Saskatchewan 2018 ~ In The Field

September 20th we hit the road for Saskatchewan it’s our yearly trip with the Sand Spring gang to hunt snow geese. When we arrived in Saskatchewan there was snow, rain, cold, wind things that we thought we wouldn’t see since each year when we go we go a week later. We decided to go a week earlier this year and hit some nice weather. Well you never know what your getting with mother nature.

The first day we hunted in the snow, after that it was rain, wind and cold.

The birds were plentiful but they were also high flyers. Each day we had different challenges. One day we set out decoy’s in the rain so when the sun came up it shined on the decoys and the wetness of the decoys reflected a light back at them that made them go WHOA real geese don’t shine like that so the birds steered clear. When the birds didn’t come in Gambler hid under his tarp and kept his nose warm.

We did manage to get a little hunting in, so here are some of the action shots that I took during our week of hunting.

This little lady below is gonna be 11 years young in December. This is Pearl and if you have followed my Saskatchewan stories you have seen and heard of me talking about her as she is the reason we have made Saskatchewan a hunting spot each year. She was out of my first ever breeding with my foundation bitch Nellie and Rebel from Washington. After Mike took Pearl home we have had this incredible friendship that Chesapeakes have made.

Pearl was born in 2007, she didn’t make it to Saskatchewan the first year after her birth and then missed only one other year since then because her owner underwent heart surgery and his doctor advised him not to make a trip that year. It was a year well missed with out them there. Unfortunately Pearl was born before the DM (Degenerative Myelopathy) testing was available and we suspect she indeed has the disease. She has been tested affected and is showing signs so this year was about getting Pearl birds as she most likely won’t be able to retrieve birds next year. She gave it her all and made some fantastic retrieves.

As this Saskatchewan hunt came to a close friendships got stronger, the love of the Chesapeakes got stronger and we will still include the black Lab who is the wanna be Chessie and we know one day there will be a Chessie by his side as well. We didn’t have a great bird count for the week, we ended up with only 44 birds but it is not about how many birds we got it is about the memories made.

Thanks for a wonderful week!