Toad
Active member
Just got back Sunday night from my trip to NW KS. It was a fantastic trip with lots of great memories made!:thumbsup:
We (a great friend, Daisy, Junie, and I) took off Friday morning from the Little Apple and headed North and West to hopefully find some bird action. The truck was overloaded with gear and snacks. With the image of snow-packed, thawing roads in my mind, I had a whole arsenal of "get unstuck" gear loaded and handy. Plus I brought 3X the necessary supply of jalapeno deer snack sticks, summer sausage, and Call Hall smoked cheddar.
Over the last few years I've introduced my friend to clay targets, waterfowling, and deer hunting, but this was his first ever attempt at upland birds. He was freaking JACKED about the trip and had about a million questions about the birds, the habitat, the dogs, and everything else related to chasing birds. I did my best to field the questions but ultimately told him that he would gain a lot more useful knowledge from a few hunts than I could ever give him.
We took off Friday morning around 6:00 AM, and started heading towards bird country. We kept heading West until after sunrise because it was cloudy and dark. Our first stop of the trip was at a WIHA containing about the highest concentration of waterfowl I've ever seen on a pond of that size. Unfortunately, we thought all the ponds would be frozen out there and decided NOT to pack any non-toxic shot. The mallards and canadas were coming and going from this pond in CLOUDS, and they were less than concerned about the two guys and two dogs wandering around looking for quail and phez. (I'm guessing it was one of the last ponds in the area that was still open.) If we had thought to pack some steel shot, we probably could have both gotten limits because of how bad the ducks wanted in there. No upland birds at the first stop, but we enjoyed watching and hearing the mallards and geese. We piled back into the truck and headed farther North and West.
After stopping for lunch, we scouted a couple WIHAs without stopping. Then, just as we were approaching another WIHA, I saw and said, “QUAIL!” They were running across the road near the WIHA. The covey of 12 ran into the ditch and hunkered down. My buddy hopped out of the truck (without his gun) and walked towards the ditch. The quail blew out of there and flew right into the WIHA, which looked fairly marginal from the road. I really didn’t feel right about hunting those birds, but I had no problem letting the 6 month old puppy have some fun. So we walked Junie near the area we had marked them down. The covey was pretty spread out and quail were getting up all over the place, flying back to private land. I don’t think Junie ever smelled any of them because they never let us get downwind of them, but she sure enjoyed chasing the ones that got up and smelling the area where they had been! Once we hit the high ground in there, we could see that there was about a quarter section of CRP that wasn’t visible from the road. HMMMM…. So we unloaded Daisy from the truck and grabbed our guns. We found 2 more coveys of quail, 7 hens, and 2 roosters in the CRP. Unfortunately, the crunchy snow had the roosters taking off long before we were in shotgun range. We did get one nice hen point from Daisy and some really nice dog work from her on the quail. My buddy went through a fair amount of ammo without cutting a feather, and I have to sheepishly admit that I was a bit rusty myself. I shot 3 times before dropping a bird and then decided that I would wait until my buddy got his first bird. On the way back to the truck my friend had a couple more good opportunities to score a quail, but unfortunately hadn’t quite figured out the timing and lead yet. Found around 25 quail on the place, not counting the original 12 that Junie chased. What a hidden honeyhole!!!
After heading another hour or two West we started scouting more WIHA and stopped at one with a thick tangle between two crop fields. We put up another 5 hens and 2 roosters, but the crunchy snow had all of them getting up way ahead of the dog and we never had a chance at either rooster. We cruised on and stopped at one final WHIA before calling it a day and heading over to meet up with another good friend, his father, and their two outstanding GSPs. We were about a quarter mile from the truck when we heard a barrage of shots from the road and thought, WTF! When we circled back to the road, Daisy finds and retrieves a fresh dead meadowlark in the ditch… I guess that’s WTF the shooting was at the road... Dummies…
We finished the day Friday with many miles on the truck, boots, and canines, and ONE quail in the game bag. The only benefit of the extremely low temps on Friday was that the dirt roads stayed frozen all day and we had no trouble whatsoever navigating them.
Saturday was bitterly cold in the morning again, and the crunchy snow was deeper than most of what we had walked the day before. Still, we had high hopes and I was praying my friend would get his first upland bird. I was feeling pretty confident because our local friend and his father hunt out there an awful lot and know the birds and territory very well.
The four of us and three dogs + pup hunted almost all private land, with only one short WIHA walk mixed in. The shelterbelts were LOADED with spooky birds, and the crunchy snow ended up being a hindrance to us again. Our local friend was doing his best to put us in the right places, but the roosters only wanted to flush in front of him and did their best to avoid the rest of us. He missed some easy chances early on, while the rest of us just watched the show. By lunchtime he had one rooster in the bag and we were scratching our heads for ways to get within shotgun range of these birds.
After lunch, the roosters were gone from the heavy cover and were feeding in the milo fields. Even though we knew it was a long shot, all hunters and dogs started marching in the milo. A few hens actually held until we got within range, but the roosters were way too cagey for that technique. My friend’s father had watched a rooster fly into a cedar tree a few hundred yards from the end of the field, so we three “young” guys tried to walk him up. He blew out of there 30 yards ahead of the dogs and 50 yards ahead of us, but we all gave him a barrage of hail-mary blasts anyway. We might as well have been throwing snowballs… It felt good to shoot the gun anyway, but that was unfortunately my best chance on Saturday.
Saturday afternoon, a friendly farmer allowed us to roust the pheasants out of his shelterbelts around his house to push them into a draw that he would allow us to hunt. The cedars were holding dozens of birds, with a fair percentage of those being roosters. Unfortunately, they hit the ground running and our hunt of the draw yielded only hen points and flushes. Still, the newbie got to walk in on some nice points and he got to see some really good dog work. I was on the far edge of the draw, near the road, and saw several roosters and hens get up from the far road ditch and fly to Iowa. My local friend’s father was posted up near the end of the draw and managed to take down a wild-flushing Kevlar rooster with no less than SIX direct hits! (Three shots brought it down, and three more knocked it down again when it got back up) I will NOT be buying the brand of shells he was shooting, I can guarantee you! After a 15 minute search, we found the bird lying on its back, so weighed down by lead that it couldn’t run any farther. We ended the day Saturday with just the two birds, and very few shots taken. We did see a good number of birds, and the dogs did their best, but the roosters were just too spooky.
Sunday was our final hunting day and our local friend wanted very badly for us to get into some birds. We hunted some new private land that was over one county from the previous day. First we hunted a couple cedar shelterbelts by wheat stubble with two walkers, two dogs, and two blockers. All we kicked out were some rabbits, three whitetails, two owls, and a hawk. No idea why the pheasants weren’t in there… Then we headed to a few acres of really nasty cover. Daisy and I got a hen point, and my friend, the newbie, had his first rooster of the trip blow up at his feet. Unfortunately, he was too slow on the trigger and the local cut the bird down when it got out to about 30 yards. I gave both guys a fair amount of crap for the way that played out, but it was all just good razzing.
At that point, we took a quick break from the bird action to try and help the newbie fill his deer tag. The local’s father had access to a small canyon where the whitetail does often bed down. The local and I walked through the canyon, dogless, while the newbie sat up above in the winter wheat field. Seven does popped out. He took 3 shots within 200 yards, but all of them hit snow instead of doe. Two roosters also blew out of there way ahead of us. The father offered to take us to a second place, but we decided we would all rather chase birds than field dress a deer anyway.
At the next spot, we surrounded a smallish hole full of tumbleweeds, plum, and yucca where the local practically had to kick a tight-sitting rooster into the air. He put the smack on it with one nice shot.
Then we headed for the biggest, thickest, nastiest draw in the county (at least that I know of). About 50 yards into the cover, the local doubles on a big covey of quail, dumping them in the middle of a 100X100 patch of plum, and we bring all three adult dogs over to aid in the search. At some point, we lost track of Daisy and one of the GSPs. We start scanning the horizon for the lost dogs, searching and hollering for several minutes. Just when we assume they must be WAY up ahead of us and we start to spread out again, a rooster and hen blow out of the cover 40 yards behind me with both dogs in hot pursuit. I was SOOO pissed at myself because the dogs had been acting very birdy over there before we called them over to search the plum for the quail. They were both on point in the thick stuff, but we all figured they had gone ahead. I wish I hadn’t been saving the batteries on the Astro that morning... We didn’t get within a couple hundred yards of a rooster for the rest of the mile-long hike, but we sure SAW plenty running and flying over the horizon. DANG CRUNCHY SNOW!!! We still got some very nice, intense points on some tight-sitting hens and some great exercise.
The final spot of the morning was a small draw in the middle of a corn field. Most of it was void of cover, but there was a small amount right in the center of the field. Instead of going up or down the draw, we cut across the corn field and approached the cover from the side. The dogs were very birdy, but couldn’t seem to locate the rooster. I remembered hunting this spot three years ago when the same exact thing happened. So I did the same thing I did three years ago and slowly eased down the steep hill toward some thick, impenetrable plum that was packed with tumbleweeds. Sure enough, the rooster blew out of there right in front of me, and gave me a pretty good shot. But instead of “BAM”, I heard “BA-BAM”! The rooster cartwheeled in the air and feathers filled the sky! I looked over towards the local and he is also lowering his gun. “Nice shot!” he says… I started giving him chit about how I finally get a shot on a rooster after three days of walking and he tries to shoot it out from under me, but we’re good friends so it was all just good fun. Daisy brought me the bird, and it became immediately clear that we had both hit the rooster VERY well. I suggested that next time he should wait and see if I miss before he shoots my bird, but I’ve known him for a long time and that’s not happening…
At that point, it’s getting to be about lunchtime, so we part company with our local friends and the newbie and I start the long drive back to Manhattan. I’m feeling bad that he didn’t get his first rooster, although he did have at least one good chance. Also, we all did our best to put him in the right places, and called him over to walk in on plenty of points, and tried to help him get a deer too. It just didn’t work out…
On our drive home, we stopped again at the best WIHA places we had found on our trip out. Lots of new boot tracks in the snow, and it looked like the WIHA we found got pounded over the weekend. One positive thing was that it was finally warm and sunny enough to soften the snow. Even in the shade, the snow was slushy and quiet now, but the roads were turning to goo.
We stopped again at the hidden honeyhole WIHA and headed straight for the CRP quarter. A rooster blew out up ahead just as we entered the grass. We hunted a little over half of it when a quail goes shooting up in the air way ahead of Daisy and Junie. Both hunters and dogs made a beeline for the area, and we experienced one of the more odd flushes that I’ve ever witnessed. First a hen pheasant comes up, then a few quail, then another hen pheasant, then some more quail, and this continues for about 20 quail and 5 hen pheasants. They were just randomly getting up at this point. The dogs had been watching the fliers and we hunters were still a short distance away. I had two quail fly directly at me, which I tried to swing around and shoot when they were going away. I had a misfire on the first one and just plain missed the second one. Then the newbie starts whooping that he got one, so I went and stood where he marked it down while he walked out the area where the birds had been. I kept Daisy and the pup in the area for several minutes, but they were having no success finding the quail and my friend was getting very discouraged. We made a BIG circle downwind of the downed bird, working the dogs back into the area, and then JUNIE pulls it from a clump of grass about 25 yards from the original mark!!! Well, of course I was beaming with pride for my new pup and my friend was beaming with pride for his first upland bird! But the show wasn’t over yet! About 50-60 yards farther down, my friend announced that JUNIE was ON POINT!!! She held nicely while he walked up on her and a single quail got up at his feet. The shot was an easy straight-away, but he didn’t cut a feather in three shots… Oh well, that’s hunting… It was getting to be late afternoon, so I suggested that we should leave the covey plenty of time to reunite, and we still had a lot of driving to do. We turned to walk back to the truck with the wind at our backs. I was so proud of the work Junie had done on those quail and happy for my friend getting his first upland bird. I was lost in thought and fishing in my pocket for the celebratory cigar I had been saving for the end of the day when “CUK, CUCUK!” a rooster blows out of the grass about 10 yards downwind of me! It took me an extra second to shoulder my gun, but I was still fast enough to smack that rooster just before he got out of range! I managed to light my cigar about the same time I spotted Daisy bounding over the wet grass with my rooster in her mouth. What a great way to end the trip!
Our four man, 3 and a half dog hunting party ended the day with four roosters and three quail. The three day trip brought us six roosters and four quail. We screwed up and let a few get away, but the birds were mostly just too wary and wise… a formidable challenge for men and dogs. Dang that crusty snow!
We slid and slopped our way back to the paved roads and drove the rest of the way home with big smiles on our faces, already making plans for next year’s trip.
My observations of the trip:
1. Yes, bird numbers are down, but I think it was the weather conditions that hurt us the most. I think we probably would have had some more shooting if the conditions had been more favorable.
2. They are farming a lot cleaner out there than I remember from previous trips. Most of the crops go all the way to the road and I couldn’t find a weed in any of the fields we hunted.
3. Unless it was absolutely impractical to plant an area, it was growing crops.
4. It seemed like there were a lot more hunters up there than previous years at this time. Our host also thought that that the birds had been getting more pressure all season.
5. Hunting with puppies and rookie hunters is more fun.:thumbsup:
We (a great friend, Daisy, Junie, and I) took off Friday morning from the Little Apple and headed North and West to hopefully find some bird action. The truck was overloaded with gear and snacks. With the image of snow-packed, thawing roads in my mind, I had a whole arsenal of "get unstuck" gear loaded and handy. Plus I brought 3X the necessary supply of jalapeno deer snack sticks, summer sausage, and Call Hall smoked cheddar.
Over the last few years I've introduced my friend to clay targets, waterfowling, and deer hunting, but this was his first ever attempt at upland birds. He was freaking JACKED about the trip and had about a million questions about the birds, the habitat, the dogs, and everything else related to chasing birds. I did my best to field the questions but ultimately told him that he would gain a lot more useful knowledge from a few hunts than I could ever give him.
We took off Friday morning around 6:00 AM, and started heading towards bird country. We kept heading West until after sunrise because it was cloudy and dark. Our first stop of the trip was at a WIHA containing about the highest concentration of waterfowl I've ever seen on a pond of that size. Unfortunately, we thought all the ponds would be frozen out there and decided NOT to pack any non-toxic shot. The mallards and canadas were coming and going from this pond in CLOUDS, and they were less than concerned about the two guys and two dogs wandering around looking for quail and phez. (I'm guessing it was one of the last ponds in the area that was still open.) If we had thought to pack some steel shot, we probably could have both gotten limits because of how bad the ducks wanted in there. No upland birds at the first stop, but we enjoyed watching and hearing the mallards and geese. We piled back into the truck and headed farther North and West.
After stopping for lunch, we scouted a couple WIHAs without stopping. Then, just as we were approaching another WIHA, I saw and said, “QUAIL!” They were running across the road near the WIHA. The covey of 12 ran into the ditch and hunkered down. My buddy hopped out of the truck (without his gun) and walked towards the ditch. The quail blew out of there and flew right into the WIHA, which looked fairly marginal from the road. I really didn’t feel right about hunting those birds, but I had no problem letting the 6 month old puppy have some fun. So we walked Junie near the area we had marked them down. The covey was pretty spread out and quail were getting up all over the place, flying back to private land. I don’t think Junie ever smelled any of them because they never let us get downwind of them, but she sure enjoyed chasing the ones that got up and smelling the area where they had been! Once we hit the high ground in there, we could see that there was about a quarter section of CRP that wasn’t visible from the road. HMMMM…. So we unloaded Daisy from the truck and grabbed our guns. We found 2 more coveys of quail, 7 hens, and 2 roosters in the CRP. Unfortunately, the crunchy snow had the roosters taking off long before we were in shotgun range. We did get one nice hen point from Daisy and some really nice dog work from her on the quail. My buddy went through a fair amount of ammo without cutting a feather, and I have to sheepishly admit that I was a bit rusty myself. I shot 3 times before dropping a bird and then decided that I would wait until my buddy got his first bird. On the way back to the truck my friend had a couple more good opportunities to score a quail, but unfortunately hadn’t quite figured out the timing and lead yet. Found around 25 quail on the place, not counting the original 12 that Junie chased. What a hidden honeyhole!!!
After heading another hour or two West we started scouting more WIHA and stopped at one with a thick tangle between two crop fields. We put up another 5 hens and 2 roosters, but the crunchy snow had all of them getting up way ahead of the dog and we never had a chance at either rooster. We cruised on and stopped at one final WHIA before calling it a day and heading over to meet up with another good friend, his father, and their two outstanding GSPs. We were about a quarter mile from the truck when we heard a barrage of shots from the road and thought, WTF! When we circled back to the road, Daisy finds and retrieves a fresh dead meadowlark in the ditch… I guess that’s WTF the shooting was at the road... Dummies…
We finished the day Friday with many miles on the truck, boots, and canines, and ONE quail in the game bag. The only benefit of the extremely low temps on Friday was that the dirt roads stayed frozen all day and we had no trouble whatsoever navigating them.
Saturday was bitterly cold in the morning again, and the crunchy snow was deeper than most of what we had walked the day before. Still, we had high hopes and I was praying my friend would get his first upland bird. I was feeling pretty confident because our local friend and his father hunt out there an awful lot and know the birds and territory very well.
The four of us and three dogs + pup hunted almost all private land, with only one short WIHA walk mixed in. The shelterbelts were LOADED with spooky birds, and the crunchy snow ended up being a hindrance to us again. Our local friend was doing his best to put us in the right places, but the roosters only wanted to flush in front of him and did their best to avoid the rest of us. He missed some easy chances early on, while the rest of us just watched the show. By lunchtime he had one rooster in the bag and we were scratching our heads for ways to get within shotgun range of these birds.
After lunch, the roosters were gone from the heavy cover and were feeding in the milo fields. Even though we knew it was a long shot, all hunters and dogs started marching in the milo. A few hens actually held until we got within range, but the roosters were way too cagey for that technique. My friend’s father had watched a rooster fly into a cedar tree a few hundred yards from the end of the field, so we three “young” guys tried to walk him up. He blew out of there 30 yards ahead of the dogs and 50 yards ahead of us, but we all gave him a barrage of hail-mary blasts anyway. We might as well have been throwing snowballs… It felt good to shoot the gun anyway, but that was unfortunately my best chance on Saturday.
Saturday afternoon, a friendly farmer allowed us to roust the pheasants out of his shelterbelts around his house to push them into a draw that he would allow us to hunt. The cedars were holding dozens of birds, with a fair percentage of those being roosters. Unfortunately, they hit the ground running and our hunt of the draw yielded only hen points and flushes. Still, the newbie got to walk in on some nice points and he got to see some really good dog work. I was on the far edge of the draw, near the road, and saw several roosters and hens get up from the far road ditch and fly to Iowa. My local friend’s father was posted up near the end of the draw and managed to take down a wild-flushing Kevlar rooster with no less than SIX direct hits! (Three shots brought it down, and three more knocked it down again when it got back up) I will NOT be buying the brand of shells he was shooting, I can guarantee you! After a 15 minute search, we found the bird lying on its back, so weighed down by lead that it couldn’t run any farther. We ended the day Saturday with just the two birds, and very few shots taken. We did see a good number of birds, and the dogs did their best, but the roosters were just too spooky.
Sunday was our final hunting day and our local friend wanted very badly for us to get into some birds. We hunted some new private land that was over one county from the previous day. First we hunted a couple cedar shelterbelts by wheat stubble with two walkers, two dogs, and two blockers. All we kicked out were some rabbits, three whitetails, two owls, and a hawk. No idea why the pheasants weren’t in there… Then we headed to a few acres of really nasty cover. Daisy and I got a hen point, and my friend, the newbie, had his first rooster of the trip blow up at his feet. Unfortunately, he was too slow on the trigger and the local cut the bird down when it got out to about 30 yards. I gave both guys a fair amount of crap for the way that played out, but it was all just good razzing.
At that point, we took a quick break from the bird action to try and help the newbie fill his deer tag. The local’s father had access to a small canyon where the whitetail does often bed down. The local and I walked through the canyon, dogless, while the newbie sat up above in the winter wheat field. Seven does popped out. He took 3 shots within 200 yards, but all of them hit snow instead of doe. Two roosters also blew out of there way ahead of us. The father offered to take us to a second place, but we decided we would all rather chase birds than field dress a deer anyway.
At the next spot, we surrounded a smallish hole full of tumbleweeds, plum, and yucca where the local practically had to kick a tight-sitting rooster into the air. He put the smack on it with one nice shot.
Then we headed for the biggest, thickest, nastiest draw in the county (at least that I know of). About 50 yards into the cover, the local doubles on a big covey of quail, dumping them in the middle of a 100X100 patch of plum, and we bring all three adult dogs over to aid in the search. At some point, we lost track of Daisy and one of the GSPs. We start scanning the horizon for the lost dogs, searching and hollering for several minutes. Just when we assume they must be WAY up ahead of us and we start to spread out again, a rooster and hen blow out of the cover 40 yards behind me with both dogs in hot pursuit. I was SOOO pissed at myself because the dogs had been acting very birdy over there before we called them over to search the plum for the quail. They were both on point in the thick stuff, but we all figured they had gone ahead. I wish I hadn’t been saving the batteries on the Astro that morning... We didn’t get within a couple hundred yards of a rooster for the rest of the mile-long hike, but we sure SAW plenty running and flying over the horizon. DANG CRUNCHY SNOW!!! We still got some very nice, intense points on some tight-sitting hens and some great exercise.
The final spot of the morning was a small draw in the middle of a corn field. Most of it was void of cover, but there was a small amount right in the center of the field. Instead of going up or down the draw, we cut across the corn field and approached the cover from the side. The dogs were very birdy, but couldn’t seem to locate the rooster. I remembered hunting this spot three years ago when the same exact thing happened. So I did the same thing I did three years ago and slowly eased down the steep hill toward some thick, impenetrable plum that was packed with tumbleweeds. Sure enough, the rooster blew out of there right in front of me, and gave me a pretty good shot. But instead of “BAM”, I heard “BA-BAM”! The rooster cartwheeled in the air and feathers filled the sky! I looked over towards the local and he is also lowering his gun. “Nice shot!” he says… I started giving him chit about how I finally get a shot on a rooster after three days of walking and he tries to shoot it out from under me, but we’re good friends so it was all just good fun. Daisy brought me the bird, and it became immediately clear that we had both hit the rooster VERY well. I suggested that next time he should wait and see if I miss before he shoots my bird, but I’ve known him for a long time and that’s not happening…
At that point, it’s getting to be about lunchtime, so we part company with our local friends and the newbie and I start the long drive back to Manhattan. I’m feeling bad that he didn’t get his first rooster, although he did have at least one good chance. Also, we all did our best to put him in the right places, and called him over to walk in on plenty of points, and tried to help him get a deer too. It just didn’t work out…
On our drive home, we stopped again at the best WIHA places we had found on our trip out. Lots of new boot tracks in the snow, and it looked like the WIHA we found got pounded over the weekend. One positive thing was that it was finally warm and sunny enough to soften the snow. Even in the shade, the snow was slushy and quiet now, but the roads were turning to goo.
We stopped again at the hidden honeyhole WIHA and headed straight for the CRP quarter. A rooster blew out up ahead just as we entered the grass. We hunted a little over half of it when a quail goes shooting up in the air way ahead of Daisy and Junie. Both hunters and dogs made a beeline for the area, and we experienced one of the more odd flushes that I’ve ever witnessed. First a hen pheasant comes up, then a few quail, then another hen pheasant, then some more quail, and this continues for about 20 quail and 5 hen pheasants. They were just randomly getting up at this point. The dogs had been watching the fliers and we hunters were still a short distance away. I had two quail fly directly at me, which I tried to swing around and shoot when they were going away. I had a misfire on the first one and just plain missed the second one. Then the newbie starts whooping that he got one, so I went and stood where he marked it down while he walked out the area where the birds had been. I kept Daisy and the pup in the area for several minutes, but they were having no success finding the quail and my friend was getting very discouraged. We made a BIG circle downwind of the downed bird, working the dogs back into the area, and then JUNIE pulls it from a clump of grass about 25 yards from the original mark!!! Well, of course I was beaming with pride for my new pup and my friend was beaming with pride for his first upland bird! But the show wasn’t over yet! About 50-60 yards farther down, my friend announced that JUNIE was ON POINT!!! She held nicely while he walked up on her and a single quail got up at his feet. The shot was an easy straight-away, but he didn’t cut a feather in three shots… Oh well, that’s hunting… It was getting to be late afternoon, so I suggested that we should leave the covey plenty of time to reunite, and we still had a lot of driving to do. We turned to walk back to the truck with the wind at our backs. I was so proud of the work Junie had done on those quail and happy for my friend getting his first upland bird. I was lost in thought and fishing in my pocket for the celebratory cigar I had been saving for the end of the day when “CUK, CUCUK!” a rooster blows out of the grass about 10 yards downwind of me! It took me an extra second to shoulder my gun, but I was still fast enough to smack that rooster just before he got out of range! I managed to light my cigar about the same time I spotted Daisy bounding over the wet grass with my rooster in her mouth. What a great way to end the trip!
Our four man, 3 and a half dog hunting party ended the day with four roosters and three quail. The three day trip brought us six roosters and four quail. We screwed up and let a few get away, but the birds were mostly just too wary and wise… a formidable challenge for men and dogs. Dang that crusty snow!
We slid and slopped our way back to the paved roads and drove the rest of the way home with big smiles on our faces, already making plans for next year’s trip.
My observations of the trip:
1. Yes, bird numbers are down, but I think it was the weather conditions that hurt us the most. I think we probably would have had some more shooting if the conditions had been more favorable.
2. They are farming a lot cleaner out there than I remember from previous trips. Most of the crops go all the way to the road and I couldn’t find a weed in any of the fields we hunted.
3. Unless it was absolutely impractical to plant an area, it was growing crops.
4. It seemed like there were a lot more hunters up there than previous years at this time. Our host also thought that that the birds had been getting more pressure all season.
5. Hunting with puppies and rookie hunters is more fun.:thumbsup:
