Lots of Hunting, Not Much Shooting

When I left the house after lunch I was headed for a place the I discovered while doing some training last spring. The temperature was hovering just below freezing with sun breaks and fog. We've had snow on the ground for several days now. My travel plans were altered when the access road was covered with untracked snow. These back roads are fine in almost all weather as long as they are graveled. I didn't want to find out, after it was too late, that I had reached the end of the gravel.



An alternate hunting spot came to mind,but on the way to it I passed another spot that has always looked good to me. So I decided to give it a try. A mile out and back hunt yielded one good point on one quail that I passed on.



I probed another spot around a large functioning grain elevator. The dogs slowed and flushed a hen, then a couple minutes later another pheasant that was in range but flashed over a brush pile so fast I didn't even get a chance to see what sex it was.



I decided to quit messing around and get on over to my alternate objective. As I was driving parallel to a favorite area that I had decided to pass up because it gets so much hunting pressure, a flash of motion caught my eye. It looked like it was a young hen changing locations from one side of a creek to another. I thought," Why not, lets have a look."



Upon arriving at the likely spot, both dogs went on point. Chasing after birds you spot while driving along doesn't usually work out for me but maybe this time. We were in tall grass that was growing in a narrow strip between the slow muddy half frozen creek and a plowed field. I took one step out of the snow covered dirt up into the grass when Juneau broke point and dived into a clump of knee deep grass. I immediately heard wings beating down under the grass and up Juneau came with a mouthful of feathers. As I lunged down to pull her back an immature hen flew off . In the next 6 seconds about ten more followed her. I was yelling at my dogs to "WHOA" while they ran around in a frenzy. I let my gun down in my right hand while I frantically tried to grip my E-collar control. Up flew a rooster. I was totally unprepared. A couple wild shots and all the birds were gone. My dogs were paying no attention to my and were still tearing up the cover. I was trying to shock and yell at the same time. They finally eased into control but I couldn't stop yelling so they cowered over to me. Then it dawned on me that training had been over a long time ago. What a mess!



Now I understand why staunch on wing and shot is so important. I thought we had "wing" down pretty good.



It was getting late so that staying where we were was our best option. For the next hour and a half we beat the brush hard and found nothing. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.