Luke pointing Dolly honoring.
Luke
The weather people said it was going to snow by 5:00 am. 100% chance of 1 to 3 inches in my area with more north west of here. When I got up it wasn’t snowing nor had it been. I decided to go to some walk-in areas around Atchison, Kansas which is north west of here. There are a lot of walk-in properties, in the Kansas Hunting Atlas, near Atchison.
I didn’t see a flake of snow until I got to Atchison. It was cold with a light south wind. The first place I turned Luke and Dolly out with Sport Dog e-collars and Garmin GPS collars. Tur Bo had a cut on his leg and Lucky was limping from hunting the day before so I left them home. I started down a fence row with soy beans on both sides that had been harvested. There was some brush that grew from the fence row over to a creek that ran through the soy bean field. I crossed the creek and continued on north to the end of the cover. As I turned and started back down the creek I checked the GPS. The batteries were almost dead. I would turn it on and it would locate the dogs then turn off.
I started to the truck to get more batteries. There was a water way that ran from the soy bean field down to the creek. The water way was about 50 yards wide and 1/4 mile long. I saw Dolly running up the water way. When she got almost to the end she slowed down and got birdy. About 30 yards in front of her a big covey of quail flushed. Dolly didn’t see or hear the birds. She went on point and Luke honored. I kicked the grass knowing that the birds had already flushed but hoping a few had hid in the cover. No such luck. I had seen where the covey had flown to but with my GPS not working we went to the truck to get more batteries.
After replacing the batteries and putting extra batteries in my hunting vest we started back to where I saw the covey fly to. Blaze had been in the truck waiting her turn so I had turned her out, too. When we got to the area Luke was in some wild cane and a couple of quail flushed out the far end. Far enough away that he didn’t see or hear them. We kept checking the area and Dolly pointed into a brush pile. Blaze and Luke honored her. I kicked the brush pile and nothing came out. I tapped her head and she moved up past the brush pile and went back on point. When she moved the other 2 dogs started moving also. When she pointed both of them honored. I went in front of her and a quail flushed. I tracked the quail and just as I pulled the trigger the barrel hit a bush. Needless to say, I missed.
We checked the creek and all of the brush out without finding any more quail. We started back toward the truck along the fence row and I checked the GPS. It showed Luke on point ahead of me in the fence row. When I got close Dolly honored him. I went to the fence row and Luke was on the other side. Where he was standing was off the walk-in property. I went to the fence, kicked the barb wire, kicked a tree and threw a limb over the fence and nothing flushed but Luke didn’t move. I thought maybe the bird had already flown so I told Luke, “okay”. He moved about a foot and went back on point.
There was a house about 250 yards from Luke on that side of the fence. I crossed the fence, off the walk-in property, and went to Luke. I took a picture because I knew I wasn’t going to be off the walk-in property and shoot at the quail. I walked in front of him and a quail flushed straight away. When you aren’t shooting they fly so slow. We went on back to the truck without finding anything else.
It had been snowing harder and harder and I had been snowed in, in Kansas before when the weather people had been saying snow flurries. Once when they said only snow flurries, it was snowing so hard we couldn’t see the front of the truck as we drove down the road. So I decided to go on home.
It was a short hunt but I again found quail. I’m finding birds in most of the places I’m hunting in Kansas. I’m not as efficient as I used to be but I am getting dog work. For instance, I wasn’t sure whether Luke was flushing his birds or they had been getting up ahead of him. The bird he pointed here makes me think, he’s not flushing his birds. He was really steady on that bird. As the season goes on, I will find out.