This winter is the pits. We have about 10 inches of snow on the ground and you can’t work dogs or go hunting because the season is over in Missouri and Kansas. But it’s still open in Oklahoma through this Saturday. So I load all 6 of my dogs and leave about 4:00 am this morning heading for Woodward. A few miles south west of Wichita, Kansas there was a little snow on the highway. When I got to Alva they had about 8 inches and the road was snow packed. The next 40 miles took about an hour to drive.
I found the Walmart in Woodward and got a 5 day non-resident hunting license and drove out to the Cooper WMA north of town. I used the map in the Oklahoma Atlas and Gazetteer by DeLorme. There was only about 4 inches of snow from the night before. I think that quail know that their camouflage doesn’t work and they are real spooky for a few days after a snow. The quail today wouldn’t hold at all.
The first area I turned Lucky, Tur Bo and Blaze out. We went straight back for close to a mile and then moved over and hunted back to the truck without seeing anything. I have been hunting for a lot of years and not often do I have a new experience but today Lucky kept digging his mouth into the snow. He was not eating the snow, he just kept pushing his nose and chin into the snow. When he came close to me I saw something white sticking out of his mouth. I called him to me and saw he had about 40 or 50 porcupine quills sticking in his lips, gums and chin. I have seen porcupines before but that was the first time one of my dogs ever caught one. A few years ago, Vince Dye’s German shorthaired pointer, Roxie caught 2 in one afternoon but this is the first for one of my dogs.
I pulled down the road a little ways and turned Luke, Dolly and Whitey loose. We went north about 1/2 mile and Dolly was lost behind me and Luke was way ahead, not hunting, just running. I found some quail tracks in the snow and worked Whitey in and she really got excited. Whitey is less than 2 years old and she is learning but I wasn’t sure if she knew enough to pen these birds the way they were running. The Garmin GPS showed Dolly back at the truck and Luke was 1/2 mile north hunting but not hunting for me. Whitey pointed 2 times and both times she thought the bird was right in front of her but nothing flushed. We hunted back to the truck where Dolly was waiting to be found and I put her and Whitey in the truck and turned Lucky and Blaze out.
I took Lucky and Blaze back to the area where Whitey had pointed and they got excited immediately. They worked the area real well but never came up with anything. As we worked further north Luke came in and started hunting with us. There was quail tracks in the snow every where. I noticed that whoever takes care of the Cooper Wildlife Area had disced a strip about 15 or 20 yards wide every once in a while for a fire break or maybe to enhance the quail habitat. Rag weed was growing in these strips and the quail were feeding on it. You could see the tracks in the snow where the quail had gone round and round the rag weeds.
Lucky crossed a strip and hunted down a dry gully with some cedar trees along the edges. He went on point in the bottom of the gully where it flattened out with some tall grass sticking up through the snow. As I hurried to him a quail flushed about 15 yards in front of him. I took a shot but it was really just a frustration shot. A few minutes later I saw Luke head toward a cedar tree and a quail flushed on the other side of the tree far enough ahead that Luke neither saw or heard it fly. We hunted back to the truck and saw lots of quail tracks but no other birds. In Oklahoma you have to quit quail hunting at 4:30.
When I got back to the truck I fed the dogs then headed in to the motel. Tomorrow I’m going to Black Kettle National Grasslands to see if I can get out of some of the snow. The Grasslands has an office near Cheyenne, Oklahoma where you can get maps. The free maps are okay but they sell one that has a lot more detail.