Tur Bo
Blaze
Lucky
Dolly.
Luke
Don Bolen and I have opened the Missouri season the last few years and we left my house about 7:30 to hunt near Bogard, Missouri. We had plenty of dog power with 6 English setters in the dog boxes in the back of my truck. The first farm we drove by didn’t have the crops harvested and we knew we wouldn’t see our dogs if we hunted here so we went to another farm owned by a friend of Don.
The farm we hunted had some corn that had been harvested and some soy beans that was yet to be combined. Don turned out his setter, Susie. and I put GPS collars and e-collars on Lucky and Tur Bo. We had parked by a pond with some cover around it and Susie went around the pond, through a bean field and over the hill. We think she got after a deer. Don waited at the truck for Susie to come back and went on around the harvested corn field and up a hedge row.
I checked the Garmin GPS and Tur Bo was about 300 yards ahead of me. I stopped and called him back. I run the dogs with Sport Dog e-collars that have a tone (so high pitched that I can’t hear it) and I have trained the dogs to come when I hit the tone button. Tur Bo came back and then went into the hedge row, checking every bush and blade of grass like he was expecting a bird to fly. I think he may have flushed a covey and chased it for 2 to 300 yards.
I made a circle around the corn field and came back toward the truck to check on Don and Susie. I was coming down the edge of the soy bean field near a wide draw with a creek running down it and both dogs in front of me about a 100 yards. A large covey of 12 or 15 quail flew out of the middle of the soy bean field and flew down to the draw behind me. The quail were about 60 yards from me when they flew and a several hundred yards from the dogs. If they hadn’t flown I would not have known they were there.
I went on back to the truck to check on Don and Susie. Susie was still gone. I told Don about the quail and while we were talking Tur Bo jumped onto the tail gate so I put him in the dog box. I think he had flushed some quail so I decided to just run Lucky on the birds I had seen fly.
Don and I went to the area where I had seen the quail fly. Lucky ran along side of the draw and went on point. I went in front of him about 10 yards and nothing got up. I tapped his head and he moved up about 15 feet and went back on point. I walked in front of him again nothing flushed. Lucky and I repeated this all the way across the draw to the far side. He was on point in front of me when Don yelled, “I heard some flush.” I thought I had heard some fly, also.
The field on the other side was CRP and Don and I started around it with Lucky hunting inside the draw as we went around. I checked the GPS and he was on point about 10 yards inside the draw. We walked over where we could see him and he was on point in a mass of black berry vines. I tried to get him to flush although he’s not been trained to do that. He did move up about 10 feet and went back on point but he was still inside the black berries. I kicked the edge trying to flush some thing without fighting the black berries. Finally, about 5 quail flushed and put a tree between us, immediately. I shot once but only out of frustration. I didn’t see a quail when I pulled the trigger.
When went back around the CRP field and back to the truck without finding any of the quail. When we got back to the truck Susie still hadn’t returned. Don put a jacket near where we had parked the truck and we started driving. We drove along the road looking for her and although we could see a long way we couldn’t see her. There was a trail on the other side of this farm so we started driving this trail looking for her. We went through a couple of low spots with no trouble then went into one and the truck just dropped.
It wouldn’t go forward or backward. Don and I picked up grass where the trail had been mowed and put that under the wheels trying to get traction. That didn’t work and we tried dead limbs and trees. That didn’t work either. As we were trying to put stuff under the wheels Susie came to us. She didn’t seem concerned, she wasn’t panting or thirsty. It was like she had been just let out then picked up.
Don was raised in this area and ever once in a while he would try to call someone to tow us out. We were probably about a mile from the closest road. After about the third or fourth call he finally found someone home. Henry Lindley pulled us out. We had spent about 2 hours trying to get the truck out. He wouldn’t take any money so when we go back we will take him a gift.
After being stuck our heart wasn’t really in hunting but I had 3 dogs that hadn’t been out of the truck. I turned Blaze and Dolly out. Don put the beeper collar on Susie and ran her. We made a pass around the area without finding anything. We drove to the south edge of this farm and I put Dolly up and put Luke out with Blaze. After another round without finding anything we drove over to pick up the jacket Don had left in case Susie returned to the area where we had originally parked the truck.
When we parked for Don to get his jacket I decided to run Tur Bo and Luke on the other side of the road. I told Don that we weren’t going all the way around it but I would check it to the top of the hill. This field is an 80 acre corn field that had been harvested. It’s 1/4 mile deep and 1/2 mile long. When I got to the top of the hill both dogs looked so good running that I went on to the back then south all the way then back to the road. I called Don and had him pick me up at the road to save a half mile walk with no cover for the dogs to work.
Although this opener had better weather than most the hunting was pretty typical for early season quail hunting. Even though we hadn’t found many birds and we had been stuck for 2 hours I still enjoyed it. Sounds crazy but if I can get a little dog work it makes my day.