Between the weather and Christmas, I hadn’t been hunting in a while so the day after Christmas I loaded 6 dogs into the truck and headed out on a Kansas quail hunt. Earlier in the year, I talked to a couple of deer hunters and they had marked a farm in my walk-in map book where they had seen some quail. Also the dogs had not been out of the kennel for a while and I was guiding on the 27th at Bird Fever in Richmond, Missouri. I was afraid that if I didn’t get them out they might just run through the field and flush all of the birds. Flushing all of the birds out of the field without the guns getting any shots is not the way to get repeat customers.
The first place I wanted to hunt was near Atchison but when I got there, there was another truck parked on the property so I drove on to Nemaha County. That was where the deer hunters had seen the quail earlier. I turned Luke, Whitey and Tur Bo out. The snow was deeper than I thought it would be. We had only about 2 inches at home but here there was about 8 inches. The temperature was about 40 degrees and the snow was melting but it was difficult to wade through.
The dogs loved the snow. Whitey ran in front of me and looked like she had been shot. She was running full speed and flopped down and flipped up into the air, rolled over and over then flopped around some more. Luke and Tur Bo rolled in the snow but were not as animated as Whitey.
This farm was pasture with a lot of trees and brush. It had a road on 2 sides with soy bean fields across the road on each side and corn fields on the other 2 sides. After the dogs got through rolling in the snow they hunted it out pretty well without finding anything and I had decided that the snow was too deep.
I went back to the place near Atchison that someone else was hunting earlier and they were gone. I turned Lucky loose first then Blaze. As I was putting the GPS on Dolly I saw that Lucky was on point with Blaze backing about 50 yards from the truck. I finished putting the collar on Dolly, grabbed my gun and started to them. Dolly came off the back of the truck, went about 10 yards and backed Lucky and Blaze.
Lucky was pointing into a draw that had a creek running through it. When I went in front of Lucky there was a brush pile that was partially rotted down next to the creek. I got to the edge of the creek and nothing got up so I went back to Lucky and tapped him on the head to release him. He went past me and went over the edge down into the dry creek bed. All 3 dogs trailed around, then Lucky and Dolly both pointed in different directions with Blaze backing Dolly. I heard 2 or 3 birds get up behind me. I whirled around and saw a bird going through the trees and threw a shot at it but missed. When I shot I heard 2 or 3 birds get up behind me again. I turned again and saw a bird flying through the trees and shot and missed again. Then a single bird came up right in front of me and flew right toward the sun. I shot but couldn’t tell whether I connected or not. I went back toward the truck and went to the other side of the creek to check for a downed bird but found nothing.
As we went up the draw there was foot prints where the other hunters had been on both sides of this draw. We followed along until we could cross the creek and started back down. White dogs don’t show up very good in the snow but shortly after we started back down the draw I saw Blaze whirl into a point. When I got closer I saw that she was backing Dolly who was pointing inside the brush along the draw. Lucky came up and honored. I got in front of Dolly and nothing came up so I went back and tapped her on the head to release her but she would not move. I kicked in front of her again, then I got down on one knee and started moving the grass around by hand. A quail got up and flew down the creek and was gone before I could get to my feet for a shot.
Dolly and Blaze went on down the draw and Lucky came back and went on point right in front of me. When I walked in front a single quail flushed and flew across the creek. At my shot it fell on the other side of the creek. None of the dogs saw it hit the ground so I had to cross the creek to get the dogs to find the dead bird. When I got to the other side Dolly came in and found the bird.
We crossed back over and hunted to the end of the draw and started back toward the truck on the other side. When we got within a hundred yards of the truck I saw Blaze on point. A single quail flushed before I got close to her. I was watching her and she had not moved.
All three dogs were real birdy and Dolly kept trailing like some birds were running around. I was standing just watching the dogs and a quail flushed about 10 yards behind me and I never got a shot. We hunted back to the truck without finding anything else.
I was tired of wading through snow so I headed home early. I knew that I also needed to save some energy for my hunt the next day at Bird Fever. The cover is real thick and it wears the dogs and the guide out in 3 to 4 hours.