Most seasons are over close to me. Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska all closed as of January 31. Missouri closed on the fifteenth of January. I would be working my young dogs but it’s only 16 degrees with a wind chill below zero. The wind is gusting to about 35 miles per hour. I need to go somewhere to get away from this cold.
Dolly a few years ago
A few years ago, I had made a big circle in Kansas looking for some quail. I hadn’t been very successful. Or had any success at all. I was hunting walk-in properties without any luck. I saw a large property south of Cold Water Kansas, that was in the walk-in Atlas, that I wanted to try.
I got there with only about an hour of daylight left. I don’t remember which dogs I had except for Dolly. She pointed along a fence row with just one lone tree. When I got to her two quail flushed out the other side with the tree between them and me. There was a third quail that flushed out of some tall grass that I was able to shoot. We hunted this area without seeing any more birds. That place is where the above picture was taken.
I decided I would try this place the next day so I went in to Cold Water and got a motel room. There was a café close and I went to eat supper. When I walked in an older man was sitting in a booth. He looked at me and said, “are you bird hunting”. When I told him I was he said, “how are you doing”. I told him I had only killed one bird. He said, “you’re not really hurting them, are you”. I laughed then and I think about that often.
I went back the next morning and thinking about how few quail I had seen decided to take my 410. It didn’t weigh much and since I didn’t see many birds I may as well carry a light gun.
The dogs were working great the next morning and they pointed and I shot and shot. I shot half a box of shells and had maybe 3 quail for my efforts. I had found 3 coveys within about a hundred yards of the truck. I went back to the truck and got my 20 gauge Benelli and finished my limit.
On this ranch there was a trench silo that was pretty long, ten feet deep and about 50 feet wide. Sometimes I would get some singles trying to hide in the tumble weeds that had blown in. Usually, the dogs would point on one side or the other. When you got close the quail flushed up and over the top. I was never fast enough. The only quail I remember hitting in this was one that tried to fly down it rather than over the top.
Luke and Dolly both were young when we hunted that place. A few years later it was no longer in the walk-in program. Every year when I get my Kansas Atlas I look to see if they have got that ranch back. They probably never will.
Lucky
This picture of Lucky was taken several years ago in South Dakota. I’ve been to South Dakota several times but I’ve never taken a gun. I just take a blank pistol and work dogs. When I talked to a game warden he said if I wasn’t carrying a gun I wasn’t hunting. Didn’t need a license.
I took 8 dogs one of the times I went. I had a three dog box against the truck cab, a two dog box at the back and a three dog box on a receiver hitch. I used this setup again when Austin and I went to Nebraska early this past season.
My truck with enough boxes for 8 dogs.
One of the times, I was working the dogs close to a road and a guy driving down the road yelled, “where’s your gun”. When I told him I didn’t have one he said, “wait just a minute. I have one”. He got out and hunted with my dogs. We moved to another place and he killed a limit of “grouse” over my dogs. He came back the next morning and had to leave early but he only liked one having another limit. He was a local and his labs had sore feet. That was the first time he had ever hunted over pointing dogs. He liked it.
One time I had several young pups with me. Around 4 or 5 months old. We started across a pasture that didn’t have very much cover but it had lots of grass hoppers. As we went along a prairie chicken would get up right in front of those pups and fly over the hill with the puppies right behind. They would come back with their tongue hanging out and another would get up and off they would go again.
That pasture must have had 50 prairie chickens, scattered out, chasing grass hoppers. Luke was one of those young pups and he still thinks if he goes far enough he will find birds.
One of these pups was a pointer that really liked to run. I went to a place early one morning and a lot of pheasants had spent the night in the pasture I turned the dogs loose in. Most of the pheasants were going to a corn field across the road. We went along the edge of the road and there were pheasants every where. We were getting close to some cows so we turned and went to the north.
Over the hill was another corn field but this one had been harvested. Jack, the pointer that liked to run, went through the middle of this field and crossed the fence to some private ground. Luke and another pointer pup went with him but I called them back. We went back to the truck and I watered those two pups. I called Jack to no avail.
Three quail and my W.R. Pape side by side.
I had put Luke and the other pup in the dog box. I knew Jack would get tired and come in, in just a few minutes. A guy pulled up to the property next door and said, “is that your dog on my land”. I said, “yeah, he’s a five month old pup”. He said, “I’m leaving but I’ll be back in a few minutes and if he’s still on my land I will shoot him”. I told him, I didn’t want my dog shot. He was just a pup and would be off of his land soon. He said, “I will be back”.
I called and called Jack. I walked down on the grass lands side of the fence and he finally came to me. I walked him back to the truck. As I was giving Jack water the guy pulled up on his side of the fence. I loaded Jack and we left.
I went to Montana the first of September one year. I had just bought my Garmin GPS collars and wasn’t familiar with them. I saw a guy combining some wheat and went to talk to him. I asked if I could hunt where he was combining. He said he just worked there but his boss was coming across the field. I waited on the boss. He said I could hunt there if I wanted but he had a better place if I wanted to drive a little way.
I told him I would drive. He told me the directions and said, “park by that tree”. I must have looked at him kind of funny because he said, “you won’t see many trees between here and there”. And he was right. I parked by the tree.
Sally honoring Tur Bo.
Across the road from where I parked was Canada. It was warm when I turned the dogs out. It was flat enough that I could see the dogs most of the time. I didn’t check the GPS much. I had a big running grandson of Hick’s Rising Sun. We got into some sharp tails right away and I shot a limit, which if my memory is right, the limit is 3. I saw Pal circle the truck and remembered that I hadn’t set the water bucket out. We got into some more sharp tails and I worked the other dogs on them then went back to the truck.
When I got there Pal wasn’t there. I watered the other dogs and put them in their box. I checked the GPS and it showed Pal over a thousand yards away. I started calling and going that way. I had put a couple of bottles of water in my vest. As I walked it didn’t seem like I was gaining on him much. Finally, I saw him lying in the shade of a bush. I gave him water and we went back to the truck. I watered him from the bucket and put him in his box.
When I checked the GPS it was still saying over a thousand but not yards it was saying miles. That’s how far it was to my house where I had turned the GPS off. It wasn’t linking up. I was lucky that the arrow was pointing in the direction that Pal had gone and I found him. Now I could fix the GPS but then I was new.
Just thinking about some of these old dogs brought a tear to my eye. I’ve been blessed with a lot of good dogs. I miss them but my memories would not be near as rich if I had never had them.
Dolly off the walk-in property pointing quail.
Luke pointing a covey of quail.
Luke at Black Kettle National Grasslands.