Bird Dogs

Val and Jill hunted hard and showed some wear at the end of this hunt; bloody-tipped tails and teets from busting brush, hocks and forearms chaffed from running through ice-crusted snow. Conditions were cold and cruddy; hunting was in about 8-inches of snow which had fallen a couple nights prior, thawed a little the previous day, settled, then froze and developed a good crust overnight.

We didn't start hunting until around noon because temps had dropped into the single digits that morning; temps while hunting were initially in the low to mid twenties and at the end of the hunt started dipping back into the teens.

Initially we hunted some stand-alone tule patches and clumps of whitetop, but didn't see any pheasant tracks, point, or put-up any birds. Things started to change the deeper we got into the property; I started seeing tracks and the occasional wild-flushing (200 yards distant) bird. I marked where a couple birds had landed and hunted the girls into that cover; this resulted in a couple points, and wild flushes, but no shots fired; the scent and birds in the air put a little spark in the girls hunt though, and the game was on.

We hunted into a huge patch of pepperweed, tracks were everywhere trailing into heavy clumps of brush, and the birds began popping distantly; in five minutes we put ten birds in the air, mostly roosters. In short order Jill was on a hot trail, having two barren stands in rapid succession with great intensity; eyes staring distantly, head and tail high-and-tight and not flinching as I went in to flush on both occasions. A hundred-yards further I saw her stack-up again; this time Val was off to her right and staunch as well. I made a dash toward both dogs and about thirty yards out the first rooster went crossing left, and at the shot the second rooster lifted and went crossing right...