Well it was a great trip! It was on my bucket list to get these 2- 14 month old dogs on pheasant. We arrived late that evening to the ranch. My brother got permission on two 5,000 acre ranches through a friend of his who also hunts Kansas. One of the places fell through as the folks were out of town for the holidays. It was on my bucket list to get these 2- 14 month old dogs on pheasant. We did the 10 hour drive to hunt only one day as my brother would have to be back home for other committments....it was worth it!
The landowner gave us a ranch truck to use while on the property since he was in and out all day and the "local" truck would ensure no alarm with any of the folks who worked on the ranch.. He went over a topo map with us the night before. We woke up to a crisp 22 degree morning with clear skies and a good breeze.
We started in an area of cut milo that had some overgrown ditches and overgrown wooded areas around it. This will be the first time we hunted these dogs together on the ground at the same time. We were tickled to see our girls matured enough to allow it to happen. We walked about 1 1/2 miles before the dogs got on the first pheasant of the day-it was a rooster in the bag! What a start! I killed another one not far from there within the hour. My brother killed his first as we were fast approaching noon. The dogs pinned him in some thick stuff along a very small piece of uncut milo. When my brother shot, other pheasant were getting up out of range. We decided to rest the dogs and get some lunch. After lunch we got on the far south end of the property and moved along a creek winding through the property heading into the wind. My brother and his dog on one side, I was on the other side with my female. We worked various forms of cover and cut fields along the edge of the creek. My brother got 2 more opportunities within the next couple of hours. He bagged one rooster-a cripple that somehow made it to my side of the creek, and I was in the right place to catch him running by with my dog in pursuit. We were both even at 2 roosters each. Shortly after that , we were nearing the ranch house as I could hear the ranch dogs barking nearby. The creek ran along about 200 yards behind the horse stables. There was several stands of thick pine here-as we rounded the bend, one dog got a little unglued and ran out into a field of tangled mess that 6-8 ft tall. Pheasant were flying in every direction-I'm guessing there were probably 50 birds in there. As we regrouped, we sent the dogs in, my female went on point immediately, I kicked the hen out. My female ran about 5-10 yards and stacked up again, another hen. She repeated this again only this time we got a fine rooster!. By the time we got out of this small 20 acres field of chaos it was 3 o clock and I finally killed my last bird. As we were making our way towards the truck, my brother killed his 4th and last of the day-we were probably 200 yards from the truck. But weren't done yet....my brother wanted to leave that night and head to "our ranch that we hunt in the Texas panhandle on our way home! We drove all night, arriving to the ranch at 3:30 am-at this point I was doubting we would hunt in the morning cause we were exhausted!!
The next morning, at 8:40 I let my female, Lilly out to pee as she was whining at the door. I opened the door, she runs out and immediately slams into a point! I stretch out to see around the door, I see a covey of quail taking flight not 15 yards from our cabin door!..it's on!
I wake my brother up, we have a cup of coffee and hit the ground running-we managed to push 5 coveys in the next 1 1/2 hours, within a 600 yard radius of the cabin. At this point I tell my brother we should be grateful and call it quits. He turns and looks at me with a smile and says "God must have been a bird hunter! " I feel so blessed and fortunate to be able to do what we love to do. This trip was like a dream, I was super tranquil driving home and will always remember this trip
My brother in"the field of chaos"
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A blessed day in the field:
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Back Home! Business as usual for Coco, my brothers dog on a covey
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Our GSP Team with some quail for the trip home-
my daughter painted the kennel door covers after I went to bed the night before we left for our trip the next morning!
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