The week before I had been sick with a bad cold and hadn’t been able to hunt. The weather wasn’t that great either with winds close to forty miles an hour. On this Monday morning I got up and was on my way to Kansas before 5:30 am. I wanted to drive a long way into Kansas to try to find some quail. I drove for about 4 hours before turning dogs out.
Tur Bo
Tur Bo pointing a pigeon.
Tur Bo on point.
I had looked at some of these properties before the season opened and had written in my Kansas Hunting Atlas that these places looked really good. The first place I turned dogs out on was an eighty acre place with wheat stubble next to CRP strips and soy bean stubble next to CRP strips. There was a creek flowing along the front of this place. Food, cover and water. Everything that quail and pheasants need.
I put e-collar, GPS collar and a blaze orange vest on Sally and set her on the ground. I turned Mann out of his box and started putting the e-collar and GPS collar on him and looked at Sally. She had never had a vest on before and she hadn’t moved from where I had set her on the ground. She finally started moving when I put Mann on the ground.
I had parked on the south west corner of this 80 acre place and we started along some CRP next to the harvested soy bean field. As we got through the CRP and was approaching the soy bean field Mann went on point with Sally honoring. I took a picture then walked in front but nothing flushed. I released the dogs and they started trailing. They trailed to the road and I called them back.
We went along the creek to the north edge then down a really good hedge row. The side we were on was soy bean stubble and on the other side was corn stubble. We went all the way to the back as well as going down some of the CRP strips that ran into the bean field. When we got to the east fence line we turned to the south. We still had intermittent soy beans and CRP on our side and off the place to the east was more corn stubble.
We took this fence line to the south fence then back toward the truck. There was some cover where an old house place had been and we checked it out. We hunted back to the truck without seeing anything. I loaded the dogs.
Just down the road was a square mile walk-in place. It was about like this 80 acre place. It had soy bean stubble along side of a pasture. The pasture had cattle on it but it wasn’t grazed down. It looked really good. There was a well traveled gravel road on the west and a dirt road on the south. I pulled down the dirt road then pulled into an opening in the soy bean field to be off the road.
Sally with her vest.
I put an e-collar and GPS collar on Tur Bo and turned him out with Mann who still had his e-collar and GPS on. The wind was out of the north west and we were going north along a harvested soy bean field but we were in the edge of the pasture. The pasture had some of the smaller blue stem. Even when the dogs got out to 4 or 500 yards I could still see them. It helps when you find quail but I enjoy just watching the dogs run.
As both of these guys ran I wished for a good camera that would record them cracking their tails as they checked all of the objectives. Over the hill to the east I saw the tops of some trees so we went to the east but still along the soy bean field. These trees were in a draw that ran back to the soy bean field. As I stood on the hill I watched both dogs run the draw back to the south.
This farm was easy walking and I was really enjoying watching the dogs work. We hit a fence and hunted down it and crossed the line we had been hunting as we come into this area. There was a draw running through the pasture and the dogs took it back toward the truck. I stayed along the high side of the hill so I could see them run.
I was about 200 yards from the road when a dump truck came down the dirt road. I saw him slam on the brakes and slide for a long way then he went on. I thought that one of the dogs must have run in front of him but I hadn’t heard anything. I remember thinking, “I bet he’s mad that a dog ran in front of him.”
Sally honoring Tur Bo.
When I’m hunting I usually have my gun in my left hand and I hold onto the GPS handheld, that’s in a holster on my belt, with my right. I felt it vibrate. I looked down and saw that it was showing Tur Bo on point at the road. I knew then that he had been hit.
I saw him lying in the road when I was about 75 yards from him. He wasn’t moving. I don’t remember crossing the fence to get to him or the walk from when I first saw him but when I got to him there was no heart beat and he wasn’t breathing. As I knelt by him Mann came to me. I knew I needed to put him up then take care of Tur Bo.
We weren’t far from the truck so I put Mann in his box and pulled the truck close to Tur Bo. Where the dump truck had hit his brakes was a long black mark in the dirt road. He had tried hard to stop. As I knelt by Tur Bo with tears running down my cheeks a dump truck came back from the direction that the one that had hit him had gone. I figured it was the same one.
My truck was in the middle of the road with Tur Bo beside it. I started toward the truck and I could tell the guy didn’t really want to get out. His truck was still running, noisily, and he got out and cleaned his feet off on his running board. He started toward me. I said, “you did all you could to miss him”. He said, “it wasn’t me. It was my buddy”.
I had seen several of the dump trucks on the dirt road. I didn’t ask but I think they must have been hauling manure from a feed lot or something. I got him to help me load Tur Bo into my truck and I started home.
I have been quail hunting for a lot of years and this is the first time I’ve had a problem such as this. It was a tragic accident. A few seconds different and it would never have happened. Every thing that Tur Bo did was fast. I know he just popped up right in front of the truck. The driver hit the brakes but it was too late.
It was a long drive home.
Tur Bo on point. 6/7/13
to 12/2/19