After lunch I loaded the dogs, and headed for my first choice yesterday. The one I never got to because of slick roads. I checked the county map and came in a better way.
It was sunny, 27 degrees, and no wind. I'd come across this area while riding my horse two springs ago. Its two main features are a drain ditch and an abandon railroad grade. Much of the time they run parallel to each other with knee deep grass along both shoulders and between them.
I followed the tracks of two hunters and a dog that may have been made the day before. About a half mile from the pickup the grade and ditch part company by as much as 300 hundred yards. On the way out I stayed with the tracks. Coming back I cut over to the ditch and followed it back. It was a great hike but we didn't see a feather.
On the way back, within a couple hundred yards of the pickup, we took a sweeping right angle turn, stayed with the creek and continued hunting. This was our fortunate move. In spite of being drawn to the pickup and moving on to another location I extended the hunt on this new tangent.
Within 5 minutes both dogs went on point. We were in dry grass that in early fall would be 3 feet tall, but now was bent over more than double and covered with 5 inches of snow. I moved in, tried to kick up a bird. At the same moment both dogs dived in. I heard wings thrashing and a desperate squawk. I dropped my gun , pawing through a crusted layer of grass and snow, and wrestled a frightened little hen from the mouths of the dogs. I gave her a underhand two-handed throw straight up hoping she had enough life left in her to fly away. She did well except that one leg wasn't tucked up as tight as it should have been.
We moved on. Not more than a few minutes later the scene was repeated, however the hen flushed before the dogs pounced. This was the case two more times. The practice was great. The dogs were now staying fairly staunch on wing with the help of some verbal commands.
The fifth point was the same as the others, Juneau first pointing, then Lilly backing to second the motion. Juneau is almost always out ahead and is getting so good at her job that in these confined narrow covers Lilly doesn't have much of a chance to be first to find a bird. The main difference with this last point was that out came a rooster. It was an easy shot. The bird was quartering away right to left. It fell dead in clear view but across some cold water that was about 3 feet too wide to jump. Normally the dogs would have looked for a narrower crossing, but last death throws were too powerful a magnet. Both jumped in rapid succession, landing short of the ice encrusted bank, then slogging on across. Juneau held back just enough to allow Lilly to get the bird. The return trip was made slower, and with more planning. Getting wet once was enough.
We hunted on ten more minutes then we were out of time. One for the day was going to have to do it.
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