffed. Adults weigh about the same as pheasants...with hens being smaller than males, like pheasants.
The meat is white, depending on age and diet can be as good as ruffed grouse, or a bit piney on the big old males. Waaayyyyyyyy better than Sage grouse 'tho. ;)

The females look similar to a ruffed in coloration. The males are dark (bluish)gray and have some (Bluish) black on the tails and wings.

We have also have some ruffs, Spruce hens and a few Ptarmigan in Montana.
PS: Don't shoot Spruce hens .....unless you like the taste of spruce needles!!! EEEEYUCKKK!

I'll agree with all of you guys. Many seasons are great for many reasons.

Coon season used to be great - wife, son, brother, and I would take out the hounds and have a wonderful time. We had old fashioned redbones and english hounds who were like family members. Our lab would walk with us and listen to the hound music. We had some great times. The hounds are gone now, but will never be forgotten. Trophy - thanks for jogging my memory.

Waterfowl season is great whether it is hunting from a boat-blind, layout boat and a big water rig for divers, field blinds for geese, or a lake blind. We take the labs and can't tell who has more fun us or them. I have two labs who are brothers and will be three years old in December. They are great fun every day of the year, and especially in waterfowl season. They are delighted when we are all wet and muddy. They have developed keen hunting skills. It is wonderful to watch a waterfowl season thru them. Last year they really blossomed and learned to spot and hear ducks and geese better than me. They get very excited when they hear wings in the dark.

Pheasant season is great too, mostly because of the labs. Last year, the boys found their first wild rooster. Flushed him together, and he dropped in a thicket. They came out with him and made a tandem retrieve to hand wagging all the way. They are great fun!

Enjoy all the seasons. O F

Ohio Fisherman, by all means if you would like tag along some time you are more than welcome. I'm located in Upper Sandusky. I have an excellent 2 year old male who is priceless, and a 1 year old who isn't far behind him. I would be honored if you wanted to go, or any other W.C. member for that matter.

While I've got labs, I'd agree that watching a well trained dog do "his job" is absolutely the most satisfying part of the hunt (except maybe for my oldest son getting his first pheasant). I can honestly say I don't know that I'd hunt without a dog again.

Trophy - thanks for the invitation! I would love to go sometime and listen to the music. I live in Carroll County. Thanks again! O F

Pheasant hunting is #1 watching a good dog working the bird is an awesome sight. I can hardly wait for the season to open.

Grouse and Timberdoodles ! Have a new (just a year old) English Setter Pup that's doing quite well. Something about Bird Dogs - side by side Shotguns - Bean Boots and a brass bell tinkleing in thick cover. Must be that Gene Hill influance from years ago. Bob WC#253.

All of them. I try to get out an hunt everything at least once during the year. I do more of some than the others but I like the challenge of all the species that are out there! All time favorite game to hunt would be Honkers!

All time favorite is hunting squirrels (and maybe a few birds:-)) with my single-shot 410. Always take along a sack to pick mushrooms should my wood's wandering get lucky.

Nothing better than plucking feathers, skinning squirrel, and packing 'rooms while feeling flushed from the events of the day.

I would probably say squirrel hunting also, if it weren't for the skeeters and the fact that I'm really scouting for deer anytime I'm in the woods or driving anywhere or etc. lol I do enjoy squirrel hunting. I hunt everything with a bow. I usually have to be dragged off the lake to go hunting anytime before Nov.1st though.

Hunting squirrels behind our dog after the deer seasons close. For all the reasons the bird hunters have mentioned about watching their dogs work, and you practicly have the woods to yourself.

I don't think I've seen anything but pheasant, huns and sharptails in NE montana. Would that be right T-Mac. My favorite has to be Montana pheasants,or wait, maybe Mont. sharptail err maybe huns. No, I guess I'll pick all three !!! :-)

rod bender bob

Grouse. I have wonderful memories of hunting with my dad and our black lab in northern Minnesota where I grew up. Hunting up there with my teenage buddies was a real blast--we had some great times. Now, almost twenty years ago, while grouse hunting in Wisconsin with my wife and four boys, our young lab flushed a grouse that we managed to shoot somewhat poorly. The young lab was right on it and she retrieved her first grouse. Grouse hunting has been great.

But wait, PHEASANT hunting is really where my heart is. My dad took me and a whole bunch of folks on an annual pheasant hunting trip to Benson, Minnesota. It was really neat to stay in a motel and hunt in a huge group. Lots of fun. When my boys were still young, I used to go off on a pheasant hunting trip to Iowa for the opener, many years running. Stayed with a great guy who did a fabulous job of hosting many hunters. Those were great hunts. That faded away, but then I discovered game farms one year when the water was too frozen to duck hunt. Whoopee! My boys and my lab loved it. We were all hooked. Enjoyed some years of that, and then our lab (#2) had her last hunt. We took a few years off from pheasant hunting, but now we have another lab... Yup, last year she went on her first pheasant hunt. We are back at it.

Still, it's an upcoming DUCK hunt that has me excited. I had hoped to set a record and have all four sons in attendance, but the college senior had to bow out. Still, with three of my sons, a couple of my close friends, and my duck-hunting labradory, we are anxiously looking forward to a trip north and another duck hunt. I don't believe I have missed a year of duck hunting...

Sorry, I cannot choose one because I love em all!

Ducks.

90% of the days I hunt I'm sitting in some decoys waiting. I don't hunt pheasants anymore because of land access and crowding issues, and I rarely hunt geese because I don't have many good fields I can hunt, but I never have trouble finding ducks on a slough that I can hunt. On my first day hunting I hunted ducks, and I'll hunt ducks on my last.


Dusty

As I sit here reading the posts I am reminded that I love to hunt most species that are available in Ohio, my all time favorite hunting is honker hunting, either on water or in a field doesn't matter. I love hearing the flocks of geese when they are off in the distance, knowing they are getting closer and closer-When they set on your decoys it is like a squadron of B52s coming in,

I live across the turnpike from a golf course and a flock of geese just flew over in route to there as I am typing this post, Ha maybe that is a sign for me to get ready. If anyone would like a hunting partener for geese or duck give me a shout, I live near Toledo, I have decoys and nessesary equip just no boat and very few spots to hunt in this area. Last season Trophy watched while a friend and I called in a flock of geese they circled us then came on in like clock work. I was glad it worked out that way so he could see what goose hunting was like. I think he thought it was pretty kewl.
Lazy - Eye Mike

That was to neat Mike. When those 747's set their wings and started dumping air out from under them it was too neat.

I would have to say Quail hunting. I just love watching my dogs work the birds. I play #### training all summer long and it pays off in Nov.

I'm heading up to Caseville, Mi tomorrow morning for a few days of squirrel hunting, Tree Rat and Dumplings, mmmmm good!!!!!

Bill W. (BFN)

Waterfowl. Where I live (SE WI), that's what's available. There are a few pheasant but mostly on crowded public land. There are a few grouse but you gotta do a lot of driving and walking to find them. My 2 Labradors deserve to hunt, so waterfowl it is. The dogs love it and so do I.

DS

LAte season pheasants and ducks on land in the corn fields

If I had to pick just one, it would be predator hunting. There are few things that get my blood rolling better than making the final approach on a napping fox or coyote.

For my money a cool, sunny afternoon in South Dakota walking good cover (by myself) for pheasants with my Labrador working his heart out must be very similar to Heaven.

Very similiar to heaven in Iowa. Except the dog looks like a German Short-haired pointer and your dog is on point.

Ivy