November 13, 2014

There's a fine line between self-challenge and self-induced punishment. A point where a logical person must contemplate his motivation. That fine line between enduring hardship to sweeten the success, or, just beating yourself up so you can brag about your toughness. I find as I age, that the “fine line” is gradually moving closer to the challenging side. Those really tough situations that have no relationship to the hunt, like sleeping out in the cold, are getting old.

Fortunately, this was my first camp night of the hunt and the temp only dipped down to 12 degrees. But as I was basking in the relative warmth of a propane heater, I couldn’t help but anticipate the day when you will buy my book so I can hunt out of a motel, like sane, normal, people do.

I was somewhat excited about the prospect of hunting new ground. I love the exploration and anticipation of hunting new ground, even if it isn’t in wild places. It matters not that today’s “wild” place was a cornfield 20 years ago before it was enrolled into Iowa’s CRP program.

I drove past a large tract of public, because it was easier walking than the head-high switch grass I was planning to hunt. I know a lot of guys who wouldn’t set foot into a field of 6-foot switch grass if there was waste-high grass next door. And a lot of guys with pointers who would spend most of the day just trying to find their dog in that stuff. Couple that with the fact it was bordered on one side by a state highway, with no fence, and this place had to have been avoided by most hunters with dogs.

The 80 acre WPA was bordered on the west by a picked corn field and that's where we started. I reasoned that any birds that hadn’t flown off the roost would be making their way to the corn edge for breakfast. The wind was also out of the west so I started Bo into the stems about 15 yards from the field edge. I figured she could smell anything between her and the stubble and yet not be tempted by the sight of the open field.

We weren’t more than 75 yards into the walk when I could see she was birdy. I had to throw my elbows like an aerobics instructor, to make room for a swing, in case a rooster flushed.

I can’t recall ever having a rooster tower like this one did. I see it in videos of open field South Dakota drives but it just doesn’t happen to me. He went straight up cackling with the wind whipping his immature tail around. I hit him with a load of steel 2’s just as he leveled off and he fell decidedly dead. Decidedly dead was a very good way to knock down pheasants in this stuff.

Bo’s never been feisty about releasing a bird to me. I’ve had dogs that would sooner carry a pheasant all day than allow me to hide it from them in my game bag, but not Bo. She isn’t very Lab like. Bo was more than happy to have me carry the birds.

A few minutes later and just about at the highway, a rooster flushed wild and I watched him settle down near the gravel road on the pasture fence. We would swing by there on the way back to the truck if we needed another bird.

I found myself wondering if any of the traffic could even see my orange hat above the grass as we paralleled the highway. Bo’s always been good about not chasing birds if I don’t shoot, so I wasn’t too concerned about her approaching the road but it was still a relief to turn away from the speeding vehicles on the swing back.

We were half-way back to the truck when the grass opened up on a side-hill with more weeds and young willows on an old terrace. That’s where Bo got birdy again. I got my feet under me and prepared for a flush just in time for three or four birds to bust out of the grass 20 yards ahead. The lead bird was a juvenile rooster but another more colorful rooster flushed nearer me as I raised my gun. I hit him well and as I was contemplating a reload or wait and see, another rooster flushed quartering downhill past me.

The improved modified barrel pushed him into the grass about 40 yards away, but not decisively. Bo was already returning with the dead bird and I kept my eyes glued on the clump where the last bird went down. I was stuffing her bird into my coat and explaining to Bo exactly where that last rooster dove into the grass but she showed that she didn’t require that level of coaching. She had her head under the grass like she was rooting out a colony of moles, all snuffling and digging her nose deeper into the duff and then I could hear her clamping down on our limit bird.

Bo was happy and I was happy. No misses and no lost cripples.

I was a lot further from Minnesota than I preferred on a dual state hunt. I like to stay within an hour, but I had hunted the famed Spirit Lake to Minnesota corridor on opening weekend and was not impressed with the bird numbers. No one that I talked to was impressed either. I chose to hunt a different direction on this trip in the hope that it hadn’t drawn the crowds that more recommended areas would. And even though the survey revealed fewer birds, there could be more survivors here after three weeks of the season, than where the hunting pressure was heavier.

I don’t know if it was my logic or just plain luck, but it was only 9:00 a.m. and I was on the road to Minnesota with the three-bird limit of Iowa roosters in my bird box.

I decided to hunt a Minnesota Wildlife Management Area that I had hunted several times in past years. There was considerable standing corn around it a couple of weeks ago when I was here and I still shot my two birds. There was a skiff of snow on the ground and more was filtering down as I reloaded and set a pan of water out for Bo to wash down the breakfast pizza and doughnut I treated her with on the drive.

We headed straight for a cattail patch in the middle of the section. I hate hunting cattails and so does Bo, but pheasants know that. I wish southwest Minnesota had more deer. Then there would be nice trails to walk but there were no trails in this stuff. It had been cold enough that I could walk on the open water ice, but I broke through every few steps if I stayed in the ‘tails. I didn’t trust the ice or my footing enough so I plowed through the cover along with Bo. There were pheasant and mink tracks everywhere. Bo did push a few hens that clattered above the marsh and I could tell there were more birds running ahead of her. I thought we were finally going to pinch some in a little finger that trailed into the open ice, but they slipped by and a half dozen birds including a couple of roosters flushed just out of range.

The weather had been cold for a few days, but I was still breaking through the ice into mid-calf mucky, swamp-water, every few steps. When you couple that exercise with the whispy, cattail down, sticking to your face and eye lashes it kinda makes a guy rethink “fun” until a rooster flushes.

My waterproof Bean boots weren’t quite, as I could feel my left foot getting damp from the repeated plunges. I decided it was time for some, more restful, drier, walking, so I steered Bo toward a patch of standing corn.

Bo got birdy right away in some heavy grass at the bottom of the food plot, and soon a rooster flushed wild, at about 40 yards. I foolishly took a poke at him and then Bo put up four (yes four) roosters at 15 yards. It was bad enough that I only had one shell to offer to four birds, but I didn’t hit the one I singled out well. He flew about 125 yards before diving into the edge of another patch of cattails.

I know I’ve mentioned it before but I feel the responsible thing to do here is to fess up that Bo still isn’t a reliable cripple retriever. She just doesn’t seem to have the drive to get that bird. She’d rather just hunt up another. That’s a shameless thing to say about a Lab but for her it’s true.

In all fairness, the cripples are my fault. I know a little pre-season skeet shooting just about ensures, consistent, clean kills for me, but it seems that with every year, I have less free time even for hunting let alone skeet shooting.

Bo could smell the rooster before we got to the cattails and she plowed her way in like a bull. I could follow her wake by the shaking pods, lofting clouds of their puffy seeds into the air. Left, then right and then a surge ahead and all the telltale shuddering stopped. Well, either she was a quitter or Bo was getting a firm grip on a warm, feisty pheasant. Finally, with her head down pushing stalks, Bo came out with our fourth rooster of the day!

Like the big game guys say on the Outdoor Channel after missing their animal, “at least I’m still hunting!”. That’s the way I feel, with two, bordering state licenses, in my wallet. Even after I limit out early, I can drive a little and, “still be hunting!”

We were near the truck again so I decided to circle back, empty my coat and put on my new Muck boots before my feet got really wet. Then a swig of Mountain Dew, and head back into the different patch of cattails where three of those roosters had flown.

I called my wife and my best friend, Russ Miller, to tell them of our initial success, and brag a little on Bo. I don’t think either of them completely understand my motivation or the peculiar conditions I set for my goal bird hunts - no fee, no swap hunts, no guest on leased land and no road hunting. Just self-made, self-planned hunts on public access lands.

It was only noon so we still had 4 hours to kill one more rooster. I had taken this double limit once before, more than 25 years ago when Critter and Woogie were pups. We shot all five of those birds on private land, and it looked like Bo and I were going to repeat on all public land. It wasn’t that I was terribly interested in retaking the double limit just to say that I did it, or re-prove that it could be done, I was doing this for Bo. For Labrador Retrievers.

I had been planning for several years, actually many years, to attempt to take a double limit of pheasants in all six of the major pheasant states in the mid-west. North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and Iowa. That’s a lot of double limits! Eight, to be exact. What I had never considered was how cool it would be to do it over just one dog. With Bo’s great start as a puppy, and our unfinished hunt today, I was beginning to believe in my own, ‘all over one dog” hype. This is why I was sleeping in the cold, chasing pheasants in two states, instead of just one like normal people do.

I had taken three of the eight over Critter and Woogs, many years ago. One was the North Dakota/South Dakota but Bo and I retook that incidentally in her puppy season. Today we were very close to retaking the Iowa/Minnesota double. The hunt I’m not looking forward to is the Kansas/Nebraska 7 roosters in one day double. Back in 1991 when I took them over Critter and Woogs, 7 roosters in one day felt like the epitome of mid-western upland bird hunting. I’m not so sure about that today, but I do know that it was more of a fluke than a plan and repeating it would be one tough hunt. But when the rains return to the wheat belt, I’ll be on the Kansas Nebraska border with Bo.

Bo and I were both refreshed and knowing there were at least three roosters in the marsh ahead was relaxing. Four hours was a long time to push 20 acres of marsh to flush a rooster.

This was the lowest end of the WPA. Everything else we hunted was a series of potholes broken up by an equal series of small dikes. A guy could just about shoot across each one and every 20 minutes or so you made a complete circle back to a dike. The remaining area was one long marsh. Narrow at about 100 yards at the widest but ¼ of a mile long. Without any elevation enhancing dikes.

This was one of the few times in 20 years of chasing dual limits that I was certain to the core, that we would get our birds. I wasn’t pushing Bo to stay in the heavy stuff. This was going to be a leisurely walk around the perimeter. I had never hunted this corner before, so I was in no hurry to wear down Bo until I saw something that looked like it had to hold a rooster.

We weren’t even half-way down the length when she got birdy. Again, I don’t hunt the wind with a dog. If the dog has any nose at all, it will smell birds that have recently been there and be able to sort out where they went. I can’t think of a good reason to break your neck chasing after a flush because your dog could smell the birds from 50 yards ahead. I know, I whistle trained my first Lab to hup and wait for me to release her on runners. And that level of obedience does give a guy the warm fuzzies, kinda like a trophy wife does. But I like being more of a participant than an observer. I’m not a hurry up and wait hunter. I get more enjoyment from hustling to keep up with a dog barreling through hell and cane to get that bird NOW!, than watching it sit in anticipation of being released for another 20 yard burst. Throw out the professional trainer and field trial judge handbook on proper hunt etiquette and charge after ‘em! If the bird flushes wild, without a shot, I’ll catch my breath have a laugh with the dog and do it again. Pheasant hunting isn’t for royalty. It’s a working man’s sport.

Bo was about 30 yards out when I noticed that she smelled birds. Thankfully, she had already passed it and was trailing parallel to me sorting things out. This rooster didn’t stand for much sorting. When he realized she was after him, he busted outa there!

For the range, about 35 yards, and the choke, improved cylinder, I hit him well, dropping a leg, and ground bound, but I still should have shot again. I’m usually good at putting another load into them if they aren’t coming straight down. But I just watched him dive into the cattails about 100 yards away. That was really bad form on my part. The only good in the situation was that time was on our side. We had 3-1/2 hrs. to find that bird.

But look at Bo! She was bounding head-high straight under the flight of that bird! She got me all excited and I trotted to catch up. I was still 20 yards behind her but could see her thrashing around in the kind of grass that professional hunters get killed tracking wounded cape buffalo in. Into the cattails and back out. She froze to listen for the bird. Then she whipped around and lunged back in with only her black tail showing. Then like a roping horse, backing up to put pressure on the calf, Bo was pushing her way backward with a rooster in her jaws. Our fifth rooster, just one dog, repeat.

I called my wife to tell her Bo and I would be home early, maybe even before shooting hours ended.