Some More Good Tries

Cloudy, but pretty sunset.

This is from the top of a hill obviously. I've pointed out Juneau.

You can see how the easy walking would be down the middle. The tops of the hills seen to be pretty good most of the time, but today it was the low spots.

I finally got to the "Tekoa RR Grade". I had grabbed the dogs and headed out for a quick hunt an hour and a half before dark. It had been raining off and on all day, but seemed to have let up some.

The easy way to do this is to just walk the grade and let the dogs do the running around. That had been my plan, but I know that you get better chances when you hit the brush. I walked the grade for about 30 feet and couldn't take it. Up and down, over and under; stay near the dogs, and let them lead. That's the way to find birds and get the shots.

It was going to be a trip down the grade, then back to the pickup. After about 15 minutes we got our first excitement. Juneau, who is in the lead 90% of the time, dived over the shoulder of a small brush-covered hill. Lilly started to follow, then slowed to a point. It was the kind of point that says,"I don't smell anything, but Juneau stopped so I will too." In five quick steps I was at the top of the small hill standing next to Lilly looking down at Juneau below us and 30 feet ahead in tall grass on solid point. To get down to her level I slide down a wet bank, hoping the commotion wouldn't scare the bird. It didn't. I took a couple cautious steps toward Juneau when a hen flushed 40 feet ahead of her. At least I could say she held point and didn't press the bird into flight by getting too close. I had to yell at them a little to get them to not chase. They are still not real staunch on wing. It was a good training moment.

I had seen quite a few hunter tracks so I left the RR grade 10 minutes or so later, crossed the state highway, and entered a field of heavy CRP that I have been wondering about. The hen had gone that way, and with all the hunting pressure the grade gets, maybe other birds had used this field as an escape route.

It looks like a good spot for the future, with deep cover, and a pond for those dry days in early fall, but today we only found one hen that Juneau passed over, and Lilly flushed without a point.

Back to the RR grade hunting downwind to the pickup we went. We were losing sunlight fast.

About half way back, in a situation similar to the one in which we found the first hen, we came across another one. Both dogs were on solid point about 8 feet apart, however, they were facing in almost opposite directions. It looked strange. Someone had to be wrong. As it turned out, they both were. The hen flushed only a few feet away from them, but not in the direction that either one of them was facing.

It was probably after shooting hours when we got to the pickup. It had been good exercise and training.