MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!!
With Abby in heat and Bodie still sporting his cast, from the broken leg, I’m down to 3 dogs. Which is enough, June keeps reminding me. She thinks I could get by with fewer dogs but I don’t agree. I like having several dogs to run at the same time. When I can, I run all 5 of them at once. If I had more I would just run more at the same time.
Sally pointing a single.
Vince’s short hair, Ally.
Mann on point with Sally honoring.
I hunted yesterday by myself in Kansas. There’s a big ranch, that hasn’t been pastured down as bad as some, where I like to run the dogs. The ground is rolling and it’s all pasture but there are some low spots with water and a few trees. When I turn the dogs loose they seem to know that they can really go. In just a few minutes Boss and Mann were at 600+ yards. Sally was at about 400. All of them were in a little different direction. No one following the other.
When I noticed the boys at 600+ yards I hit the tone button on their e-collar and they came closer. I walk with my gun in my left hand, holding the GPS handheld in my right. I have the handheld in a holster, that I bought from Lion Country Supply, attached to my belt. I can’t hear the GPS beep but I can feel it vibrate.
When the GPS vibrated, it showed Sally on point over 350 yards from me. She was over a rise. As usual it was uphill to her. With the strong south wind I didn’t expect the birds to hold while I walked that far. As I got closer I saw Boss on top of the hill honoring Sally. He was closer to me, by about 40 yards, than Sally.
I was almost to the top of the hill when I saw Boss take off not toward Sally but to his right. When I saw Sally she was trailing. She didn’t act like she knew some birds flushed. I think, that the quail ran quite a ways from her, then flushed. Boss saw them but she didn’t. Without seeing the birds, I had no way of knowing where to look, other than go the way Boss ran.
We checked the area across a small creek then all of a side hill and across the top of the ridge. We came back down the other side along the little creek then back to the truck. I hadn’t seen a bird but I really enjoyed running the dogs on this place. I’ll be back. Maybe in a different area but I’ll be back.
I went to another place where on opening day I had found a covey of quail. This place was only an eighty acre place. Fence to fence harvested soybeans. On opening day I had hunted it before the beans were harvested. There is a wide water way with a couple of ponds that run from the road to the back.
Maggie, honoring Ally.
On opening day the covey was at the very back and flew off the place. When we got the half mile to the end Sally pointed. When I got to her I was only about 10 yards from the fence at the back. Boss and Mann were honoring. Before I got to her she started trailing. I think she knew the birds were gone but she waited for me. All 3 dogs were really birdy like they thought the birds were right there. We never came up with anything.
We haven’t had a rain in well over a month. Everything is really dry and with a 20 mile an hour wind it’s really tough for a dog. When I got back in the truck the thermometer was showing 62 degrees. I drove by some places that I wanted to check out but I didn’t turn the dogs out. Too hot, dry and windy. We headed home.
Vince and I had hunted the day before yesterday in Missouri. It was a little cooler but it was still windy. The neat part about hunting when you’re older, you can go back to the same places because we didn’t hurt them the last time. The place we hunted had at least two coveys of quail along the deep, brush filled ditches. The birds get into the brush along the ditches and it’s hard to get a shot. But we sometimes get a lot of dog work. That’s what we’re after.
We went along a short draw that runs into a bigger draw that goes almost the full distance of the property. There is CRP as well as harvested soybeans along the draw. After we hit the main draw it didn’t take long for the GPS handheld to vibrate. Sally was on point about a hundred yards ahead of us. Then Mann honored. In just a few seconds they were both moving. When they went on point the second time I yelled at Vince who was on the other side of the draw that the dogs were on point.
Boss honoring Ally.
Just a minute or so later Vince said, “I see them”. I thought they were across the draw but when I got around a point I saw them down in the bottom of the draw. Now, Mann was on point with Sally honoring. The birds must have run away from Sally. Vince was waiting on me, close to the dogs. When I got close I took a picture before trying to walk in front of Mann.
When the birds flushed I only saw a couple twisting through the brush. I raised my gun but never got as shot. Most of the covey came out near Vince but he had the same brush and trees. He shot twice and killed two trees. Well, maybe not killed them but he at least hit them.
The covey had flown the way we were going. Vince was on one side and me on the other. Ahead of me I saw Ally go on point. Before I could even say anything the bird flushed, well out of range. I told Vince what I had seen as we went on down the draw.
Vince came over to my side. There was a pond in the draw with some grass cover around. As we started around the pond Sally went on point. When we got close a couple of quail flushed. I shot through the brush but missed. Just a couple seconds later two more flushed without drawing a shot. We let the dogs work around the area then checked out a big grassy area that ran from the draw to the road.
Mann honoring Ally.
We looked back beside the pond and Ally was on point. As we got close the other dogs honored and Vince had the English Cocker, Maggie, on sit. There wasn’t enough ice on the pond to hold a dog and we wasn’t going to shoot if Ally’s bird flew over the pond. I kicked a clump of grass where she was pointing and a quail flew right over the pond. Ally chased this bird and Sally came by and pointed the same clump. Then another quail flushed from the clump that didn’t look large enough to hold two birds. This bird flew across the pond. Sally chased without getting into the pond. Maggie, the English cocker, came up and flushed another bird out of the same clump. All 3 quail flew the same. Over the pond. We never fired a shot.
We worked to the end of the draw without seeing any more quail. We crossed a large soybean field to another draw. We had found another covey here the last time so we put in a little extra effort. No one home this morning. We went back down another draw then back into the area where we had originally found the birds. As we were going along, Vince on one side and me on the other, Sally went on point right in front of me, in the brush. Vince came across but was down in the bottom when the quail went up. It flew right at Vince then down the draw. While that was happening another quail flushed flying right over my head, according to Vince. Two quail and we never got a shot.
As we stood there 2 more quail flushed ahead of us. We worked the draw out and then headed back the way we came. We were almost to the end when Vince said Ally was on point about 200 yards ahead of us. When we got close there was a fence between Ally and us. I was going to be on guard while Vince crossed, then I would cross. Before Vince got across the fence the quail flushed and hooked around a small bush. I never had a shot.
We hunted draws back to the truck, loaded dogs and drove to another place. The next place was all CRP on the side we had permission on but it was next to a harvested soybean field. There was a good hedge row/fence row between the two fields. We had just got started down the hedge row when the GPS vibrated. Sally was on point. The other dogs honored. When we got close Sally moved up about 5 yards and pointed. She only stayed a second then moved again. I think she moved up just a few yards five times. Then well up ahead of us the covey flushed.
Sally honoring Ally.
They flew the way we were going but we thought they had crossed the road. Right at the end of the hedge row Mann pointed with Sally and Boss honoring. When I got close, with Vince on the other side of the fence, I missed a quail, which isn’t the first time, with both barrels. There was a thin fence row along the road on our side. We started down it.
Just a short distance and Sally was on point. When this bird flushed Vince knocked it down and Maggie beat all the other dogs to it. She loves to retrieve. As we went on down the fence row Sally pointed again. This bird flushed and flew right down the middle of the road. We didn’t shoot although Vince said it was okay if they didn’t cross the center line in the road. I think he was kidding.
Sally was working and another quail flushed right along the edge of the road and it too flew down the road. Still not shooting. We decided that there were probably some of the singles across the road and we had permission over there. We made several circles where we thought they should be without finding anything. We went back down the fence row/ hedge row then ran the dogs down the other hedge row without seeing anymore birds. We loaded the dogs.
Bodie pointing a pigeon.
Sally hasn’t been hunted as much as the other dogs because of losing 3 weeks or more to being in heat. I left her in the truck for the next place. We walked a draw that was in a CRP field that had a lot of lespedeza. A couple of years ago there were 2 or 3 coveys on this place along with a few pheasants. We found nothing.
I blamed it on the dogs being tired but I didn’t want to try any other places. We loaded dogs and headed home. We had lots of dog work. It was a good day.