Scouting with Rocky and Maya

Nice spot eh?

This time around it was off to Round Lake.  The place that the dead old man recommended.  The place where we are supposed to be able to shoot limits everyday.  We had a plan.
Rocky and I loaded up the boat and made our way onto the St.Joe River channel which winds it's way towards massive lake Coeur d'Alene past Round and Chilloquat Lakes.  On the way we stopped in places to check the other side of the bank and hopefully find great spots to build a blind.  Much like my earlier scouting the water has receded to the point where any viable cover is many yards away from the open water, and as the river levels recede, so does the lake.  We were getting shut out at all the spots we checked.  Finally we made it to the end of the channel and a nice point of land surrounded by water and some low weeds.  This spot looked great, water on all sides, cover and the chance to shoot over reeds that stretched for no more than 15 feet away.

We pulled down the blind that had been set up last year (shoddily made of metal stakes and twine) and built a new blind (perfectly made of wooden stakes and twine) in the hopes that when the time was right we could return and fill the lattice with available cover that matched what was happening in the natural world around us.  The only question was who had been at that spot before and would they consider it "their spot" the way some hunters do.  If so, they may tear down our handiwork and install their own.  I like to think when they see how perfect our building skills are, they will move along.  Perhaps we should have peed around the perimeter too.  Maya did some retrieving and showed her abundance of energy that makes Chesapeake Retrievers the workhorse of the old time market hunters.  

On the way back we found two other potential spots to hunt on the other side of the St.Joe, the side we had ignored the whole way out.  This side of the river opened onto other smaller parts of the lake and in one bay we saw hundreds of black ducks and many geese too.  Once again the water was still knee to hip deep in the reeds and rushes that stretched out 100 yards to the waterline.  Later in the season, as the water recedes and the reeds dry out, this may be a fantastic spot.  Further evidence was a big old wooden floating blind built by some old time duck hunters, now high and dry on the shore.

We saw another possible spot on the way back and marked it as well but now it was time to head back to the boat ramp. The river took about 40 min from one end to the other and we made it back just in time for the boat to run out of gas about 200 yards from shore.  Good lesson here, always bring the extra tank of gas.  So there it is.  The scouting trip to Round Lake. It won't be long now.
GBCH