by Lynn Dee Galey
The
other day my friend Warren got one of those Facebook “Memories From This Day” messages
with a photo. He sent it to me and we were instantly taken back to that day
about a dozen years ago.
We
quietly raised our guns to the ready position as we saw Tweed ahead pointing
and relocating. She carefully slipped over the hill ahead of us in the field
and out of sight. “Be ready, I warned, this spot looks like prairie chickens.” As we
crested the hill a flock of 6-8 chickens flushed ahead of the dogs and us, just
out of range, with the puppy in hot pursuit. The prairie teaches gunners about
stragglers and sure enough, 30 steps closer 2 birds flushed and swung in front
of Warren who was off to my left. Calmly, probably way too much so for his first
time ever even seeing prairie chickens, each trigger was pulled and each dropped
a bird. Woohoo!
We agreed
that both birds had dropped dead and Warren’s senior dog, Boone, was already on
his way to retrieve the one that had fallen further out. Warren said he was going
to go find where his puppy had disappeared to if I would handle the retrieves. First
bird now in hand I saw that both dogs were now searching the closer spot where
we had seen the second bird drop. Both were strong retrievers, no worries.
But when
Warren returned with his grinning, panting puppy we still had not found the
other bird. It had been one of those shots where the bird drops like a stone,
not far off and well marked yet we could not find it. Fanning out in widening
circles we and the dogs searched for well over half an hour. Losing a bird is
always dismaying but to lose a prairie chicken taken on a double the first time
someone has hunted them felt downright tragic.
The
afternoon was getting late and with a long walk back to the truck ahead of us
we finally admitted defeat, barely able to enjoy the single chicken in Warren’s bag.
We decided to cut a straight line back across fields, not even hunting our way
back. We crossed two barb wire fences and fields and half way across the next
100+ acre field I realized that I didn’t know where Tweed was. Looking around I
saw my orange girl far up in the field, working away from us. We watched for a minute and
I’ll be darned; we saw her pounce and pick something up. A minute later she
handed me Warren’s second prairie chicken, still very much alive.
Prairie chickens are wily birds and that bird had run hundreds of yards from where
it dropped but Tweed had picked up a thread of scent and pursued until success.
Needless
to say our spirits were raised, Tweed was praised and we stopped to take this photo.
