September 12-13 Tom Knapp “The shooting star” Will be doing his shotgun shooting exhibition at The Little Moran Hunting Experience. We’re hosting the experience for anyone wanting to learn, or to understand more about bird hunting, whitetail hunting, waterfowl hunting and the dogs we hunt with. We’re part of the Brainerd Outdoors Radio Program and their new fall event “The Show”. Mills Fleet Farm is our title sponsor along with the Nestle’ Purina Company sponsoring the sporting dog villages. We’re also adding a 3D archey course, with seminars and demo’s throughout the weekend. Youth events will be taking place as well, sponsored by the US Sportsman’s Alliance. Exhibitiors are welcome, please contact Steve at Little Moran 218-894-3852.
July 9, 2009
April 18, 2009
Spring Birding - Woodcock Banding
Spring …it finally got here and one of the highlites is the Skydance of the woodcock. The skydance is when the male twirls skyward making a peenting sound, then plumets back to to ground and puts on a show for the hen. Thus begins the mating ritual of the woodcock! As you now know we turned the “Villa” into a Bed and Breakfast and are offering woodcock and birding specials in the Villa. The ponds are full of ducks, and geese, the woods are alive with birds, their chirping has woke Gayle in the midst of her beauty sleep!
In past years woodcock chicks will begin to hatch around May 1st. We go into the cover using one of our dogs, as the woodcock are found we catch them, band them much like a duck or goose band would be, then set them free. We gather data like place of birth, age etc and send it to the NFWS and the DNR. I am one of 29 banders in MN. It’s fun and a grea time to get out into the outdoors….and just one more thing! The Morels are up at the same time…great mushroom hunting!
April 7, 2009
RGS Chukar / Sporting Clays
May 16th we’re hosting the 2nd annual RGS Chukar / Clays challange. It’s a fund raiser for the RGS as well as a fun hunting and clays tourney. The hunting event will have a flushing and pointing division. All hunting areas will be grouse like habitat and the clays range will be in a more wooded area as well. There will be a singles and a doubles division for each of the flushing or pointing groups. Saturday evening features a RGS banquet with silent auction items and other RGS products. Call the Lodge for more information. 218-894-3852
Spring Hunting / Events
Hopefully spring has gotten here. WE’re drying out from the last 14′ snowfall so things look pretty good. The cover has really held up….the hunting is good. Bird numbers seem to be our biggest probllem, as many birds were butcherd over the winter due to the cost of keeping them. We’ll get what we can. We’re hoping to hunt up to May 17th, or as long as we can get birds. For those with pre paid birds please contact the club to make arrangements.
We are offering a 20% discount on memberships paid by May 15th, and pre pay on pheasants are a $2.00 discount. Contact the lodge office for more information or questions.
February 12, 2009
Pheasant Hunting
We’re hunting again, trails made, and snow melting, we’re back to hunting.
January 16, 2009
Pheasant pot pie / cajun Specials
Do you have too many birds still in the freezer? Gayle is offering for the first time her pheasant pot pie and cajun pheasant specials. Bring in your birds to exchange for either an oven ready pot pie, or pan ready cajun pheasant. This will be a great way to use up your birds, givng you more room to hunt more. It’s a win win deal. Call Gayle for more details. The lodge and dining room number is 218-894-3852!
Upcoming Events Winter / Spring 09
The Little Moran archery turkey tournament has been scheduled for March 7&8 09. Last year’s event went great with 12-two hunter teams. Each team gets 1/2 hour, 3 arrows per hunter, inpursuit of 1 turkey. Points are awarded for unfired arrows, unused minutes and for the bird itself. Contact The lodge office 218-894-3852 for more details.
Also for the 2nd year we’re hosting the RGS Chukar Partridge and Sporting Clays Challange. Scores from both shoots will be added together for the total score. The chukar tourney will consist of a flushing division and pointing division. Teams will be made up of 1 hunter, 30 minutes, 3 chukar, 6 shells in either a pointer or flushing division. The team event will be 2 hunters, 6 chukar, 6 shells per hunter, and 30 minutes. Scoring will be based on unfired shells, unused minutes, and dog work will be scored on pointing and retrieving. This event will be held in wooded grouse cover to simulate a grouse hunt. The sporting clays course will be set up in the grouse woods as well. The score from 50 targets will be added to the hunting score to determine our challange champions. An RGS auction and banquet will be held Saturday evening. The date of the challange is May 16th. Please call the lodge at 218-894-3852 for more information.
Grouse Camp Fall 2008
This past fall found us being very optimistic about flush rates because we were up by 500 birds from the 06 to 07 season. The early numbers were pretty good, which lead me to believe we would be up in numbers. I was wrong. After getting all the flush rates from Jim and Kev it turned out we were about 65 birds shy of last years numbers. On a positive note however, we moved alot of grouse broods with a high percentage of birds shot being young. It should leave us with good numbers going into the spring. Woodcock numbers were also down from 896 in 07 to 777 last fall. For the second year in a row the woodcock flight came through pretty early. It was October 14th when it really came to an end. We were hunting a new cut that had been holding lots of birds. I was in the cut the last 2 hours of the day with a husband and wife, with this being her first time hunting grouse and woodcock. We had a great shoot with lots of laughs and even more cussing. We returned a couple days later and found none. Our numbers sure proved it not only in that cover but throughout our covers. We dropped from 23-25+ to 10-12 birds a day after the 14th. In all we did have another good fall, the total numbers and flush rates will be in our summary shortly. This marks the end of my 21st year guiding with so many of you being with us for 18-20 of those years. It’s like family coming home. We are so looking forward to this coming fall, it can’t come soon enough.
Thanks to you all!
