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.

First Snow Hunt

 The first snow was several days ago, and the best time to hunt would have been the next day. I found it easier to stay in the shop near the stove mending fishing nets.

I finally got out a couple hours this evening to a good spot in a nearby tree farm. There were lots of tracks, and none were made by hunters. There were also lots trees. They were too tall with narrow shooting lanes between them.The flushes that were in range, were always obstructed by trees. The good looks were at long range. I shot a couple times not expecting much, and didn't get much. The usual strategy is to drive the birds out of the trees into the low grass cover along the ditch bank, but they were too smart that. They just flew from one part of the tree farm to another.

Heading to the pickup. It is getting late.

Dogs at Work

Lots of Leery Pheasants

Another short evening hunt. I was looking down the road towards the spot where I usually park for this hunt, when I spotted possibly ten pheasants feeding at the top of a little knoll. I stopped the pickup knowing that they would fly, the question was which way would they go? Most of them flew right to where I expecited them to. Armed with a shot gun, and two dogs I went after them.

After lots of tracking, three points, and one distant rooster. My shot rolled him over, but he righted himself, and flew away. Where did they all go?

A Quick Evening Hunt

The day was ending fast, so I dashed out to a spot that has been good in the past. In short we didn't see a thing. That is nothing to shot a gun at, but some good shots for a camera.

The upper picture was the view to the west while the lower picture was the view to the east.

This guy landed just as we swung around and headed in his direction. The dogs got so close that they were very bothered by this bird that seemed to be afraid of nothing. He flew off after we passed him and moved on down the hill a 100 yds. or more.

A Hint to Where the Birds Are

A mid afternoon hour and a half hunt. I was looking over the sight of a possible future hunt on horseback. The area would lend itself to this kind of hunting because of its rolling hills of CRP.

 Here is the hint. Make use of obstructions. We hunted up long draws, along the crest of hills, covered a big area, but didn't find scent till we got to the one fence row in the entire area.

 This is looking uphill into the sun. We made one big loop, up the left side, across the top, then back down the right side.

 This is a view from the top. The pickup, where we started, is near the tree.

 The pickup is to the right 200 yds. away. In my mind the hunt is was just about over when the dogs picked up scent along this old fence row. The fence runs straight up this hill and two more like it in stair step fashion. The one lone pheasant, a rooster, left the fence at the top, ran alone the CRP ridge, then flushed just at the far edge of my range. Looking at an angle into the sun it took me a moment to decide if it was a rooster. By the time I saw color my two shots were just wasted frustration. I guess the dogs deserved at least a try.

This we the view from the top looking on southwest.



First Real Horseback Hunt

Beginning a month before the pheasant season started I took maybe five or six rides on each of my two horses to get them ready to hunt off of. However it just didn't work out that I could put the training to a good test until today.


My feeling has been that pheasant hunting on horseback is not very efficient, mainly due to pheasants propensity to run. It seems that more often then not that a dog will go on point, I dismount, ground tie my horse, and just when I get into position for the flush, the dog breaks point to moves up because the bird has run. This precess may repeat its self several times, then I look back, and my horse is 200 yards away nervously thinking I may be leaving him. I sometime use a horse just because it's good for everyone, but not so good for shooting birds. About the time I beside to go back for the horse, the bird flies out of range with my back to it, or the dogs follow me back, and give up the chase.
So when I decided to use a horse today I felt that I would probably be giving up shots. This turned out not to be the case. We got one pheasant, I missed one that should have been an easy shot, and the dogs did some great pointing. However the behavior of the horse was the most gratifying part of the whole experience. He stayed put every time I planted him. At one point I even shot at a bird that was flying back in his direction, the easy shot that I should have gotten. He just watched it all with some misgiving, but didn't move his feet. Maybe my thinking about him was my best excuse for missing. Every thing worked out great, and I am excited to go again soon. I am sure my younger, more nervous horse will not do as well, but he needs to take his turn even if it is just a careful training ride.

 This was the view from up near the tree line. The white dot in the middle is my pickup, and horse trailer. We are looking north to Tekoa Mountain with the town of Tekoa at it's base.

On several occasions we hunted up a main draw trailing birds till they flushed near the tree line.

 He is a good old horse waiting for me to come back and get him.

 At least twice we were completely out of his sight for five to ten minutes.

 What a gift these day are. Thank you Lord!

Another Saturday

It was a nice day for an afternoon hunt. I went to the place where I would have liked to start the season, but on that day I got there too late. Now three weeks into the season I gave it a try.

The area is shaped like a piece of pie. Most of the way down the first side I saw two pheasants flush way ahead of my dogs. I knew that at least one of them was a rooster, because he cackled at me as he flew away. I made a mental note of where he landed, and hunted on in that direction. About 20 minutes later we were walking in the area when the dogs went on point.To flush a bird I had to step down into tall grass. What I didn't realize was that it was going to be above my head. I shot with grass in my face, and only got a few feathers. Thinking back on the shot, I'm not sure it was rooster. I may have been  a case on over anticipation.

Forty minutes later, another rooster jumped early, flew across the county road into a thin strip of grass at the base of a power pole. Here again we hunted on in that direction to a strategic place for crossing the road in pursuit. The dogs picked up the trail almost immediately. In ten yards the rooster flushed in range flying from center to left. I got two good shots off and missed completely. What a big disappointment!

 Back across the road a few minutes later I was thinking that I almost always jump a covey of gray partridge along here, and seconds later I did, and  got one. The Brittney retrieved beautifully.That was pretty much it for the day.


This picture is from a different hunt, but one can see the triangle of cover across the county road from the farm.

 It was a beautiful fall day!

Closing up the Cabin

We made a quick run to the cabin to close it up for the winter. The first morning we woke up to 10 degree temps, and the pipes frozen. Our plans to spend a couple days were altered when we heard a weather report that called for snow. We decided to get home while the getting was good. So it was one day and two nights, then home.

These first five pictures are from our side of the lake looking at the evening sun on the hills.



 Notice the winter looking moon.

 This morning.

A cluster of tamaracks on the far shore.