The Prairies were humbling and rewarding at the same time. I got up a few days before the rest of the group (duck hunters) and hunted sharptails.
I didn't make it last year and came with high hopes to see Gus work. The first day Gus did 18 or so dog miles. We saw a lot of birds. It was also disappointing to see all of the steadiness work we've done over the last two years go completely out the window. Busting, chasing, etc...Awful. We did see a lot of birds though. Towards the end of the day we put it together for one bird, and a bonus feral cat (go Wirehairs.)
The next morning his feet were pretty beat up so I kept it short, moved one big group of them in a 7 dog-mile walk.
Eventually, he started putting it together. The third afternoon we were up there he really came together and we nailed a limit in 22 minutes of hunting. After that his steadiness was much better. We did have one day where we never really moved any birds but even then we saw them; they just got up a hillside or two away from us. The last afternoon was the best; we hunted a cow pasture WPA and I saw all sorts of nice work from the dog. Unfortunately I didn't do my part though some of it could be the Kent #3's that I was shooting. More on that later.
The duck hunting, as usual, was excellent as well. About the shells...I was shooting Kent 3 shot FastSteel 2.0. They seemed to have a really, really tight pattern up close, that fell apart rather quickly (or otherwise lost energy?) at ranges I normally didn't have any trouble with. I shot two ducks that were close, but not absurdly close, that were mutiliated to the point that no meat could be recovered. Interesting.