Idaho Quail Hunt, Day 2

Posted on October 22, 2020 by windypointsj1s@aol.com

For three days the wind had been blowing really hard, in the 40 mph range. I had driven about 1300 miles into this strong wind but watching the weather report, they said the wind would only be 18 mph. That’s still pretty strong but not as bad. Well they missed the mark. It was still in the 40 mph range.

A water fall near where I was hunting.

The Snake River in the background.

I was going to show how thick the hedge row was and when Josie saw the camera she stopped.

Sun up in this region, this time of year, is almost 8:00 am. I was waiting on the sun rise the second morning. I actually believed the forecast for less wind. I had driven to the very back and my game plan was to hunt about half way then back to the truck and move.

I turned Sally, Mann and Josie out with the GPS and e-collars on. We went along the brush growing along the Snake river. The dogs were hunting hard and seeing more birds than I was. With the strong wind and everything rattling the birds were running and flushing.

As we came close to a cedar hedge row Josie passed in front of me and about 35 yards ahead of her a rooster pheasant flushed. That really got her excited. As I came up the hedge row, out in some low growing shrubs, Josie and Mann were working. Three quail flushed far enough in front of them that they never heard them or saw them. All three flew right over me but I never saw them until they were right over me and I had the hedge row on my right. They were gone before I could react and with the hedge row I couldn’t even see where they flew.

The three quail had flown toward the river so we went in that direction. We were in about a mile and I started working the dogs back to the truck but higher on the mountain. Sally went on point down by the river along a hedge row. When I got to her she tried to penetrate the hedge row but it was too thick.

Sally ran down the hedge row trying to get into it but couldn’t. That’s when I took a picture of the hedge row and Josie saw the camera out and stopped. Most of the time when I take pictures the dogs are on point. They get the idea they are supposed to stop.

I did notice that it counted the elevator in the hotel but we were on the second floor. Take 20 floors off it’s still a lot.

I ran Tur Bo in a AKC hunt test one time. They only have to point one bird to pass the Junior Hunter test and he had already done that. A judge on a horse was riding along talking to me when Tur Bo made a pass in front of us but too far out to get a picture. I told the judge I was going to call him in for a picture. When Tur Bo got close, as I raised the camera, he posed. He looked good. The judge laughed and said that was the first time he had ever seen a dog pose for the camera.

I went down both sides of the hedge row but never saw anything. Just as we finished I felt the GPS handheld vibrate. Mann was on point up the hill about 300 yards. I started to him. The way the birds had been running and flushing I watched the handheld, to make sure he was still on point. As I went to him I started wondering if we were way above sea level. I had to stop twice to catch my breathe on the way. By the time I got to him Sally was honoring. When I walked in a cotton tail rabbit scampered out of a brush pile.

I have an app on my phone that tells me how far I walked and it counts the floors I climb. Supposedly, every ten feet of rise it counts as a floor. When I got to the motel I checked it and I had climbed over 190 floors. Maybe that why I had to stop a couple of times on the way to Mann’s point.

Sally pointing along the cedar hedge row.

We went on back along the bluff. I had several points but they never lasted long. The birds were still running and flushing. When we got back to the truck I loaded the dogs and moved to near the east end.

After I ate lunch I turned Mann, Abby and Boss out with their GPS and e-collars on. We started into that strong west wind and almost immediately I saw Boss and Abby chasing a rooster pheasant. This must be where some of those television pheasant hunters hunt. In 3 days I never saw a hen pheasant. All roosters.

As we walked along I could see a difference in Boss and Abby. They were hunting with a passion. Boss at 7 months old was consistently over 150 yards and was going back and forth, hitting the thickets. Once, on the GPS, I saw him on point at 353 yards. By the time I covered half of the distance he was moving but he was hunting. Abby was doing the same thing.

Mann honoring Abby.

Another time I saw Mann was on point about 150 yards from me. When I got close he was on the other side of an impenetrable thicket. Boss and Mann, at a distance, look alike. I thought it was Mann moving around the edge of the thicket when he went on point and 3 quail flushed right in front of him. It was Boss. I was still too far away for a shot.

I went on to the thicket and a single quail flushed behind me and I shot but I knew I was too far behind. It had flown over another thicket and I only had time for a snap shot. When I shot another quail flushed that would have been a better shot had I been looking in the right place. By the time I saw it it was too far.

It’s a long way down hill to the Snake river.

There were probably more birds flushed out of that thicket than I saw but the wind was so strong I couldn’t hear them.

We continued on until we were where we had been, earlier that morning, then turned and hunted along the bluff back toward the truck. Abby got behind me and got lost. She kept going to the west as we went east. I kept calling her and she would get close but turn and go west again before she got to us. I think my voice was probably bouncing off the bluff that was close.

Another shot from the top down to the river.

It wasn’t long before Boss was behind me lost, also. That’s the good part of the GPS system. They can be lost but you know where they are. By the time Mann and I got to the truck Abby was 800 yards and Boss was about 600 yards west. I got in the truck and drove to them.

When I got close to where Boss was they both showed up. They were as happy to see me as I was to see them.

It was still early but I was really tired of the wind. I went back to the motel. I had been in the strong west wind for four days. Surely it wouldn’t be as bad the fifth day.

A long shot showing farm land across the river.

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Quail Hunting In Idaho

Posted on October 18, 2020 by windypointsj1s@aol.com

I haven’t put a post on the blog in several days because I have been in Idaho and I don’t like to advertise the fact that I’m not home. For three years I have tried to make a trip to Idaho and in 2018 and 2019 something came up to stop me. This year there was time and the weather, as far as I checked, would be good.

One of the places I hunted.

Another view.

The Snake River in the background.

June went with me nd we left our house about 5:00 am Sunday morning and drove about a 1,000 miles to Green River Wyoming before stopping for the night. I thought I would be able to get to the place I wanted to go in time to go by the Idaho Game and Fish office before they closed for the day. The office wasn’t at the address we had for them but we happened to see the sign for the office as we drove along another road.

Okay, I thought, I will buy a license and get some information about where I should hunt. There were no cars in the parking lot but I bravely donned my mask as I got to the door. Closed. Today is Columbus Day. Being a retired guy, I hardly know what day of the week it is let alone Columbus Day. I didn’t even know it was considered a holiday.

The dogs had been in their boxes for most of two days so I dropped June at the hotel and drove to where there was a lot of Bureau Of Land Management (BLM) land. Everything I had read about Idaho was just find a little canyon with a creek and trees growing along it and you will find California quail. I drove by hundreds of acres of BLM land with no changes in the landscape. Flat land with low growing shrubs. No creeks and no trees.

Finally, I just turned all 6 dogs out on some BLM land and we walked around for about an hour just to run a little energy out of them. Before I turned them out a local man and his wife stopped and talked for a few minutes. When he found out I was quail hunting he said just go into the desert, there were quail there. I thought this was the desert.

After letting the dogs run for about an hour we went back to the truck. I had a chain gang with me and some long stakes. I put the chain gang out and hooked the dogs to it after driving the stakes into the ground on each end. As I got the dog food ready for them the dogs pulled one of the stakes out of the ground. They were tangled but I got them straightened out and drove the stake into ground again.

A water fall near where I was hunting.

I went back to getting the food ready and again they were loose and tangled. I got them lined back up and the stake drove into the ground and finished getting the food ready. I passed the food out and Abby ate hers real fast and pulled one of the stakes out trying to get to Josie’s food. I straightened them out again and put Abby in her box. As each of the others finished, I put them in their box and went back to the motel.

Tuesday morning I was waiting for the Idaho Fish and Game office to open at 8:00 am. At exactly 8:00 am I walked in and asked if I could buy a license and then asked to speak with someone that knew about upland hunting in Idaho. A nice lady came out and tried to show me a couple of places to try on my Idaho Atlas.

The first one she showed me I asked if it was very large. There was a lady listening to our conversation and she shook her head no but the lady I was talking to said, “yes, it’s pretty big”.

Boss pointed it but I couldn’t get it to fly.

I drove toward where I thought she had told me and I got close. I saw a Sheriff’s officer setting in a parking lot and talked to him. I was close just needed to go a little farther in the direction I had been going.

There was a fish hatchery on this place and houses all around. I never saw a spot large enough to turn my dogs loose. As I was looking it over I met a Conservation agent, along the road. When I asked him about California quail he said I would do better at another area that was close to this one. He gave me directions.

This is the desert and there is no reason to have roads to a lot of these areas. I tried to follow his directions but that didn’t work. He had given me a brochure to the next place and I finally went all the way back to the interstate and followed the direction on the brochure. That worked, I got there.

I walked up the hill a long way thinking this was a dog on point. It wasn’t.

It was an area 2 1/2 miles long with the Snake river on one side and a large bluff on the other. The hunt able land was from a quarter of a mile wide to about a half mile. The land rose a a pretty steep angle from the river to the base of the bluff. But it was plenty of room for my dogs.

I drove all the way to the back to make sure no one else was hunting the place. I came back about midway and parked. I turned Mann, Sally and Josie out with E-collars and GPS collars.

This place has several ponds as well as some small creeks running into the Snake river. Also at the very back was a large water fall with the water going straight to the Snake river. There is also a small canal running from east to west through this area. Plenty of water for the dogs and for quail.

All the way out the wind had been in the 40 mile an hour range from the west. There were warnings along the interstate that it was unsafe for high profile, light weight vehicles. The wind was still very strong.

The first birds we had any contact with were pheasants. The season on pheasants didn’t open until Saturday, October 17. I would be on my way home. With the wind so strong and everything rattling the birds were really wild.

Another shot of the badger.

The first bird was a rooster pheasant and when I saw it Sally was right behind. I don’t know whether she tried to point it or just ran through it. Josie saw the pheasant and followed. She had been hunting but this fired her up. She and Abby are a little over a year old and haven’t had many wild bird contacts. Boss is just 7 months old. They all need wild birds.

As we hunted on down, Mann pointed along the edge of a thick thicket. He was on the east side and I was on the west. As I got close to the edge of the thicket I heard a covey of quail flush out the other side. I never saw a bird.

We went on toward the east, to the end, then started back. I had walked about 200 yards to the west when I felt the GPS handheld vibrate. Sally was on point to the east. When we had turned she hadn’t come with us. I went back to her. When I got close a single quail flushed about 40 yards from me without drawing a shot. My first glimpse of a California quail this trip.

Abby pointing a pigeon. I ran out of pictures on the first day.

We hunted around the area but didn’t find anymore quail. We hunted back to the truck. Although the dogs moved some more pheasants we never had another point. When we got to the truck I loaded the dogs.

I had three BLM maps and I wanted to find the canyon with a small creek with tall trees growing along the edge. So we drove.

I drove a long way without seeing anything resembling what I wanted. Finally, knowing I had some dogs that hadn’t been out I stopped where the map of the BLM area said there was a small lake. I turned Mann, Abby and Boss out with their GPS and e-collars on.

Mann on point with Abby honoring.

This area looked like it had been burned off and some sort of grass planted. The grass had a small seed head on it. Looked good to me. When I got to the lake it was dry and had been for many years, looked like. As we worked around a little I noticed Boss on point.

As I walked toward him he moved a short distance to the side and went back on point. There was something funny about his point. He moved several times as I walked toward him. When I got close I could see he was looking down into a dry creek. He was pointing a badger. Boss acted like he wanted to go into the dry creek and then he would back up. I took a couple of pictures of the badger and we left.

By the time we got back to the truck it was getting late. I drove to a place where I could stake the dogs out with leashes instead of using the chain gang and fed them. With a wish that the next day would not be as windy, I drove to the motel. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.

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Another Kansas Prairie Chicken Hunt

Posted on October 6, 2020 by windypointsj1s@aol.com

My cousin’s dog, Willie, Mann’s sire and Boss’s grand sire, was running in a field trial in central Kansas. I met my cousin, Jim Smith, at the trial grounds before the trial started. Willie was running in the third brace and it was a horse back trial so there was no way for me to watch. After visiting for a while I left to hunt some prairie chickens.

I saw this just off one of the places where I ran dogs.

Boss pointing a pigeon.

Abby pointing a pigeon.

Josie pointing a pigeon.

I feel bound to say each time that I really don’t want to kill a prairie chicken. I have killed prairie chickens in the past and even have one mounted but I don’t like to eat them so I wouldn’t shoot one, probably. I put this disclaimer in so no one feels sorry for me never killing a prairie chicken.

When I pulled off the interstate my truck was making a terrible noise. I had the clutches, in the rear end, repaired a year or so ago and it sounds like the same problem. I was kind of worried about it but continued to drive it around.

There was a lot of walk-in properties within 10 or 15 miles of the field trial and I started looking for a place to run the dogs. I had staked all of the dogs out for a few minutes at the trial grounds so getting them out wasn’t a big deal.

I found a wheat stubble field with a CRP buffer strip around it. Off to one side was a hay field with a draw running through it. I turned Josie and Sally out and we went around the wheat field. On the south end of the wheat field Sally pointed and when I got close she moved into the wheat stubble and pointed again. She pointed 4 or 5 times then went on. I believe a pheasant ran out on her.

We went all the way around the wheat stubble field and back to the truck. Occasionally, I like to hunt right back past the truck so the dogs don’t get used to just going to the truck when we get close. We went through the hay field toward the draw that ran through it.

As we started down the draw the GPS handheld vibrated. It showed Sally on point inside the draw. She was only about a hundred yards ahead of me but when I got close I still couldn’t see her. The draw had small saplings about an inch apart and there was no way I could get to her. About that time I saw a single quail fly from the draw into the fence row at the end.

I decided to go around the draw to see if I could get in from the north side. When I got around to the other side Sally had moved some but was still on point. We had a pretty strong wind and I think the birds were running on her. This side of the draw was as thick as the other. I walked along the edge and got real close to Sally. About 20 yards in front of me about 8 or 9 quail flushed then farther out several more flew.

Sally came on through the draw and Josie was with her. We were almost to the fence row on the west and went along it to the north. Just as the draw stopped at the fence row a single quail flushed in front of Josie. Then as I walked along a quail flushed from right at my feet. Boy, they are fat and slow when you can’t shoot at them.

Josie pointing a pigeon.

Josie

I had several points from Sally and Josie made one or two. But with the strong wind rattling every thing the birds didn’t hold real well. But the birds didn’t want to leave this area so I worked the dogs along the draw a couple of times. It was good for both dogs but it really wound Josie up. I loaded the dogs and went looking for another place.

I stopped at a large pasture that had been grazed but not over pastured. It still had lots of cover and the grass hoppers were thick. I turned Mann and Abby out. This was the place where I saw the flag I took the picture of. You can tell the wind was blowing.

This pasture was next to a winter wheat field that had some cattle on it. As I went into the wind I saw that the pasture turned near a large pond and there were some cows grazing on the pasture I was in. I don’t like to work my dogs close to cows. I circled around and went back to the truck.

Abby pointing a pigeon.

Abby

The next place was a huge CRP field. I turned Mann and Boss out. Some of this field was too thick for prairie chickens or even quail but not all of it. I saw a draw running into the field and started toward it. Just as Boss and I got to it the GPS handheld vibrated and it showed Mann on point out in the CRP. Before I got to him he was moving.

He had been on point in a large area of what looked like partridge peas. When we got there neither dog wanted to leave them. They both were really checking them out. As I looked at the field I could see several patches of the partridge peas. Partridge peas are really good food for quail and pheasants. I never saw a pheasant flush but the way the dogs acted there were some that ran out on us. When we got back to the truck I loaded the dogs.

Boss pointing a pigeon.

Boss

I had planned on being in Kansas for several days but I must have picked up some kind of bug. I felt terrible. I didn’t know if it was the start of the Covid-19 or what but I didn’t want to infect anyone else if it was. So I drove back home. In about three days I was back to 100 per cent.

Mann’s sire, Willie, won the Sunflower Open Shooting Dog field trial. He had run in the third brace and there were 27 dogs in the trial. It was the next evening before Jim found out and texted me. That was a good win for Willie and I think we will be hearing more from him. The handler, Virgil Moore, says he’s a special dog and I believe it.

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Running Dogs In Iowa, 9/29/20

Posted on October 2, 2020 by windypointsj1s@aol.com

I live close enough to Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska that I can get to an area to hunt or run the dogs and make it home to sleep in my own bed. Vince Dye and I wanted to check the areas that we had hunted a couple of years ago. Last year the quail in Iowa was way down but with the mild winter and good spring weather we thought, just maybe, the quail were making a come back.

Mann on point with Abby honoring.

I think this is Abby running in Iowa.

The area where we were running dogs.

Vince and my morning didn’t start well. We go by the Hungry Mule Cafe in Lathrop Missouri, most of the time, when we go to the north hunting and they were closed. A breakfast sandwich from McDonalds just is not a good substitute but we made do.

We went to a large Conservation area that 2 years ago we had found several coveys of quail, as well as some pheasants. The cover was really thick and they had not planted some of the areas where we had found quail before. They had mowed some strips along the edges of the fields that were planted.

Vince turned his young GSP, Ally, and his English cocker spaniel, Maggie, loose and I put the e-collars and GPS collars on Josie and Sally. The weather was cool with a light wind from the north and we went into the wind. About a mile into the Conservation area we saw a weedy field, that wasn’t too thick, we thought might hold some quail or pheasants.

In a low spot there was a little rise that had a clump of sumac growing. I saw Sally head to the thicket. I couldn’t see her but I felt the GPS handheld vibrate. I told Vince that she was on point and he said Ally was on point just a little way from Sally. He went to Ally as I tried to locate Sally. Before he got to Ally she started moving.

The handheld showed that she was close when I finally saw her buried in the sumac thicket. As I tried to force my way in to her, I got a whiff. Skunk! I started backward out of there yelling, “NO, SALLY!” She started toward me which wasn’t exactly what I wanted, then she started back toward the skunk. I turned the e-collar up and held the button on the transmitter down. Sally came away from the skunk.

At first, I didn’t think she had been sprayed very bad but when she came close I could see a yellowish, green streak between her eyes. Last year Mann had gotten sprayed by a skunk two different times but just running through the weeds cut the scent off him. I thought it might work that way with her but no such luck. She still smells bad! And the e-collar and GPS collars that she had on still smell.

I have had bird dogs for a lot of years and until Mann got into the skunks last year, I had never had a problem. One time, my son-in-law, Robert’s, Brittany got sprayed worse than Sally did. As a testament to how good a bird dogs nose is Robert’s dog still pointed singles. I could see a dog being able to point coveys but singles are hard for a dog to smell, but she pointed them.

Sally on wild quail.

When we got back to the truck, I didn’t want to touch her. She jumped up onto the tail gate but I still had to take the e-collar and GPS collars off. She went into the dog box and now the dog boxes, the e-collar, the GPS collar and my truck smell. The bad part of this most of the time these dogs don’t learn to leave the skunks alone. She may become a confirmed skunk dog. I hope not.

We drove by a couple of places that looked good but right now the cover is really heavy. We got to one of the areas we wanted to hunt and as we drove in a Biologist for Iowa Conservation drove in on a tractor right behind us. He was planting wild life plots. He said that last year the quail and pheasants were down about 50% but this year they had made a comeback.

Mann pointing a chukar.

We looked at some more places in this Conservation area and settled on the next one to try. The people that work for the Iowa Conservation Department work hard on their conservation areas. This area had a lot of different weeds and they had cut a lot of the taller trees, allowing the clumps of brush to grow.

Vince turned Ally and Maggie loose, again. I turned Mann and Abby out. We had only walked about a hundred yards when Mann went on point. I told Vince and started toward him. I had only taken a couple of steps when Vince yelled, “there goes a quail. It flushed right beside my foot”. I saw a baby quail, barely able to fly, going into the wind.

Luke pointing a pigeon.

When I got close to Mann he trailed into the wind. As I followed him a rooster pheasant flushed. Mann and Abby were going toward where the baby quail had flown and I called them away. Vince followed Ally and she was trailing real slow. He tried to call her off but she kept trailing. He grabbed her collar and led her away. We were afraid the dogs would be able to catch the young quail.

This area had a lot of grass hoppers and weed seeds. We continued on through. It was getting warm and we worked the dogs past a large pond, so they could cool off. We worked back to the truck without finding any more birds. It was getting too warm to work dogs so we just drove looking at other areas.

Iowa Conservation people work hard to make these areas as good as they possibly can be. Click on the first three pictures in this post, where they will come out full screen, and look at all of the different weeds. This cover and food is what will help these birds live through the winter and possibly raise other coveys for next year.

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