Dolly pointing in a plum thicket
Dolly pointing Lucky honoring
Lucky pointing in a plum thicket
I met Don and Linda Hansen near Emporia, Kansas at the first farm we were going to hunt. I have hunted this farm but not this year. This farm is really big and I don’t think many people get more than 1/4 mile off the road. I usually don’t spend much time along the edges. I hope everyone doesn’t think the same way.
Don brought Tigger a young pointer and I turned Luke and Dolly out. Don had the Garmin GPS track and train on Tigger. Luke and Dolly were wearing the Garmin GPS and Sport Dog training collars. This farm has a lot of CRP with some milo fields, also. The dogs circled some milo fields as we started toward the back.
We checked most of the places that we had found birds before without seeing anything. We were almost to the back, with all three dogs in front of us, when we saw a covey of quail flush. Most of them flew back in the direction that we had come from but we checked the other direction first. The dogs would get birdy and try to point and quail would flush in front of them. We never got a shot. We were close to a point of this farm that joined some land that wasn’t in the walk-in program so we checked it before going in the direction the covey had flown.
We fought our way through some thickets where we thought the quail had flown without finding anything. There was an old abandoned road with hedge rows on both sides that we went down to the end and started back. The dogs started getting real birdy and all three pointed at different times. They would point then move up, then point again. Don and I were a little ways in front of the dogs when 5 or 6 quail flushed then 5 or 6 more. They were getting up in the brush 20 yards from us. I shot and a quail dropped. I was between Don and the birds so he didn’t get a shot.
We saw where a few of the birds had flown and went in that direction. Tigger went on point in the edge of a milo field with Luke and Dolly backing. Four quail got up in the edge of some timber in front of us. Don made a good shot on one but I didn’t have a shot. Dolly picked his bird up and got almost out of the brush and dropped it. Luke did that a hunt or two ago and I crawled into a thicket and got it but this time I made Dolly go back to get the quail.
The second bunch of birds from this covey flew into a big tangle of plum thicket and cedar trees. We started into this and Dolly pointed at the base of a cedar tree and when we started by her we heard the bird flush on the other side. We started trying to get through the tangle and Luke pointed. When we got close his bird flushed without giving us a shot. We were still trying to get out of this tangle when Don said that Tigger was on point. She was out of the tangle, on the other side of a fence, in grass less than knee high. I crossed the fence and waited on Don but he couldn’t cross where he was at. He told me to go ahead and shoot a bird for Tigger.
I started toward Tigger and a quail flushed behind me. I whirled around and missed with both barrels. When I shot 4 quail flushed out of the knee high grass, right in front of Tigger and floated back to better cover. Luckily, Tigger hasn’t hunted enough to know what I was supposed to do or she would have bitten me.
We followed in the direction that the 4 quail had flown. The dogs were working the edges with Don and me in the middle. A quail flushed in front of me and I made a lucky shot. Dolly came in and retrieved the bird. She dropped it in my hand so I gave her the head. We saw some more quail flush ahead of the dogs without us getting a shot.
We came back to the milo field and started around the edge when I checked the GPS and it showed Dolly on point across the milo field. We started across with me checking the GPS often. Before we got to her Luke was backing. Dolly was pointing toward us as we walked through the milo field. A single quail flushed and we both shot. The quail dropped. Luke picked it up then dropped it. He doesn’t retrieve, yet. I got Dolly in to retrieve. She dropped the bird in my hand. I gave her another head. We went on around this milo field, crossed a creek and around another milo field without finding any more birds.
We ate lunch then drove to a small farm that had about 40 acre milo field on one side of the road and a larger field of CRP across the road. I had been to this farm earlier in the year and a covey had flown from the milo to the CRP and I only found one. Don turned Tigger out and I used Lucky and Blaze. Linda, being naturally smarter than Don and me stayed at the truck. We hunted along the side of the milo in a nice buffer strip. When we got to a draw that ran through the milo field and joined the buffer strip all three dogs got birdy. All three dogs were about 15 or 20 yards in front of us when I saw a single quail flush about 50 yards ahead of us. Then 5 or 6 birds flushed followed by 5 or 6 more. I shot twice without turning a feather.
Most of the quail had flown across the road into the CRP but a few had flown down the hedge row. We followed the hedge row to the end of the property then crossed to the other side and started back. Don heard a quail flush behind us. We went back a little way and the dogs came in front of us. Blaze and Lucky went on point almost side by side. They were right in front of me and I waited on Don to come over. Lucky could tell the bird was gone but Blaze hasn’t had enough experience. When Don came up Lucky went back to hunting. Blaze moved but she didn’t want to leave that area.
We hunted on down the hedge row then crossed the road and hunted the CRP. The CRP is really thick but we saw the birds fly toward it. We hunted up then back then went deeper into it and made a couple of circles without moving another bird. There was another farm not far away where I had found quail this year so we decided to try it.
Lucky and Blaze hadn’t hunted as much as Dolly and Luke had so I let them out again. Don had only brought Tigger so he put him out. About 200 yards from the truck I checked the GPS and Lucky was on point a little over a 100 yards behind us. Evidently he came out of truck, hunted about 50 yards and went on point. We had walked away from him. When we got to him his head was higher than normal and he was looking way out front of him. Don was on his left and I was on his right. Before we got to Lucky a large covey flushed. They had run about 30 yards then flushed. Don and I both shot but neither of us had a chance.
We started in the direction the covey had flown. When we got close to some thickets I thought I saw a quail on the ground. I took a couple of steps a quail flushed. I shot and the bird dropped into a thicket 20 yards or so in front of Don. Don retrieved it and wondered if hew got the head like I give Dolly.
We went on to a farm road and turned to go back through where the birds were. We hadn’t gone far when we saw Tigger pointing with Lucky and Blaze honoring. When we went in 4 quail flushed. I heard Don shoot and I hit a quail that flew my way. Lucky ran to my bird and retrieved it. He didn’t stay around long enough to get a head. He just drops his birds and goes back to hunting. I went to help Don find his bird.
Don said he had hit it hard and not taken his eyes off the spot. I got Blaze and Lucky in to hunt dead. Lucky really wants to go find some more birds and Blaze doesn’t know to hunt dead. We tried for about 10 minutes to find the downed bird with no luck. There was a plastic dish lying on the ground so I marked the spot with it. I told Don when we got close to the truck I would put Blaze up and get Dolly out. She hunts dead better than Lucky or Blaze.
We hunted back through the field and on past where the covey had flushed from originally without any more dog work. I put Blaze up and put the collars on Dolly. We hunted back to where Don’s dead bird was and I had Dolly hunt dead. We spent another 10 minutes or so trying to find the dead bird without any luck. We left that spot again and made another round back through where we thought the singles were located. It was getting late but we decided to make one more pass to see if we could get another single up.
When we got in line with where Don’s bird was we decided to make one more search for it. This time I wanted to go on past the spot he thought it had fallen in case it had ran. We got to the plastic dish we were using for a marker and I tried to get the dogs in to hunt dead again. As I got the dogs in Don parted the grass about a foot from the plastic dish and there the quail laid. The grass was tall and had fallen over. It was so dry that when I pulled on the grass dust came off. I really don’t know why the dogs couldn’t smell the dead bird but after three tries we had it. Don and I both felt better. We hate to lose a bird. That was Don’s second retrieve so he got 2 heads.
We walked a long ways but we moved 4 coveys of quail and had a lot of dog work so it was a good day. As I write this, tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and I have a lot to be thankful for. The Lord has blessed me with good health and with enough to feed and hunt several bird dogs. He’s also blessed me with a good wife, good kids and grand kids. My life is complete. May the Lord bless you even more than He’s blessed me.