I took a vacation day and hunted

Bob Peters

Well-known member
The weather has been terrible but I went anyway. Took a looong walk to an old honey hole. Roxy is a golden retriever. When they boogie she stands on it and puts them in the air. When the bird freezes, she freezes. I think twice today she locked up on a bird and I didn't shoot because it's been really tough to pick out a young rooster from a hen. We also had a wise old bird hot walking well in advance of us. She trailed scent across the grass, along a slough edge, and he finally flushed wild at an old weeded over 2 track too far to shoot. Finally she flushed one on a field edge and I peppered him. I didn't feel good about the shot, but she dug him out of sasquatch's marsh. Good girl! We did some short walks later, but it was too hot for good hunting. So I took her swimming. Looking out over public land a red-tailed hawk was doing lazy circles and dips. A few minutes later I saw a rooster flying hell-bent for feather with the hawk right on his tail! But he was a big old pheasant and landed in his cattail fortress before the hawk could stoop and sink talons. I heart nature.
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It would be really cool, and very rare to see a hawk take a pheasant out of the air.
Honey chased down a running hen on opening Sunday. I had seen a bird of prey a short while before. Sure enough, it swooped in toward the hen. The hen dropped into some sparse willow with deep swamp grasses. The hawk veered and started to drop and then swooped back up. Saved by cover.
 
The weather has been terrible but I went anyway. Took a looong walk to an old honey hole. Roxy is a golden retriever. When they boogie she stands on it and puts them in the air. When the bird freezes, she freezes. I think twice today she locked up on a bird and I didn't shoot because it's been really tough to pick out a young rooster from a hen. We also had a wise old bird hot walking well in advance of us. She trailed scent across the grass, along a slough edge, and he finally flushed wild at an old weeded over 2 track too far to shoot. Finally she flushed one on a field edge and I peppered him. I didn't feel good about the shot, but she dug him out of sasquatch's marsh. Good girl! We did some short walks later, but it was too hot for good hunting. So I took her swimming. Looking out over public land a red-tailed hawk was doing lazy circles and dips. A few minutes later I saw a rooster flying hell-bent for feather with the hawk right on his tail! But he was a big old pheasant and landed in his cattail fortress before the hawk could stoop and sink talons. I heart nature.
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Congrats on the harvest and great October photo.
 
I went out today with a buddy. I missed one and got one at the first spot. At the second spot it was slow. Then by luck I saw a rooster sail across the property and land on the edge of a thicket near a slough.

We headed that way. As I approached, my buddy on the other side of the thicket, the dog was sniffing like crazy. But no bird in the shrubbery . A hen flushed behind me in the cattails. A few moments later there were more pheasants in the air than I've seen in many a moon. Mental paralysis set in, trying to find a rooster in that feather flotilla. Feeling more cross-eyed than Goose's cousin, I was afraid pulling the trigger would result in a three man limit of roosters and significant collateral damage to the hen house. There were so many birds so close you coulda got a scotch double with a 28 gauge shooting non-tox. Finally this dummy saw a roman collar on the edge of the overcrowded air-space and launched a swarm of #4 bismuth. He tumbled. I wish it coulda been lead.

But a faithful pooch, taken hunting often as you can, is no greater friend and has no replacement in the pheasant field. You know the rest of the story. High-tailing to where he fell, sloshing around in muddy cattails, the dogs coming back without a bird several times, and then a sudden quickening rustle in the wetland grass, and a good dog with a rooster in her mouth, making it all look like an easy part of the days work.

Harlow left, Roxy right.
 

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