Scenic View

By Andy Anderson

Only a short week remains before the bowhunters can be hunting deer and pronghorn in North Dakota.

Everyday we are seeing more hunters and somehow managing to keep up and get them ready for the field.

Those who have had time to scout are real excited about what they are seeing. Another great season awaits those willing to spend the time. With September also only a week away, the goose hunters are just as excited with early goose season opening Sept. 1.

With the unpredictable falls and abundant water just across the border in Canada, the early goose has proven to be the best time to get the goose hunting out of your blood here in North Dakota.

Lots of serious goose hunters have also jumped the border and joined our Canadian friends in the areas where there are more geese than they know what to do with.

If you have not yet tried decoying honkers, you should be as we are in a great area for it and it just keeps getting better every year. It does not take a lot of decoys like in the good old days of trying to decoy snow geese

The whole area from the Canadian border to south of the river holds a lot of local geese. Goose hunting is one more opportunity for a busy fall.

Walleyes move in

Those who have not been too busy preparing for hunting have been taking advantage of the early fall walleye bite!

We are starting to get reports from the river that some of “the green ones” have moved in.

Sauger and cats have been quite common on the river but the walleyes have just started picking up. White Earth of course is still a good option if you don’t care to work the river with your boat, and there are no crowds.

The river is probably the best bet though for the bank fishermen and many times the early fishing can be best from the bank. Even from a boat, though, most fishermen just anchor and only use the boat to get away from the crowd. We will be seeing more action on the river now and will have good fishing till freeze up.

Dog Derby

The 19th Annual North Dakota Gun Dog Championship was held in Williston this past weekend.

There were divisions for the adult pointer, flusher and derby, which is dogs under two years of age.

The Badlands Bird Dog Club had an excellent turn out and pulled dogs from across North Dakota as well as Montana.

The first-place winner in the pointer division went to Shane Anderson from Williston with his vizsla female, Mya.

Second place was taken by Michael Jepson of Savage, Mont., and third was Ron Smith of Minot.

In the flusher division, first-place honors went to Kent Bickler of Tioga with his lab, while Harry Wallner finished second and Doug Ness third.

While I was only expecting my young shorthair Taz, short for Tasmanian devil, which he is, to embarrass me, he actually pulled it off and brought home a very respectable win in Derby.

Malcolm Olson of Carrington was second and Chris Ogletree, with his lab Drake, finished third.

If you have information you would like to share please email it to andy@scenicsports.com