A Late Season Hunt on Shawnee Rd.

My Friend Rob took me to one of his favorite spots for an afternoon late season hunt. Gravel roads running along the bottom of deep wooded draws. I don't often hunt among pine trees.

The weather was pleasantly warm for this time of year, so it was a good day for a long hike. We got some
good points from the dogs on a half dozen hens all within in 30 yards of each other. No shooting today.

Five white tailed deer are running across the bottom of that bowl.

That is Kamiak Butte in the distance.



This is the cover that we found the birds in.



Bridge Collapse

Two days ago I took a friend out for an hour and a half hunt. He got two pheasants in two shots. I heard the first one from about a half mile away. I was right there for the second one, but I had forgotten my camera. I had a beautiful view of his two-year-old Shorthair holding a classy point, watched him shoot it, then the dog made a very nice retrieve. Sad that I missed the pictures.

The next day I took my dogs and the horse for a short evening hunt close to home. The whole team worked smoothly together. We got our one and only bird within the first 20 minutes. One point, one shot, nice retrieve.

Today I was again short on time so I saddled up for a trip just above our home. The dogs found some hot spots, made some good points, but nothing ever flew. On the way across the footbridge just across the street from our place the horse, with me on board, broke through the bridge

His front feet dropped four feet in an instant. I was pitched forward. The center of my chest hit the top of his head hard. I then flipped off onto the ground. In a couple lunges, he was up standing beside me.

I lay there for a second, then gasping for air I struggled to my feet. I checked him for blood. All I found was a little extra pink on his tongue. When I took the bit out of his mouth back at the barn 10 minutes later, the center of it had some blood on it. He is eating fine. My guess is that he bit his tongue. My chest is real sore, but I can breath OK as long as it is not too deep. 



The Brittany was solid, while the Shorthair wasn't sure. As it turned out the Shorthair was right.






That is my barn roof in the right foreground. What a beautiful day!

 


This is Farmington against the Idaho hills. The state line is the water tower running center right.




The bridge where the bay fell. Reconstruction starts tomorrow.



The Snake River Breaks

My friend Rob invited me to tag along while he and his friend Mel hunted chukars above the snake river south of Pullman. I welcomed the chance to look over some ground that would be new and different. In the past I have done some horse back riding in the area, but I have never hiked over any of it with a shotgun in my hand.

The other two guys had young strong Shorthairs, while I had my two rather plump dogs. We newcomers got tired pretty fast.

The pictures will tell all that is worth knowing. I felt like I was hunting in the Himalayas with the fog swirling below us.



There are two dogs in this picture. Can you find them?







The stairs were pretty steep in places.

As far as I could tell this was a natural rock formation.



We saw a few birds, shot none, got a great workout with a spectacular view.

                   

                                                     Thanks Mel and Rod for a great trip!

I May Never Forget This One

The black dot, a little ways from the center of the picture at  five o'clock is my horse"ground tied". In other words he thinks he is tied to the ground at that spot. He is waiting while I hunt the upper edge of this draw.
My home is in that clump of trees that is two o'clock from the barn roof in the center of the picture. Almost straight above the snow covered strip of road.



Back up to the Idaho hills this morning on horse back. Last week we had been here and found some birds so I thought it was time to try it again. After getting everyone ready, horse, dogs and me, we headed for where we found birds last time. There was good scent, but nothing flew. We then turned left, and headed uphill. More good scent. One dog went one way, and one went the other. I started to follow the closest one which was the Brittany. A moment later I heard the whir of wings, turned to watch a rooster fly away from the Shorthair who was 40 yards away. After I didn't shoot, she came over to join the Brittany. They were frantically sniffing around the way they do when a bird has flown but has left lots of scent. Suddenly the Brittany froze. We had tramped all over the area. I was having trouble believing that there could be a bird there. I moved in at the ready. A big rooster exploded up then crumpled,and fell. The Shorthair brought it to me.

I mounted up, and proceeded on uphill. We hunted a high hill crest, then down a deep draw with no sign of birds.

We were about a mile and two ridges from the pickup. I knew of several good spots I wanted to go through on the way back, so we headed downhill.

In a 20 acre basin one ridge away from the pickup the dogs got "birdie". At the edge of  a patch of waist deep grass I dismounted, and slowly approached the dogs, both of them on point.

A rooster shot into flight 20 feet away. Just as I was pulling the trigger, another one took flight an additional 20 feet farther away, and slightly to my right. About the time the first one was hitting the ground  the second one folded and fell.

My Shorthair retriever was after the first one at the shot, but I knew it would be up to me to mark the second one. We would look for that one after the first one was in my hand.

That's the horse again in the background looking toward the pickup wishing he was already down there.


Soon after the first one was in my pocket, the Brittany went on point about 10 yards away from where I was about to start my search for the second downed bird. As I got near her, to my surprise a hen flushed. Disappointed that the search was still on, I realized that the distraction had caused me to loose my mark for the second bird. I looked around for a while then decided it was time to mount an organized search. I went to my usual procedure. I took my hat off and stuck it on a weed to mark the center of the search area, then started walking in a spiral out from that point. After about four rotations I stopped to look back, to adjust for symmetry, and there she was walking behind me, my Shorthair, with the rooster in her mouth.

My limit in my vest, I climbed on my horse, and headed over the last ridge then down to the pickup.

I don't usually take an end of the day picture, but this day was special on two counts. One is that as much as I hate to say it , this is my first limit this year, and secondly it is the first time I've gotten a limit when a horse was involved.

New Spot

Rolling hills of CRP. We all got some good exercise. The weather was nice. But only saw one pheasant. The dogs were on good scent, so I got off the horse to follow them. They kept moving ahead without going on point. I went back for the horse, and took a chance by not calling them back, or at least slowing them down. Just as I got to the horse, scooped up the reins,and turned around a rooster flew off cackling as he went. I guess I should have stayed with them a little bit longer.

                                                          Everyone at work but me.

 This is the road we drove to get to our spot. You are looking east into Idaho. The border is roght at the foot of the hills.



Back up on the Hill

A couple days before the fog set in we went back to the Idaho foothill. We only found two hens, but the afternoon was beautiful.

 A nice double point.

Horse, My Preferred Way to Travel

I pulled a calf muscle several weeks ago so that pushed me into using my horses more. That means hunting areas that in most cases are larger and more open. I realize that I need to continue to hunt some on foot just for the exercise, but I'm enjoying the horseback hunting so much I can see that walking my become more the exception than the standard way to travel.

The main advantages, other than the obvious of less work, are these. The view of  the dogs is much improved by the extra few feet in elevation. I enjoy putting the horses to work. It's so good for their minds, and bodies. I get a great deal of satisfaction when dogs, horse, and I, all work well together.

I think today was my fourth hunt since my last entry. My shooting hasn't been too great, but we're finding pheasants.

On three of the four trips I got at least three good shots, but brought home only one rooster. On the remaining trip we saw only hens.

Other than my shooting, the only other problem I've run into happened today. Within ten minutes after we got started the dogs pointed two roosters. I got one while the second one left lots of feathers,but flew off. The problem was that I was only 25 feet from the horse when I shot. Usually I'm at least 60 to 100 feet from him. Much of the time I'm hundreds of feet away from him. Two shot that close made him very nervous the rest of the hunt. A one point when I dismounted, and drew the gun, he swung 180 degrees away from me, took three steps. I went back,turned him around, walked him back to where he started, and was very firm with him. He did OK from then on, but obviously wasn't enjoying himself.

 A heart warming incident was the retrieve of the one I got. To me it looked like it had fallen on the other side of a drain ditch. The dogs plunged over the bank on my side, but I was pretty sure that I was going to have to walk the 100 ft. or so back to the bridge we had just crossed so they could look for the bird. I took a few steps when I heard a dog coming up behind me through the tall dry grass. I turned around, and there was Lilly trying to catch up to me with the pheasant in her mouth. What would I ever do without her?

The two roosters were on the left of this ditch. You can see the bridge. This is our barn, shop, and house. The fog has been freezing on everything for a couple days now.

A Wonderful Day on Horseback

Cold and clear, but not too cold. I took Junior, and the dogs up to the base of the Idaho hills in mid afternoon.

In twenty minutes the dogs both went on point. That is a very good sign! I moved in, a rooster flushed banking to my right well within range. I fumbled with my safety, drew down on the bird pulled the trigger, an nothing happened. By the time I got the gun off safe it was too late. What a let down.

The dogs did there job perfectly. The horse behaved just as I wanted him to, but I really messed up. All I could do is move on.

Ten minutes later and it is all happening again. Could this be true? Could I be getting a second chance? A rooster exploded into flight on my left will within range. First shot, a few feathers. Second shot, nothing! What is going on? Self analyses each time tells me that I'm not getting the gun up to my shoulder so that I looking level down the barrel. Instead I find myself looking up hill from one end of the barrel to the other.

I need to mount the gun correctly. It may be too many layers of clothes, too long a stock, or some of both.

It was such a beautiful day, and everyone else in my party was doing great. Press on!

We climbed up open grassy draws, over hilly ridges always gaining elevation. After about two hours we were slightly above the elevation of the lowest fir trees. In this part of the country the tree line is above us starting at about 3000 ft. The trees start there, and cover the tops of the hills.

On the way two noteworthy things happened. We flushed a tight covey of gray partridge, but the wind was wrong, so the dogs didn't catch their scent. They didn't give me any warning. The rush of wings in flight startled all of us. The second thing was that my camera batteries died. I'm going to carry spares from now on. I missed some great shots form our high vantage point looking down on the Palouse back towards Steptoe Butt, and the setting sun to our south west.

With the sun a few degrees above the horizon we headed back down diagonally across the face of hills, and over ridges always going downhill.

                                                              Waste deep cover.

 A view of the Brittney from the saddle. I'm not sure what she was doing. She should have been out hunting.

With one more ridge to go over before I could see the pickup and trailer, the Brittney went on point. I dismounted ten yards behind her,and started slowly moving towards her. By now I don't even think about  my horse. I know he will be there when I come back for him. Just when I'm expecting a flush at any moment, my other dog arrives on the scene off to my right. I am exactly half way between the two of them. Five yards from each one.  She is also locked up in a solid point. The problem is she is facing the opposite direction. I changed my direction, choosing the older more experienced German Shorthair. Almost immediately a rooster took flight. He dropped hard on the first shot. Lilly the Shorthair made a nice retrieve. Life is good !!

After my pulse settles I realize that we had crested the last hill, and I am looking down at my pickup 400 yards away. By this time the sun had set, and  it was  too dark to shot every effectively. Home we go.  

 I took this picture on the way up from about where I shot the one bird. The house on the right is abandon.

Sugar Finds a Tough One

We were hunting an area that has lots of tall grass but few trees.  I think trees offer pheasants protection from hawks. Sometimes they even roost in trees. It seems like I have better luck if there is at least some brush around, but today it was going to be pretty open.

So far this season my dogs have never had birds flush without them giving me at least some warning. If not a point, them slowing down, tail wagging, some sign that they were on strong scent. However today two pheasants flushed 40 ft. behind me, and the dogs didn't seem to know that they were there. In both cases the sound of their wings snapped me around. When I drew a bead on them ,although they were within range, I couldn't tell if they were a hen, or a rooster because they were flying at heads height, level, and straight away. I just couldn't see any color. That white ring neck is the first thing one looks for, then maybe the long colorful tail feathers. Looking under their tail didn't give me enough information, so I had to pass. We made a big oval drive ending up back at the pickup.

 I drove on a short distance. Then we started  hunting an old RR cut. Just as we were starting out, I heard a rooster crow behind us,and across the road some distance away. I pressed on with "plan A"hoping to get a chance to look for him when we got back to the pickup. And that's what happened about an hour later.

  We crossed the gravel road, climbed through the ditch,. and headed to the thickest cover in the area.  Both dogs went on point. I edged into tall grass ahead of them, but the rooster flushed way to my right, almost behind me. My second shot hit him as he cleared the raised RR grade. He wasn't hit hard. He tumbled over a couple times them righted himself and in a few more wing beats disappeared over the mound. My Short hair disappeared right behind him. I scrambled up the bank hoping that she would meet me at the top with the bird in her mouth. It wasn't to be. Instead she was frantically trying to pick up a scent trail. The best cover, and the most likely place to look was in a strip of heavy grass between the gravel road, and the top of the RR grade. By now both dogs were hunting hard, but I could see this was not going to be an easy bird to find if we could find it at all.

We had worked about 40 yd. of the cover getting farther, and farther away from the line of flight, and I was about to give up. I was thinking that about another five minutes of this, and then we will have to go back to where we had started and try a different escape route.

I had been walking along a fairly steep bank with the county road below me, and the old RR grade above me, when the Brittney, five feet below me at the base of the slope locked up on a solid point. I wasn't sure if this was our winged bird, or a different one. I waited a few seconds for a flush, when nothing happened I gave the dog permission to flush it with a strong "OK!", but she still wouldn't move. As I slide down the bank she lunged.  Her head and most of her shoulder disappeared  straight into the bank. My next thought was that she must have found an old drain pipe with a porcupine in it. Just when I was about to yell at her and grab her to pull her out, she backed out with the rooster in her mouth. What a great job!

With only a few minutes of day light left I let the dogs go back to the location of the original point, look around, get their noses full of some good pheasant smell, them we head for the pickup.

I should have killed that bird with the first shot, It is a good thing I had a dog that could make up for my failure.

                            Those first two pheasants were very near that distant tree on the right.

The bird flew from right to left. We found him over the bank from the X.

Edgen's Place

This is clearly not a blog about shooting lots of pheasants. As of lately is hasn't been about shooting anything. Not shooting isn't a real concern for me. I really enjoy just getting out,and hiking with two enthusiastic dogs. Getting good points along with an occasional shot does add to the whole experience.

The less attractive aspects of hunting is getting cold, maybe wet or both. Here are two things that really annoy me. The first is missing easy shots after the dogs have worked extremely hard, and done everything right. I then fail to do my part. It doesn't seem to bother them, but my young dog, I'm sure would get better at finding dead birds, and retrieving if she could see the whole process completed successfully more often. The second thing that I have trouble with accepting is not being able to find downed birds. Especially when I'm hunting alone I don't give up the search very easily. I have a set procedure that I follow, that still fails all too often. Today I came home with two birds in my vest, but experienced three significant disappointments.

The first happened when  the dogs, without a very good point, flushed two quail one just a fraction of a second after the other. When the first one fell I knew that it wasn't hit well and tried to mark the spot as I was swinging on the second one. The second one dropped hard. As it turned out the dogs found the first one, but were completely uninterested in looking for the second one, the one I thought I could just walk over and pick up. After tramping back and forth for 20 minutes I gave up.

A short time later the dogs, along the edge of a meandering strip of CRP, got a beautiful double point, and flushed a crowing rooster to my right well within range. Both shots missed. How can I shot so badly at such a time?

Can it get any worst? Hunting up the next CRP strip in subdued light the dog were on good scent moving cautiously when a bird flushed ten yards ahead of them. I saw a flash of buff orange on a smallish body. My first thought was gray partridge. I shot right at the far edge of my range. When it flipped over in the air I saw a pheasant. My Brittney quickly picked a the trail of a running bird. She went on point 100 yards to my right. As I was walking over I was thinking,"it could be a rooster", but in my heart I knew it wasn't.

What do you do with a dead hem? Leave it for the coyotes or take it home and eat it. To waste it seems like following one dad decision with another one. I put it in my vest.

I haven't been checked by a game officer in five years, but as soon as I choose to keep the hen I started keeping a nervous eye on the road. Every pair of headlights made me anxious to get into the brush, and on to the pickup.

Well all I can say is better luck next time, and be careful.

 The rooster came out of the far end of this strip, and flew to the right over the freshly planted field.

This isn't a great picture, but you can see where the quail flushed, flew, and fell.