I always feel sorry, now, for the quail I shoot on the last day of the season. If they had lived one more day they may have raised a covey in the spring. Most of the time I don’t go on the last day but this year I did. It’s been a really bad year for me and Don Hansen and I haven’t hunted together much this year. I enjoy hunting with Don and Linda.
Sally pointing quail.
A shot of Mann pointing quail.
Sally pointing quail.
Some years I’m ready for the end of the season but not this year. For me, the bird numbers have been bad but I have been blessed with two really good dogs, Mann and Sally. Neither is very old. Mann won’t be two until April and Sally will be four in June. Also, I have two puppies that I just started with yard work. Abby is eight months old and Josie is a little over six months. I haven’t hunted the puppies much because of the low bird numbers. I don’t want them to think we are just out for a walk.
But back to the last day of the season. I met Don and Linda near Emporia about 9:30 am. We drove around the walk-in place we were to hunt to make sure no one was already hunting it. We had it to our selves.
Don had his two pointers, Goofy and Tigger with him and I had brought Sally and Mann. Don has the Garmin Alpha collars and I use the Garmin Pro 550 and the Astro. We had a light wind, for Kansas, from the west and took the dogs into the wind. When we got to the road on the west we turned north.
As we went along the GPS handheld vibrated and showed Mann on point to the west. We started to him and when I got close to the road I could see he was across the road, off the walk-in. Don was coming my way so I leaned my 16 gauge against a telephone pole and crossed the road. Before I got close to him the GPS showed Sally honoring.
I saw Mann standing in a small creek looking into a plum thicket with Sally ten yards away honoring. When I went in front of him I heard a covey flush out the other side of the plum thicket. I called Mann and Sally and started back to the walk-in property.
When I got to the road, Don and his dogs were still about a hundred yards away. He didn’t want to get his dogs near the road. Good thinking. As I picked up my gun the GPS handheld vibrated. Mann was on point just a little way from where he had been. This time I hid the shotgun in the tall CRP and went back.
As I went back across the road, the handheld vibrated again, to tell me that Sally had honored. Mann was standing in some CRP pointing into a fence row with Sally several yards back honoring. The side of the fence I was on had been grazed down quite a bit and a single quail flushed along the fence row. It had run down the fence a ways and out in the pasture. I wasn’t close when it flushed.
Abby’s, my puppy, second point on wild birds.
This time I stayed on both dogs to get them back where we belonged. As we hunted on through some CRP the GPS showed Mann to the east running a hedge row. He followed the hedge row to the south which was the way we were going. The GPS handheld vibrated. Mann was on point 500 yards to the south east. We started to him.
As we went to him the GPS showed him moving then he went back on point. I think he had originally pointed in the hedge row and the birds ran into the CRP. When we got to him he was hard to see, standing in the waist high CRP, looking into the west wind. Don and I were in the CRP and when we got almost to him he started trailing farther into the CRP.
Mann raised his head and started going back and forth through the CRP. The GPS handheld vibrated showing Sally on point about a 125 yards to the south. We started toward her. As we were going toward her Don said that Tigger was on point about 45 yards in front of us. With Goofy honoring about 3 quail flushed from in front of Tigger. At first I thought that Tigger may have been honoring Sally but she was farther away.
We continued to Sally. When we walked in front of her she started trailing into the CRP. All 4 dogs were in front trailing when Mann went on point. I saw him point but he and Sally look so much alike, I thought it was her, until I got to him. When we walked in a single quail flushed and dropped when I shot.
Mann pointing quail.
Sally pointed just a few seconds later. When we walked in front of her another single flushed. It didn’t get very far. Don made a good shot and the quail dropped. Just as we thought it was down it came back up and flew about 50 yards and dropped like a rock. Sally and Goofy followed almost to where it dropped but came back.
We got the dogs in and as we were looking for the dead bird I told Linda and Don I didn’t want to shoot anymore of these birds, just work the dogs on them. And I meant that. As we searched for the bird we knew was down Sally pointed. She was not exactly where we thought the dead bird was but she was close. I walked over to her and saw a little hen quail sitting there. I flushed it and when it got up, flying just fine, I shot it. Why? I don’t know. Maybe all the years of hunting had trained me to just shoot. Sally retrieved the bird.
I felt bad about that. What do you tell the people you are hunting with, after you just told them you weren’t going to shoot, then you do. Tigger had been just a little to my left but the quail was higher than the CRP which put her out of line but I knew I only had a small window to shoot. If the bird went left it was a no shot. Maybe, that was it. I don’t know.
Josie honoring Mann. This is her first honor.
As I tried to explain the unexplainable, we still hadn’t found Don’s bird. I walked near where we thought it had gone down and saw it on the ground. I handed it to Don. Then Don did what I should have done to start with. He opened the side by side he was hunting with. I not only opened mine I took the bullets out. I’m not to be trusted.
I wasn’t watching but Tigger pointed a bird that flushed in front of her. We worked the area but as we went through it the GPS vibrated and Mann was on point, on the other side of a small draw that ran into the CRP. We started to him.
Just after we crossed the draw but before we could see Mann a single quail was in the air. Then the GPS showed him moving. He trailed through the CRP and all of the dogs were birdy in that area. A year or so ago we had seen a covey fly into this area of the CRP and had never found a single bird from it. The one we had seen in the air was the only one we saw.
All of these birds had been within 150 yards or so of where Mann had pointed along the hedge row. They may have been from that covey or not. I don’t know.
We hunted back to the truck without seeing any more quail. We both thought this was a good way to end the season. We had found some quail, shot a few, got some dog work and in our books that is a good day.
Sally on point 144 yards off the walk-in. I set the camera on the fence corner post.
I don’t know why I shot that last quail but I should tell about another time I did something similar. My nephew, Jeff Woodruff, came to Missouri to hunt with me one year. He had never shot a pheasant and at that time we had quite a few in Missouri. I thought I could get him a shot.
We hunted in north central Missouri. We turned the dogs out and as we came through an old cow lot, not far from the truck, the dogs pointed into an overgrown patch of weeds. I told Jeff to get close that it was probably a pheasant. When a single rooster flushed I killed it. I don’t know why. I tried to explain to my nephew but there wasn’t much to say.
Later we did have another point where I thought would be a pheasant so I let him go in alone as I turned my back. He was able to shoot a rooster and I think he had it mounted. But if Don doesn’t hunt with me next year I will know it’s because I can’t be trusted.