While scouting for a waterfowl hunt for my son and I low and behold I find 3 Sandhills loafing at the big lake. After watching them all day I put them to bed on a shoreline. Next am we are at the glassing spot. Plan is to find em again. Paddle across the lake parallel them and stalk em down the shoreline. Well we never find em. We decide to get in the truck and circle to the south end to glass. We never make it as we find 18 of em in a pothole pond on BLM. The pond is 192 yards from the main paved road. Quick 5 minutes of planning results in us going .8 miles away, parking and stalking from a direction that offers the most concealment using terrain and bushes. 15 min of fast walking, then low crawl that seems like a long way gets us to 300 yards. They fed toward us and were on a highpoint. We have good cover and decide to wait them out. I figure they have to go back to the pothole for water at some point. When they do they will feed out of sight and we can then get to a reasonable 40 to 50 yard shooting distance. After a 2 hour sit my son says " ah hell they are all getting up" they lift, one spin, two spins and head south. 15 seconds later we hear a drone. Cant find it but I hear it. I look up at the road and glass what looks like a guy holding a drone control box in the shade of his hatch back. We stand up. It passes us about 50 yards in the air. I take aim with three 3.5 inch BB Black Clouds and almost shoot it down. It goes back to his car loads and leaves. Not really sure if he ever even saw us.
It would appear he was going down the road. Saw the cranes, stopped and took pictures with the drone. I called CPW just to tell them the story and it would appear he would have qualified for "wildlife harrassment charges" as he clealry changed their behavior /what they were doing/bumped them. If he knew we were there he would have qualified for "hunter harassment also".
We walked out. Went to the boat ramp just to see if by chance he was there and no luck. Oh well. Really thought we had a good plan to finally taste the ribeye of the sky.
Now the real lesson learned. Im gonna put a montana decoy moo cow and antelope decoy in the truck. I feel like if we went slow behind those decoys we just might have walked pretty close to them for a shot. Pic was through the binos at 300 yards.
It would appear he was going down the road. Saw the cranes, stopped and took pictures with the drone. I called CPW just to tell them the story and it would appear he would have qualified for "wildlife harrassment charges" as he clealry changed their behavior /what they were doing/bumped them. If he knew we were there he would have qualified for "hunter harassment also".
We walked out. Went to the boat ramp just to see if by chance he was there and no luck. Oh well. Really thought we had a good plan to finally taste the ribeye of the sky.
Now the real lesson learned. Im gonna put a montana decoy moo cow and antelope decoy in the truck. I feel like if we went slow behind those decoys we just might have walked pretty close to them for a shot. Pic was through the binos at 300 yards.
memtb
