I have been hunting Kansas on their opening day for nearly as long as I have hunted Missouri opener. At least from the early eighties. Missouri was supposed to get rain Saturday morning so I decided to go down to the south central part of Kansas Friday evening. Just before I got to the motel I had to pull over and take some pictures of a beautiful sunset.
Friday sunset in Kansas.
Boss and Abby backing Sally.
Boss in front honoring Sally.
There was a problem for a while with my blog. I thought it was a problem with just my computer. When I clicked on the blog the computer wouldn’t load it. I took my computer to have it fixed and the guy said it was a problem with the blog host company. I didn’t realize that no one could see my blog. I called the hosting company and a nice young man fixed it for me. He basically said when I get notices to update the program, I probably should do it. He did it for me and now it works. I’m sorry for the problem.
I have often wanted an English setter statue and on the way to where I hunted, I passed a statuary. The drive goes in one end allowing you to drive past all of their statues. As I slowly drove through I saw exactly what I wanted at Yoder’s place in Burrton Kansas. I gave them some money to hold it until Sunday or Monday when I would get back to pick it up. With two dog boxes and 5 dogs with me there was barely room for it when I came back but I got it home.
I checked the weather for the area on my phone when I got to the motel and it said, warm and really windy, for the opener. They didn’t miss on either front. It was in the seventies before noon and the wind was really blowing.
The first place I turned dogs out was an area where last year I had found 2 coveys of quail and saw a few pheasants. I put the e-collars and GPS collars on Sally, Mann and Boss and we went into the strong south wind.
Usually, even when it’s dry there is a small, low spot with water just about a half a mile south of where I parked. It was so dry that grass was growing where the water usually is. We went on to the south about another half of a mile then turned east. I saw a wind mill a long way to the east and we went to it. I had not brought any water for the dogs with me. When we got close the wind mill wasn’t working but there was water near it.
Sally pointing a pheasant.
After watering the dogs we turned back to the north. When we got to the road we had parked on we started to the west. We were about 3/4 of a mile from the truck. When I got to the top of one of the hills I remembered that one of my dogs, Lucky, that has been dead for several years pointed his last covey right there. I have been blessed with some really good dogs in my life.
We made it back to the truck without seeing a quail or pheasant. I did have a few points but the dogs were moving before I got to them or started when I tried to get in front of them. It was really dry and with the strong wind it may have been pheasants running out on them. I loaded the dogs and went to another area.
The next area was a place that last year I had seen 2 coveys of quail. In the past I have seen pheasants at this place but I don’t recall seeing any last year. I turned Abby out with Sally and Mann. There was a huge corn field to the west of this place that was on private land. I went down the fence row next to the corn field to the north.
Mann honoring Abby.
Just a few yards in Sally went on point. When I got to her she started jumping in then she would jump back. I wasn’t sure what it was but it wasn’t birds. I tried to part the grass with the barrel of my shotgun but couldn’t see anything. Sally kept acting scared to stay put. Finally, I called her away. All I could think of it could be was a Rattle headed copper moccasin. We went on to the north.
I have several GPS collars and I leave one on in the truck. I can tell at a glance how far I have walked and of course where the truck is parked. About a mile in there is a cross fence that I turned back at. There is a wild area that is fenced off from the area I had hunted down that sometimes holds birds. When I got to the cross fence I went into the wild area.
We were hunting into the wind back to the south. I have hunted this area each year I have been down here because it usually holds some birds. By the time I got a little over half way through it the dogs had hunted it all. I fought my way out to be in a plum thicket that was huge. These plum thickets are hard to get through. Sally came in front of me once and she was walking on the plum trees that were bent over. At that time she wasn’t even touching the ground. When the plum bushes are like that they were tangling my feet up too.
Boss pointing a pigeon.
This time I had brought water with me but had used most of it when I saw a shallow pond that was near a wind mill to the north east of us. I got the dogs to cool down some and I took a short break too. We had moved to the east about a quarter of a mile. There is not a way to go in a straight line because of the plum thickets. When you get close to one it is seldom possible to go around them. I wound up going through them.
When I got back to the truck I loaded the dogs. The app on my phone said that I had walked over 9 miles that morning and I had not seen a pheasant or quail. I had heard some shooting but for the number of hunters, not many. It was too warm for the dogs. In the low seventies. I ate lunch driving to see if I could find some walk-in I wanted to hunt later when it cooled down.
Mann on point with Abby honoring.
Several times I talked to people that were hunting when I saw them close to the road. Most were having about the same luck I had had. I talked to a guy that was part of 7 or 8 hunters that were hunting one of the walk-in places. He said they had killed 3 pheasants but hadn’t seen a quail. I saw another group of three that had two pheasants.
Shortly after noon a cold front hit. In about 15 minutes the temperature on my truck dropped from 72 to 58 degrees. The wind that was already blowing pretty good really started to blow. I stopped to put some gas in my truck and had to hold the door really tight to keep the wind from catching it and could hardly keep my hat on. I decided that was the end of the first day. I drove on to the motel.