They Don't Stay Put, Even in the Snow

This morning about 10:00 am it was several degrees below freezing and threatening snow. The ground was already white from a storm a few days earlier.

Here it is right up front. I didn't fire a shot the entire hunt. I choose this spot because it's got fairly good cover in a less accessible valley.

The dogs got pretty birdie a few times. Three birds wild flushed a hundred yards ahead of us, and flew up out of the canyon over a vast area of CRP to my right. I thought about going after them, but my legs didn't follow the suggestion.

It was about an hour up the canyon, another hour back. Most of it was through thigh deep brush, and matted snow covered marsh grass. Not easy walking. A good warm-up for the afternoon.

After lunch at home, I went back to where I had hunted on Dec. 24th titled "First Entry". Their were two main differences this trip. One was that I arranged to have my pickup driven around to pick me up at the far end of the hunt. The other difference was that I was walking into a snow filled twenty mile per hour wind. This made visibility difficult. Fortunately the wind let up after 30 or 40 minutes.

Here again the location had good cover, and was relatively inaccessible. We saw 10 birds, all out of range. One rooster was close but Juneau stopped to point only a few feet from it. She was out of range. It flew before it flew before I could get close enough to shoot. I blame it on an over zealous dog.

We covered lots of beautiful ground, but after being hunted for over two months they are getting real jumpy.