Between the weather and the holidays I had not been hunting for well over a week, so about 10 am I loaded 6 dogs and headed to a Conservation area in north west Missouri. I have enough dog boxes for 6 dogs in my truck and usually when I get ready to go I just turn my dogs out of their kennels and they go wait at the back of the truck for me to load them. The last few times Tur Bo has gone to the back of the truck then back to the kennel. Twice I have walked back to the kennel with a leash and brought him back but on this morning I put him back in the kennel and turned Annie out. She went right to the truck to be loaded. It will be interesting to see if Tur Bo learns from this.
We had two nights of below zero weather and when I got to the conservation area the snow had a crust on top that would support a dog in some places while breaking through in others. I turned Luke, Lucky and Annie loose in a harvested soy bean field and off the place on the other side of the fence was a harvested corn field.
The dogs ran south on a draw that ran from the fence into the soy bean field. Lucky and Annie saw me going on down the fence row so they started down the fence row. I saw Lucky slow down and with a real high head start working the fence row. Then Annie caught some scent, pointed then went towards the fence row. She would have held but she could see the birds on the ground. Too much for a seven month old pup. Three quail flushed, then 2 more, then I heard more getting up on the other side. Without the snow on the ground the quail might have let her get closer without flushing. Annie did what any 7 month old pup should do, she chased the birds.
Annie was really wound up as we started in the direction the quail had flown. Luke had rejoined us and he and Lucky were hunting a wide spot in the fence row that had grass and brush. Annie was in there also. I heard a single quail flush then a little later another one. I’m not sure which dog got them up but when I looked on the Garmin GPS Annie was 225 yards away. Quail don’t hold real well in snow unless they can burrow in or the snow is spotty and they can find clumps of grass, in my opinion.
We followed that fence row to the corner then turned south. I saw some turkey tracks in the snow and places where they had dug soy beans out of the snow. Then there was 2 turkeys in the air. Annie was having a good time but she was also learning that she couldn’t catch those birds.
We made a big circle and were heading back to the truck when I checked the GPS and it showed Luke on point about 90 yards away. The only problem, he was on the other side of a huge thicket that I couldn’t get through. I was going around the thicket with a small ditch on one side when a hen pheasant flushed real close to me and flew towards Luke. A few seconds later I heard another pheasant flush then Luke was moving again.
Annie
I drove to another area and turned Dolly, Blaze and Whitey out. I have never had a dog that likes snow as much as Whitey. She will be running flat out, flop on her side like she’s been shot, shoot straight up in the air, land on the other side then flop back and forth. Not just one time but several times in the first 30 minutes she’s out.
We made a large circle without seeing anything. On this Missouri quail hunt I felt that the Conservation Department had done a good job on the habitat. Granted most of the ground was covered with snow but I never saw any fescue. That is not the case on most of the conservation areas I have been on. Also I saw quail, pheasants, turkeys and a deer. That says something for the area.