Trifecta

A storm with wicked wind and rain blew in earlier this week. The rain was very welcome in this drought stricken area but the 40+ mph winds with gusts over 60 mph rocked the Open Range and sent us into town for refuge. A white knuckle drive in on slick mud roads with our 50' rig left us happy to be off the prairie for a day. But yesterday the winds had calmed a little so off we went. Our destination was a remote area with dry creek beds and ravines, or coulees as they are known here, to hunt out of the wind.

Pheasants in this area are wild and not widely known about. Their population can vary widely due to winter conditions and such. Just last evening a rancher whose family homesteaded his ranch back in 1911 told us that there are not many of those "Chinese pheasants" around. He had obviously not been on our hunt that same day not far from his home.

It was one of those days when everything went well. All of the dogs had multiple finds and points and we gunners tried hard to do right by them. So far I have carried only the small p&s camera so the photography has not been great but I managed a few snapshots. In this type of terrain most pics of points look something like this. Stickers had Storm's ears pinned to the back of her head.


Retrieve pics aren't much better. Raleigh delivering a rooster to Mike.


It takes a persistence to get these birds pinned and you have to deal with some rough terrain.





The birds would often sneak up draws as they saw/heard us approach and the dogs did a great job of trailing and pinning a number of them. Tweed trailed some birds about 50 yards up into a draw; point, stalk, point, stalk.


Mike and Jack swung over our way and when I moved in above Jack's point near the top of that same draw 2 roosters popped out, I dropped one and Tweed made the retrieve.


This particular draw topped out onto a modest stretch of grass before a huge oat field began. It was late and we were ready to head to the truck when Jack snapped on point toward some grasses at the fields edge. After Mike approached he relocated a couple of times before freezing, pinning the running bird. Knowing that he had nowhere to go, a large rooster burst out and Mike dropped it nicely. The spurs on this bird were much longer than on the roo that I had shot back in the draw: the older birds are much better at escape but he had met his match in Jack.





At this point Mike had shot his limit of pheasant plus had dropped a Hun earlier. We have been passing up on sharptails but he shot one on the way back to the truck to complete a hard-earned trifecta of 3 species from one cover in a day.





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