How to Keep Your Four Legged Friend Healthy
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If you’ve ever gone duck hunting alongside a well-trained and good-mannered canine, you know that the experience is unmatched by anything else out there. It’s an absolute privilege to watch one of these types of disciplined and skilled dogs retrieve downed waterfowl from the chilly pond or frosty fields you’re hunting over. If you raise hunting dogs from scruffy puppies and spend the hours, days, weeks, and months training them, you’ll especially appreciate the work that is necessary to get them to that point.
But more than that, they become like one of the family – a true hunting buddy. A good hunting dog is much more than just a household pet. Maybe it’s their eternal optimism or constant grin, even when things aren’t going your way and you occasionally miss a duck or two (hey, it happens). You just can’t help but feel the same contagious excitement for being out there. Once you’ve hunted with your four legged friend and things click, you know it could never be the same without them perched beside you in the swamp or flooded timber.
Since the introduction of the spinning wing decoy, many waterfowl have fallen victim to its charm and realism, providing many happy and successful trips afield for countless waterfowl hunters across country. While we never hit the water without at least one, if not an arsenal of spinning wing decoys, sometimes too much of a good thing can prove to be hindrance rather helping, especially when trying to fool late season waterfowl.
Waterfowl, much like many game species have amazing eyesight and can pick off even the most seasoned hunter if they are not concealed to the max. It takes time, patience, skill, and most importantly the proper equipment to truly be successful. Being able to fool a wide-eyed mallard duck or Canada goose can be incredibly difficult even in the most advantageous conditions. Investing in versatile gear with best camo pattern available can help you put more meat on the table, and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
When it comes to duck hunting, goose hunting and waterfowl management in general there are two very distinct categories to consider: habitat management and hunter management. The habitat management aspect of waterfowl hunting is fairly self-explanatory. Waterfowl hunters work all season long to stimulate the seed producing 
Make no mistake about it, here at Hard Core we live and breathe waterfowl and waterfowl hunting. It’s in our blood, it’s what we do and it’s what makes us who we are. It has helped define us, helped guide in ways that we never even realized until after the fact. Yeah, I guess you could say that waterfowl hunting is our lives.
One of the saddest days in a waterfowl hunter’s life has to be the end of the duck hunting season. There is no filling the void that the last day of the duck hunting season brings, that is of course until the opening day rolls back again! Of course, with the spring come the thoughts of turkey season. Gobbles continue to fill our dreams until opening day finally gets here. For several weeks we have forgotten the empty void that the closure of the waterfowl season has left us with, and temporarily filled it the strutting long beards, and 3 ½” magnums. Eventually, much like waterfowl season the last day of turkey season comes and goes. Well, then what? Well, as we have said many times before, you simply grab another gear and keep on trucking!
Moist soil is a term that really describes a specific suite of early successional and perennial plants that result from specific variations or changes in water levels within shallow marshes or pools. The timing of these variations, along with the duration, can play a large role in terms species of plants established in these areas. In most intensively managed areas, the goal is manage these areas in such a way as to establish seed producing, wildlife (especially waterfowl) friendly species.
