by Randy Lawrence
When our bobwhite quail staged a mini-comeback in the mid 1990's, my friend Tom's family owned the most prosperous hometown bank in southeastern Ohio. Tom's dad and grandfather had always had English setters, good ones. They'd even done some horseback field trialing up on the Kildeer Plains back in the day.
All that was before the great blizzards ravaged Ohio's bobwhite quail and pheasants. Tom's people, being hard-bitten, bottom line guys, thought coal country grouse hunting was far too much hard hiking for not nearly enough shooting. The setters got old, pacing in their posh runs. When the last of those dogs died, the kennels stayed empty.
But Tom's family still moved in gun dog circles, including the fellow who owned the hardware store. He had campaigned one great dog to two National Bird Dog Championships in the late '80's. At breakfast in the town diner, he had backed the local scuttlebutt about there being a few quail around. That's when Tom gave me a call.
His dad's birthday was approaching. For the occasion, Tom had lined up permission with several local farmers and wondered if my dogs and I would be willing to join them for the Saturday morning hunt his dad thought they "might could" spare from making money.
I remember the one covey find. It was on the second farm we hunted, a delicious rolling tangle of overgrown pasture, one small woodlot, and a swath of scraggly field corn that had yet to be picked. Tom's dad had laid out our line of march, and we swung into the light November breeze.
The day had long gone off the rails. At the tailgate before the first hunt, Tom's dad learned that my dogs lived with me in my home, sparking a lecture on soft house dogs who "can't smell their own butt." In the field, I spent most of the morning staring down the careless gun barrels of both companions. That's why when Riley finally went solid and setter Dusk slid to a hot back, I stayed with the dogs, waving father and son on to flush.
A good bevy of birds buzzed out of a multiflora rose spread, and there was a lot of shooting. Tom emptied both barrels of his over under before the quail had barely cleared the brush, while his father pumped a svelte Model 42 like he was working it for a late mortgage payment.
Tom's dad thumbed more shells into the .410's magazine. He said he had a line on some singles, but was convinced he'd dropped at least one bird. To his disgust, Riley and Dusk snuffled and scoured until they were just as convinced that he had not. I sided with my dogs and urged them on.
Within minutes, a single got up in front of a Dusk point before I could hustle Tom into position. We kept pushing, and Riley went missing. I finally found the nearly all black pointer crouched into a "Right...THERE" pose on the edge of the woods.
I waited for Tom's dad to step up wide to our left before I walked a fast arc to the right, trying to come back in toward the pointer's nose. On about the sixth heartbeat, a brace of bobwhites clamored up and away through another pump gun fusillade.
We circled back to the truck, where Tom gently checked his father from shoving his loaded shotgun into a soft case for the ride back to town. By then, I'd had quite enough and politely tried to beg off lunch, but Tom said he’d ordered lunch brought in, and that we would eat up in the bank boardroom. There was something there he and his dad wanted to show me.
"Tom tells me you're a gun guy," his dad said. "You're gonna love this."
The room was upstairs, an opulent contrast to the spare, Mayberry-style bank setting - a beautifully appointed room centered with a gorgeous walnut table that matched dark wainscoting, all crafted from trees harvested on Tom's grandfather's farm. What they had wanted to show me was the 1887 Colt lever action shotgun hanging on one wall, the barrel hacksawed short in its role as security weapon for the bank's early days. Tom's dad was taking the gun down for a more personal show-and-tell when my eyes drifted to one of a dozen or so vintage bird dog prints lining the boardroom walls.
I had to step closer to be sure, but there it was. A simply framed, original DuPont Gunpowder Company print of Lady's Count Gladstone from a painting by Edmund Henry Osthaus. The National Field Trial Champion of 1900 is rocked back against scent coming in over her shoulder, the signature "Osthaus Tail" plumed at just above 45 degrees.
Hanging next to her was two-time National Champion Sioux. Count Gladstone, winner of the inaugural national title, was down the way. There was the print of Prince Whitestone and another of Joe Cumming, heirs to the great Llewellin invasion of the late 19th century. The sole pointer portrait in the lot was of Manitoba Rap, the dog who broke the setter stranglehold on the Ames Plantation in 1909. His haunches coiled like an African lion's, muscle and sinew rippling right off the print.
I am not sure if the collection hanging upstairs in that backwater bank comprised a complete set of National Champions painted by Osthaus between 1896 and 1910. Tom's dad knew little about what he called "the bird dog pictures," other than his own father had framed the DuPont ads over time and that they were "supposed to be worth something." He had that old Colt repeater over his shoulder, following me as I made my way 'round the room, drinking in one beautiful piece after another. When lunch was wheeled in, I reluctantly sat down to eat.
"Generations Have Used DuPont Powder" by Edmund Osthaus. According to George Evans, the model for the boy in the print was Osthaus's son Franz.
Good read! Thank you!!
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