Gentleman Bob in Kansas

Let me begin with an apology.  I have been derelict in my blogging.  A number of readers have let me know that they have been disappointed in the lack of posts here, I feel badly about that and to remedy the situation I now have several posts lined up to publish to get everyone caught up.  In a bit of self defense, I do want to state that much of the reason that I have not written is because we have been busy:  when we are on the road in Montana we hunt several days a week and care for the pack of dogs whereas hunting out of the house here we have both of those plus running a household, visitors, holidays, and a tiny parttime job, which does not leave a lot of time for writing.  

The Kansas hunting season ran from Nov 9 -Jan 31.  We opened the season with a bit of skepticism given that last year the bird numbers, especially pheasant, were down so significantly due to the drought.  So we decided that we would focus on the bobwhite quail this year since they are native to the area and therefore better equipped to handle weather extremes: they have been here a long time and hopefully will continue to be.  We were not disappointed.  Most of our hunts were day trips where we would leave the house in the morning with a lunch packed and we would be home by late afternoon, tired and usually with birds in the bag.  (as always, click on any photo to see it enlarged)

Quail are found in brushy areas, typically along either crop fields or tall grass fields.  To this New Englander, some of our local quail habitat reminds me of the old, overgrown Vermont farms where I loved to hunt ruffed grouse.  Coveys are found along the edges of fields or even feeding out in fields and once flushed, the singles fly into brush and treed areas or tall grass, the thicker the better.  The dog work is closer and requires more brush-busting than Montana or Kansas fields for pheasant so we usually ran just 2 - 3 dogs at a time.  The dogs did great with each one showing their own strengths and skills.  And of course being dogs, weaknesses too, but they were minor and we forgive them just as we hope they forgive us when we are less than perfect.  You have to look hard to see the dogs in some of the pics due to the cover.

Dee holding them tight til we get there, Jack backing

There are actually 3 setters on point/back in there

Storm

Mike walking along typical quail cover with dogs working the brush

Me walking in on a point with 3 other dogs backing

I have so many photos from the season that I want to share, there will be more in the promised subsequent posts. But I do want to share photos and memories from our opening weekend because it was special to us. The day after the opener we were thrilled to be joined by both Mike's son, Colt, and our wonderful friend, Jess, from Texas.  Colt is a busy engineering student at K-State and this was the first time in over 2 years that he has been able to come along for a hunt.  He and his Dad walked and talked all morning long.

Mike has now hunted with Jess for a few years and we were really looking forward to his visit and hunts this year.  Jess makes the long drive up from Texas in search of bobwhite quail, once plentiful in Texas.  He has 2 very well mannered dogs, a Vizsla, Lu, and a Drahthaar, Ilse.  One of our favorite memories of his visit this year was a time when Jess dropped a rooster for which Ilse ran in for the retrieve as did Jack and Dee.  The boys love to retrieve and assume all birds are theirs but Ilse reached in, picked it up and as she lifted it over their heads the look on her face made it very clear that this was her owners bird and the boys had better back off....and indeed they did, giving us all a laugh.  We had a lot of fun but with an abrupt ending as Ilse tore a large gash in her leg on barbed wire which laid her up for a week or so but she healed fine.

(The above pic of Lu is actually from last year, somehow I failed to get any good pics of her this year but love this one of her and figured it bore repeating it.)

Weather this winter has been unusually cold and snowy for this area.  Most winters any snow melts within a few days but this year it stayed.  To reduce the stress on the quail, we didn't hunt them on days with bad weather or really low temps.  Surviving and avoiding wild predators takes enough of their energy, they didn't need us bothering them on those days.  Right up to the end we saw reasonably sized coveys and big, healthy birds with fat on them so we hope that they come through the winter well.

Cheers
Lynn Dee

The point is....

Although we hit a couple of areas in Montana that failed to produce many birds, most areas have held plenty of birds. And of course, a seemingly endless amount of fields and miles to walk while hunting for them. The scenery and the dogwork make those miles well worth it.






























It has been particularly fun to watch the pups step up and do their part.









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It's not just the hunting

Our adventure is focused and planned around bird hunting yet there are many spontaneous aspects of travel that bring fun to our travels. For the past week+ we camped at an isolated Montana wildlife management area that was near the end of miles of gravel road. We were only about an hour from the Lewistown area which has received lots of publicity for bird hunting. But the area focus is on pheasant which doesn't even open until mid-October so we didn't expect many other hunters to be there pursuing sharptails and Huns. We were wrong.

When the weekend rolled around we were shocked to find other couples also camping there to hunt. Friday evening found 8 of us gathered around the grill while Mike cooked birds from the week as well as some venison from the freezer. The diverse group ranged from locals Karen and Butch of Amer Field trial and training fame, Don and Kristen from western MT, and Arlene and Sam who split their time each year between their home in NJ, months of traveling and hunting out of their RV, and winter months sailing the Carribean. The conversation and stories of dogs and hunting could fill chapters of a good book.




Sam expressed interest in hunting behind a pointing dog as a change from his Springer so one day he joined Mike, the 2 EB's and a setter while I followed with the camera. Dee in particular was really on that day and several times we looked for him, only to find him on point on a far ridge. Sharptails and Huns were bagged by both and I think a pointy dog is in Sam's future.











Also that day I snapped one of my favorite pics so far on the trip. Jack on the edge of a coulee on a sharptail that Mike dropped for him.







The good times continue to roll.




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Mountains, rainbow and grouse

After the trial the temperatures really began to heat up where we were staying. Mornings were cool enough to hunt for an hour or two but the rest of the day we spent hunkered down, trying to stay cool and keep the dogs comfortable. Although the OR does have air conditioning, we carry a portable generator that cannot carry the heavy AC load. Staying at an RV park would provide an electrical plug-in to run it but if you have ever seen them, they are pretty much just trailer parks and that's not what our adventures are about. So instead we headed to one of the many mountains that can be seen in the distance from the prairie.


We chose to follow a lead we were given to find dusky and ruffed grouse, which are both referred to as mountain grouse in MT. It was a 30+ miles drive in on a small dirt road that at times had us wondering if we had made a good decision. We were headed for a small piece of public land that was sandwiched inside of a 150,000 acre private ranch whose enterprise focuses on elk hunting as well as cattle and gravel excavation. We camped in solitude in a long valley at nearly 5000' elevation with Douglas fir and ponderosa pines on the mountainsides. We woke in the morning to the sound of elk bugling echoing down the valley.












Although we had previously seen photos of dusky grouse being pointed in nice gentle pine meadows, we found them on steep hillsides in thick, rocky stands of aspen. Not very conducive to photos. We had also been told that the grouse out here were unaccustomed to being hunted and would flush slowly and unwillingly. Not. Storm had the first point and I could clearly see her standing steady, but as soon as I took steps around a clump of saplings the bird flushed giving me only glimpses of feathers. Bird, coming your way! I yelled to Mike and boom, in a single shot Mike had his first dusky grouse.





Over the next two days we climbed up and down the mountainside and were successful with a modest number of ruffed and dusky grouse. But we knew that rain was forecast for the next day and that we had better get out of that valley while we were able. The grouse were so delicious that we decided to head to a national forest located the other side of the mountain in the hopes of finding more. There was a booming thunderstorm hanging on top of the mountain as we approached that cleared as we got to the top.


It was beautiful up there but a lack of aspen cover, elk hunters pouring in (archery season opened the next day) and mud everywhere made us change our mind. So back to the prairie and solitude.



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Busy Week 1

It's hard to believe that we have been on the road for a week already. After a wonderful visit and dinner with friends in ND last Weds nite we arrived in Denton, MT on Thursday. The Epagneul Breton trial was hosted by a couple well known to horseback American Field trialers with their lovely home serving as base for the trial. Butch (Nelson) had arranged with local landowners to use their private properties as the trial grounds. This was a wild bird trial and the habitat and bird numbers were excellent with dogs finding sharptails, Huns and pheasant. At the trial banquet we had the opportunity to meet several landowners; they were what one would expect from multi-generational Montana ranchers in their humility, openness and love of the land.





It was fun to see so many other EB's and the club members were friendly and helpful to us even though we made it clear that this was just for fun for us and our priorities remain with hunting. Jack did us proud by finding and handling 3 separate roosters and a group of sharptails as well as he always has when hunting and he was awarded Reserve (runner up.). Jack is probably less proud since the judges informed us that handler error kept him from winning 1st place. But being true to the species, Jack's love is unconditional and he seems to forgive his owners for our flaws.


The weather was great over the weekend but has heated up this week, restricting our hunting to a couple of hours in early morning. We are parked at a MT WMA (wildlife management area) on a dead end road that sees about one vehicle a day and we can walk out the door and to hunt in any direction. Yesterday it felt great to open 4 kennel doors and let Jack, Dee, Storm and Tweed rip across the fields and coulees. Sharptail and Huns: its what's for dinner.
Look really closely to see the dogs in this first pic, that's how they roll out here.











Just down the road is the beautiful Judith River and today we took a pleasure walk along the river with the dogs staying cool swimming. It is a picturesque area and when we found a chimney from a long-ago cabin we talked about the fact that even very long ago, people found enough pleasure in the same things that we enjoy today to build there despite the hardships of this countryside.






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The 2013 Tour Has begun: We're off!

The Open Range is hooked up, guns and gear packed, dogs are loaded up and we are crossing North Dakota as I write this. We have felt pretty organized the past few weeks as we prepared for this trip. We are planning to be on the road for about 8 weeks which is a good length of time but feels a whole lot easier than last year when we had to prepare for 4 months on the road. Having a house here in Kansas cuts our road time in half since come November our hunting will be just a few nights away at a time or even some day trips out of the house.

Our first stop last night was at a campground in the Sheyenne Natl Grasslands at a lovely, spacious campground and we were the only ones there so were were able to let the dogs stretch their legs a bit. Our brand new generator quit after just a few minutes which left us a bit hot with no AC but the RV fans got us through the night and the company is over nighting a part to where we will be tomorrow. Now we are on to western North Dakota for some dinner plans and tomorrow we head into Central Montana.












In MT we will be running Jack in a field trial, it is a wild bird, all-breed pointing dog trial but a different venue than I have ever been to. The EB club requires dogs to have been successful in both trials and at shows before being bred so we recently decided to enter him. This gave me about a month to take a dog who has been allowed to break at the shot for thousands of birds and make him steady to flush and shot. I have been training by myself, old school style with only his leather collar and checkcord as equipment and his progress is proof positive that a good dog needs nothing more than that. After the trial we will let, actually encourage, him to again break at the shot because especially with roosters we want every advantage when it comes to recovering birds we shoot.

The MT season opens Sept 1st and we will explore and hunt the central part of the state which is new to both of us. There are pockets of forest in addition to prairie with the possibility of a variety of bird species. Daytime temps will likely require early morning hunts with afternoons for fishing or driving around. We hope to meet up with a New England friend who is making a quick trip to MT himself: we had dinner together shortly before moving to KS but this time there should be wild game on the table instead of a jaw dropping tab. As it cools we will head east to the familar areas where we hunted last year.

We will post photos and updates when we can find internet access. This year we have a new camera that also shoots video so we will be trying our hand at that as well. Also, after years of people asking me if I had a website for my dogs I finally broke down this year and had a modest site set up. I got a referral to a wonderful young man who is starting his own business and it was fun to work long-distance with him as he attempted to rein in my verbose, photo laden style and make it work on a site. If interested, the address is www.Firelightbirddogs.com. I still need to add to and fine tune some details on it but that will have to wait until we return.

Cheers!


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