For a Lab, Bo was turning into quite a quail hunter. I took a 15 bird limit of scaled quail over her in New Mexico the year before, and two years ago took the 10 bird limit of valley quail over her in Oregon and the year before that the 10 bird limit of valley quail in Nevada. But I hadn't shot a bob over Bo in her 6 year career. We flushed bobwhite quail while prairie grouse hunting in Nebraska and South Dakota but never during season. So when I heard the forecast for excellent bobwhite quail in western Oklahoma, I was determined to get Bo out there.

I'm sure that I drove past a lot of Nebraska and Kansas bobwhite quail on my way to western Oklahoma, but I think it was worth it. We started out on a public area with food plots and good looking cover, but still took nearly an hour to flush our first covey. I was sleep drunk after the all night drive and whiffed on two shots on the covey rise. Then I whiffed a few more times as Bo worked singles on a small grassy knoll where several gullies converged. After filling a vest pocket with empties and Bo not having searched for a single dead quail, I decided it was time to head back to the truck and hope to locate a new covey on the way.

We didn't find a covey but Bo reflushed one of the singles from the covey that flew over a ridge before I could waste another shell. Bo followed the bird's flight up the ridge so I followed Bo. Just as I crested, Bo flushed a single that I hit well. As she was retrieving her first bobwhite quail, she flushed a second bob that I also hit hard.

After my atrocious mourning shooting, neither of us could have known that we would finish the day with the 10 bird Oklahoma limit, on Bo's first bobwhite quail hunt!