Mouse River
Brenden Gallagher for SPLIT REED
The NoDak You Haven't Heard About
Mouse River Outfitters has been around since 1982 and is located just twenty-one miles from the Canadian border. Mouse River lodge harbors some of the best waterfowl hunting that North Dakota has to offer. Tens of thousands of birds of a variety of species choose to come through this prairie pothole region. Todd Larson has owned and operated Mouse River for a long time and has no plans to slow down.
Todd’s father started taking him hunting when he was around three years old, and once he was old enough to start hunting by himself he quit sports and became fully obsessed with pursuing waterfowl. In about 9th grade Todd had started competing in calling competitions and after networking in the calling competition circuit, he soon found himself as a waterfowl guide in Texas. After that everything just started to snowball and years later and after hearing about the hunting in Kramer, North Dakota Todd found himself the owner of his very own lodge. That was twenty-one years ago and he’s been guiding there ever since. Nowadays when he isn't guiding waterfowl, Todd owns and books trips for Basswood Trails Guide Service in Minnesota, an outfit that offers black bear hunts, fishing, and canoe trips. In addition to that Todd has expanded his waterfowl operation and has lodges in both Kramer and Purse, North Dakota.
“Hunting in North Dakota is definitely an experience, you could be laying in a blind out here and a moose walks through your spread or we may be hunting up closer to the mountains and an elk will walk through your spread. You never know what you're gonna see out there, we’ve had coyotes run into the decoy spread thinking they were live birds, it's something to experience and it's as close to hunting in Canada as you can get without crossing the border. We’re the first stop for the birds when they do cross the border and we are on the J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge which is the largest refuge in North America dedicated to waterfowl production and migration. The number of birds that will pass through this refuge is astonishing, at peak migration we’ve seen 1.2 million birds sitting on the refuge.
Mouse River is an outfit of variety when it comes to waterfowl and they target everything from ducks and geese to sandhill cranes and swans. Being located at the top of the migratory path for the central flyway, Mouse River has the opportunity to harvest almost the entirety of the puddle ducks and divers the country has to offer. “You might go to Arkansas and they've got mallards, or you might go to Texas and have cranes or lessers. We have it all. We shoot every species of bird in the central flyway from sandhill cranes to blue wing teal. I may not always be able to give you exactly what you want, say you want to shoot honkers and they just aren't flying, I’ll say hey let's go sandhill crane hunting or maybe we’ll go have a hell of a mallard shoot or hey the divers are on the lake thick lets go shoot those”. More typically though Todd notes that their style of hunting is mainly based around their dry fields, “our hunting is very mobile, we hardly ever hunt the same field twice in a year and sometimes we may never hunt the field ever again, there's fields I hunted twenty years ago that I’ve never hunted again because the birds just never got into them”. While many hunters may look at North Dakota as the place for early honkers and lights out mallard feeds there has been an uptick in the popularity of sandhill crane hunting. “So we’ve switched it up a little bit from just doing ducks and Canada geese to also doing more crane hunting. Sandhills are something we’ve got really into hunting in the last five to six years, the populations are really high and it's become something people have shown a lot of interest in”.
Along with an expansive arsenal of bird hunting and wildlife viewing Mouse River offers some of the best guide and client experiences you could ask for. “We want to treat every client like this is their first waterfowl hunt. Whether they've been on a hundred or they've been on one. They’ll never know everything about waterfowl hunting and if they can learn something from you as their guide and you treat them right and you can make their hunt the best hunt they've ever had, even if they don't shoot birds, if they can leave and say that's still the best hunt I've ever been on because I learned something and the guides were good that’s where it’s at in this game”. Like many of the great lodges around the country it all comes down to people and experiences and the joy and memories guides, clients, friends and family can make out in the blind. “The thing I enjoy the most about my job is the people and stories I get to hear. I might not be able to experience hunting down in say Mexico, but I can picture and see those experiences through them and their stories. That's what I love about my job, the people and the diversity of people I get to meet”.
Trust me, Todd has been around the block and heard a lot of crazy and incredible stories but one in particular stands out. “I’ve had clients come from as far away as England and bird hunting over there is very expensive. The guys I had come over had hunted over there, where it's $500-$700 PER BIRD. Even if you shoot at a bird and miss it you pay. So what they do is kick the birds out of the brush in front of you and they fly over. There's a guy that loads your gun behind you and another guy that keeps tally of what you've shot (or don't shoot) so you can pay. So over on this guys hunt here in North Dakota we’re just crushing birds, we've got probably fifty-some birds between all the guys and he walks over to me and says ‘ummm hey Todd what's this gonna cost us..?’ At first, I didn't understand what he was saying but he thought he was going to have to pay per bird at the price of his North Dakota waterfowl license! Which would be something like $150-$200 per bird. They just didn’t understand that they could buy the hunt and their tags and shoot as many birds as they could on a three day hunt, they were thinking they were gonna go home owing a fortune! Over there they also mentioned to me that the “poor man's” wing shooting is mainly pigeons, which are something like $50 a bird and they have to be part of and keep their guns at a hunting club”.
So what's the draw to all of this for someone thinking of hunting with Mouse River Outfitters? “I think people need to come here to experience the diversity of birds that we have, the opportunity to shoot A LOT of birds, the experience and comradery you get from our guides and hunts, and if you're sitting there thinking you've always wanted to go to North Dakota and have not yet, it's time to pull the trigger”.
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