Andrew Marshall Wayment's Blog, page 7

Grouse River Gretchen on Colorado Scaled Quail

Ghosts & Ranchers

Cinder gets an educationA windsept shortgrass prairie full of cholla, prickly pear, soapweed yucca, blue grama and buffalo grasses, prairie sage wort and junipers were the settings for a great day of chasing scaled quail in the canyon lands of eastern Colorado.  Our first solo trip for the season.  A time to run my 6 month old coverdog setter (a Pennstar prodigy) with her sister on wild coveys…a time to get educated on birds.



Not a soul on the prairie except for the lonely rancher that stopped to check on his scrub cattle…we chatted about his love for this country and how he inherited this lifestyle from his father years ago.  He talked of how modern technology like a drone could improve his quality of work & lifestyle on the prairie by checking on his cattle and stock tanks miles away from the nearest road.

The wind howled and my thoughts were of ghosts of native Coloradoans on the prairie before the Spaniards came in search of cities of gold…before settlers scratched out a meager living on these shortgrass prairies…a time when life was simple.  I love these shortgrass prairies and canyon lands and have a kindered spirit with the ranchers and families that call them HOME.

Cinder got education on wild running scaled quail today.  We found several nice coveys and even poked a few in the bag.  No points just yet…but I saw her excitement and intensity.  It’ll come in good time…just need to be patient and loving.

Day dreaming of my return!  Until then…

Setter Feathers

THE SONG OF HARVEST HOME

[Note from Author:  This article first appeared in the Ruffed Grouse Society Magazine in 2014 and is reprinted here with permission.  Happy Thanksgiving from Upland Ways!  We appreciate all of our loyal followers!]

The rich ruffed grouse hunting tradition is deeply rooted in the Eastern United States and is spreading across the country into the Rocky Mountains. Wherever we live, we grouse hunters have much to be grateful for.  On Thanksgiving, I can think of no better tradition than to go afield in pursuit of our favorite game bird, especially when we have the opportunity to introduce a new hunter to our grand sporting tradition.

 

Thanksgiving Day Grouse.

 

I was pretty excited on Wednesday night when my good friend, Scott Johnson, agreed to go grouse hunting Thanksgiving morning in 2013.  Before I picked Scott up the following morning, I did not know that his 11 year old son, Cole, was coming, but I was glad he did.  On opening day in late August, we took Cole forest grouse hunting and—though we found a few birds that day—Cole had no opportunities to get his first grouse.  Our plan was to hunt a new area not far from home in Eastern Idaho that Scott had discovered while deer hunting in October.  Along for the hunt were my Brittanys, Sunny and Misty, and Scott’s Chocolate Lab, Gunner.

It took us a while to find the road, but once we located the general area, Scott couldn’t remember the exact spot he wanted us to try.  So we settled for a willow-lined creek bottom at the end of a dirt road.  At first glance, the cover did not particularly strike me as birdy-looking because the north-facing, right-hand side of the narrow valley held mature Douglas Fir pine trees—or “dark timber” as we call it—which usually isn’t the best habitat for ruffed grouse.  But with time ticking away, we felt it important to get hunting, come what may.  I thought to myself: If we can only get Cole his first bird, this will be enough.   

As we walked up the snow-covered trail about seventy-five yards, my American Brittany, Misty worked the willow-choked creek bottom out of view and her bell suddenly went silent.  Sunny Girl—my aging French Brittany—who was on the trail ahead of us, also pointed honoring Misty.

I looked at Scott and Brigham and proclaimed, “Sunny is on point!”

No sooner had I said this when multiple birds boiled out of the thick cover.  One landed in a tree along the trail.  Another gave me a nice quartering shot, which I flubbed twice.

As a rule, Scott and I only take birds on the wing.  However, we make an exception when we take a youngster hunting for the first time.  In this situation, we allow the new hunter to shoot a sitting bird so they can experience some success.  We figure that it is only a matter of time before they realize that it is more challenging and exciting to take them on the wing.

With a grouse in the tree ahead of us, we walked to about twenty yards of the target.  Cole then pointed and shot his tiny .410, but missed the sitting grouse, which hopped outward on the limb and then flew straightaway uphill.  Of course, I was there to back him up and shot twice at the departing grouse seeing no signs that I had hit it.  So I did not follow up as I should have.  Cole and I continued to hike up the trail while Scott worked the left-hand side of the creek.

Scott had marked down fairly accurately where one of the first grouse had landed. So we all pushed toward this area.  Gunner, the Labrador, briefly pointed, and, as I passed him, a bird flushed behind me into the dark timber without presenting a shot.

As Cole and I continued up the trail, the dogs raised another grouse out of the creek bottom and it flew into a tree ahead of us.  We gave Cole a second chance and this time he made a better shot, but the bird was only winged.  My Misty chased the grouse down and brought it back, but dropped it at my feet only to have it run off again.  Misty ran after it and retrieved it again with the same result, except this time the grouse ran down the hill toward the creek.  Gunner and Sunny charged after it—with Gunner beating the old timer—and he retrieved the grouse to hand.  Cole now had his very first grouse!  The day was already a tremendous success (despite my own poor shooting).  I took a few photos with Cole and his first grouse.

 

Gunner does what he was born to do. 

 

 

Cole shows off his first ruffed grouse. 

 

Along the snowy trail, I observed fresh grouse tracks going down into the willows.  I called out to Scott across the creek, “There’s a grouse right down here, Scott.  Get ready!”

I then sent energetic Misty into the creek bottom to do the brush-bustin’ and a grouse flushed up into a tree about twenty yards ahead of where Cole and I stood.  A split second later another grouse flushed hard behind me heading for the dark timber and I spun and swung ahead of it. The shot felt good, but Scott also shot milliseconds after me and—with all the lead in the air—the bird fell solid to the ground.    We called it a “double” and were both glad to take this beautiful bird on the wing.

As for the bird in the tree, Cole had a chance to take his second bird.  This time Cole’s shot was right on the money and Gunner quickly retrieved the ruffie to hand.  Scott came over to the trail and we stopped to take some beautiful photos of Cole with his first two grouse.  A kid’s enthusiasm over his first birds is contagious.

 

Cole poses with his first two grouse.

 

It’s amazing what a few birds in the bag does for the psyche and to a piece of cover, which suddenly took on a new light.  I now recognized why the birds were drawn to this area.  They used the dark timber on the right hand side of the valley for roosting at night and the willow clusters for budding in the morning.  We could not have picked a better set up for late season grouse hunting.  We later worked some other areas on the left hand side of the little valley with quaking aspen thickets, which is good grouse cover in the early season, but we did not move a single bird.  This only substantiated my theory regarding the grouse’s preference to the creek bottom and the adjacent pine-covered hillside in the winter.

 

Scott, Gunner and Cole pose with a beautiful gray phased ruff.

 

 

Around 11:00 a.m., we recognized that it was time to head home to our families for the holiday festivities.  To get back to the car, we hiked back down the same trail that we had hunted up earlier.  Gunner, who had hunted fairly close all morning, was soon out of sight.  I didn’t really notice, but Scott watched him work uphill into the dark timber.  As we got about 75 yards from the car—where the action first began that morning—Gunner suddenly appeared on the trail walking towards us with a dead grouse in his mouth.

Upon bringing the bird to hand, it was cold to the touch.  Putting two and two together, we deduced that this was the second grouse which I shot at as it flushed straightaway out of the tree.  I realized that I should have followed up after the bird even though I believed I had missed it.  To our amazement, Gunner Boy had found and retrieved this bird nearly two hours later.  I was ecstatic.  Suddenly, my shooting for the day was not so bad after all.  Scott described Gunner’s finding and retrieving the bird as a “little redemption” for me, and I could not disagree.

 

The author smiles as he admires Gunner’s find.

 

 

Because of inclement weather, late November grouse hunting in Idaho can be a hit and miss proposition (no pun intended).  Oftentimes, a hunter is locked out of his coverts by Ol’ Man Winter way before the season is officially over.  I could not have picked a better day to go grouse hunting with a great friend and his young son.  The words of the hymn sum up nicely my sentiments for the hunt that Thanksgiving morning:

Come ye thankful people come; Raise the song of harvest home.

All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storms begin.

 

 

 

GRAY LIGHTNING

“Huns sound fast.”

–E. Donnall Thomas, Jr.

On day one of our annual hunt, Saturday, October 1st, Shawn and I first hunted the Royal Macnab in the morning with great success.  Since it was Shawn’s birthday, we then went for tacos at a place called Taqueria La Costa in Chubbuck, Idaho.  I bought Shawn’s lunch and he absolutely loved their adobada tacos.  It’s a proven scientific fact that Mexican food makes you happy.

Tacos are good for the soul!  Happy birthday brother Shawn!

 

We weren’t ready to call it a day, so we decided to hunt for Huns at another one of our favorite covers, Tommy’s Covey.  Tommy’s Covey is a covert made up of sagebrush steppe benches surrounding dryland wheat fields, some currently planted in winter wheat and some freshly cut with the stalks still standing.  This special place sports some of the best Hun hunting I’ve ever experienced and also used to hold really solid sharptail hunting.  However, sharptails go where their preferred food source is.  Last year the farmer planted safflower and sharptails moved on.

The sage strip has been good to us over the years.

 

Near the dirt road, there’s a hilly sagebrush strip along the farmer’s field that extends for miles and we usually find numerous coveys of Huns and sharptails along its lengths.  Up higher, where we parked, however, the field was planted in sprouting winter wheat.  We parked and released the only two working dogs we had left, Misty and Ellie (Sunny Girl had passed over the rainbow bridge, Danny Boy had been placed in a good adoption home, Gretchen was injured and out for the week, and Cinder is too young for active duty and stayed home in Colorado).  In years past, we have hunted this cover with as many as six dogs.  We were—what some might call–“dog poor.”

We hunted the sagebrush strip down with no finds in all of the usual grassy swells. When I was a kid, we used to sing a song in church: “Pioneer children sang as they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked . . .”  Well, this is exactly how it felt as we trudged along for miles with no birds.

Where the heck are they?

We made it down almost to the bottom of the strip and Misty finally located a decent covey of Huns in a thick patch of sage, but I was not in position to shoot and Shawn was sleeping on the job.  However, we marked the covey down as they flew across the farmer’s field into another draw between two cultivated fields, which we know well.  When we made it to the bottom of the strip, a bull, cow, and calf moose blasted out of the cover.  This is not a place one would expect to see a moose in Idaho (let alone a whole family), but Shawn and our friend Kevin saw this very bull in this same spot two years ago.

A heard of Moose, or as Brian Regan says “Moosen.”

Despite our tiredness, Shawn and I decided to hike up the draw to try and relocate those Huns.  As we walked up the grassy draw, we came upon freshly cut wheat fields (as opposed to green winter wheat) with the stalks still standing and we suddenly started finding birds—lots of them.  But with the wind, the Huns were spooky and they were getting up way ahead of us.  With each wild flush, we kept pursuing, knowing that at some point, we’d get some action.  One large covey flew out of the draw we were in and uphill onto the newly plowed field.

Alongside a deep, narrow wash, Misty went on point in some tall wheat stalks, untouched by the combine.  Here was my chance!  The Hun got up like gray lightning and I missed twice.  At least, I got to my back trigger of the NID.

When the cover started petering out, we decided to try to relocate the covey that flew up to the top of the freshly plowed field.  We found them a hundred yards further, almost near the sagebrush strip we had hiked down to begin with.  I had another Hun flush unexpectedly from bare ground right at my feet and I missed again with both barrels.

Man, those suckers are fast!

By cutting across the plowed field, Shawn and I had cut off about two miles of hiking and, though we did not say it out loud, we both were glad.  Plus, we had pushed a few of the Huns back into the sage strip so our long walk back to the truck might be productive.

Almost as soon as we stepped from the plowed field back into the cover, Misty locked up on point.  The gray streak gave me an easy shot and I missed again.  After a morning of good shooting on sharps and a ruffed grouse, I was truly humbled.  But the bird flew up the strip in the direction we were heading.

As we walked, a storm formed behind us in the mountain range across the valley and it was approaching very quickly.  We knew we needed to make some good time to avoid its reach.

In a little swell, Misty locked up on point and the Hun flew straightaway.  In my haste, I missed the first shot, but connected solidly with the back trigger before the lightning fast bird made its escape.  Misty made a nice retrieve.

 

These special birds demand respect. Their nickname “Huns” is short for Hungarian Partridge, but I think maybe its more akin to Attila the Hun because they can give you a real buttkicking! 

 

By this time, the storm was hard on our tails and Shawn and I made for the road to do the final mile as quickly as possible.  Soon lightning began crashing all around us.  We had bolts that hit the ground within a hundred yards of our position.  Despite having already hiked thirteen miles that day, I jogged the last half mile back to the truck as the rain drops started to fall.  While a little wet, we were no worse from the wear as we drove home.  Our first day had been a great success.

That storm is coming quick!

Looking back, this foul (or should I say fowl?) storm seemed to compliment perfectly this Hun hunt.  They were fast.  They were unforgiving.  They were challenging.  And they were unforgettable.

The Legacy of George Bird Evans YouTube Video

GBE was the man.  I really enjoyed this video and thought it was worth sharing with our readers.

 

AVERY

There are times life will rattle your bones

and will bend your will,

but you’re still far and away the boy you’ve ever been

So you bend back and shake at the frame of the frame you made

But don’t you shake alone

Please Avery, come home .

-The Decemberists, “Dear Avery”

Our hunting adventures are so much more than the sum of their parts.  The dogs, the birds, the coverts, the scenery, the weather, the root beers, the camaraderie are all important, but there is so much more (sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on it) that keeps us longing for the uplands each year.

 

Three of the five Wayment Brothers on a hunt in 2014, Andy, Shawn and Scotty

 

Believe it or not, music plays a huge part of the enjoyment of the hunt for me.  Before each annual hunting trip, Brother Shawn and I challenge each other to find the song of the hunt: You know, the one that strikes a chord in your soul during a particular hunt.  Countless are the times that one or two songs just fit with the experience.  For example, in 2010, it was the Avett Brother’s, “The Weight of Lies” and Gregory Alan Isakov’s, “Idaho,” (”And you see your soul, like some picture show across Idaho”).  In 2011, it was Sister Hazel’s, “Just Remember.”  Nickle Creek, Mumford & Sons, Carbon Leaf, and countless other bands have had their moments on the podium during our hunts.

I could go on and on with songs that just seemed like they were written for the hunt, but one really stands out.  It was October of 2014 and Shawn and I were together for our annual hunt.  Earlier that year, our father had passed away and we were still reeling from the loss.  Before the hunt Shawn and I vowed to make this annual hunt “a celebration” of our Dad’s life.  After all, Dad was the one who instilled our deep love for the outdoors (and music, for that matter).

Scott’s sons, Steele and Easton joined us for a few days and we found some sheds.

After a good hunt for Huns at a covert we call, “Tommy’s Covey,” Shawn and I decided to make the loop over to a place we call “Grouse Rock” in hopes of finding a grouse, or two.  Along the way, Shawn played a band that I had heard of, but never listened to before, The Decemberists, and the album was “The King is Dead.”  I instantly related to their music and really enjoyed their alternative country vibe, which reminded me of REM.  The music seemed to compliment perfectly the brilliant fall foliage, as October was showing off.

Brother Shawn found a ruffed grouse.

When we got to the last song of the album, “Dear Avery,” Shawn said to me with a solemn look on his face:

I really love this song for a lot of reasons.  First, we have a niece named Avery.  Second, in Plateaus of Destiny, Mike Gould wrote about an awesome Elhew Pointer, named, Avery, who was my Geppedo’s dad.  Gep was the best hunting dog I ever had.

Also, I had a client who used to bring her dog in to see me.  She always brought her four or five year old daughter, Avery, when they came.  The little gal was always so happy to be there and I always enjoyed seeing her.

After a while, my client brought Avery to my clinic and she was pale and bald.  I asked her what was going on and she told me that Avery had cancer.  It was so hard to see this beautiful, innocent child suffering from such a terrible disease, but Avery was still always so happy and positive whenever she came in.

One day, my client showed up and Avery was not with her.

I asked her, “Where is Avery?”

She replied, “She passed away, Shawn.  I’m so sorry.  I should have told you before.”  This news was such a jolt to me that I started bawling right in the examination room and my client had to comfort me. . . . I love this song because it reminds me of little Avery.

Shawn ended the story with tears streaming down his face.  I could not help but weep as I listened and observed his sincerity.

For those of you have never heard the song, here is the link. It’s definitely worth a listen!

There are very few times in life when you get a glimpse into a person’s soul.  This was one of those times, for me.  For a moment, I saw clearly the depths of Shawn’s heart and it was pure and good.  I loved my brother more than ever.  All of this took place as the quakies were bursting with golden, yellow light all around us.

October is all of its glory.

If I recall correctly, we did not find any grouse at Grouse Rock, but that did not detract one bit from the grandeur of this particular hunt.  In fact, this experience was the most meaningful of the trip for me.

Looking back, I can honestly say that the week was truly a celebration in God’s wondrous creations.  I cannot hear the song “Dear Avery” without remembering this hunt with my brother.

Brother Shawn, my best friend and hero.

 

 

 

 

 

SURE ENOUGH

In bird hunting, there is no such thing as a sure thing.  There are no guarantees that you will find birds, and even if you do, sometimes you can’t hit them.  There’s just too many variables.  But every hunter has a few coverts with prime spots where the odds tip in the hunter’s favor.

Since 2003, the Wayment Brothers have been hunting a covert we lovingly call the”Royal Macnab.”  I have written about this place numerous times in the blog and in magazine articles.  Most recently, I had an article published in the Ruffed Grouse Society Magazine entitled, “That Perfect Feeling,” in which I wrote about a banner hunt at the Royal Macnab.  At the Royal Macnab, you can find sharptails, ruffies, Huns, and a few pheasants.  If I had to pick one, I would have to say that the Royal Macnab is my favorite covert in the whole world, it’s that special.

Josh May with a nice ruffed grouse.Shawn and I hunt this covert a few times each October and we like to hunt it a specific way: We head over the top of the big draw and take a bird or two and then head back to the truck to water the dogs and drink a cold root beer.  Below our parking spot is a large parcel of CRP with rolling hills that we save for last, and for good reason.  Most of the time we can fill our limits on this stretch.  It’s not a sure thing, but for us, it’s Sure Enough, and that is exactly what we call this area.

Brother Shawn at the Royal Macnab.

I wanted to share a journal entry from the first day of our annual Idaho hunt to illustrate my point:

Saturday, October 1, 2016

  For our first hunt of the week, we hunted the Royal Macnab.  We met Josh May there at 7:00 a.m.  We hunted the same way we always hunt, up across the big draw and then down the rolling CRP hills to a place we call “the Pinch,”because the large draw narrows to a point where you can cross.  Within ten minutes, Shawn killed a sharptail along the sage strip.  The main covey flew up on the bench along the big draw.  Josh and I knelt down so the sharps didn’t see us and they landed close by.  We marked them down. Josh got one and Harley made a nice retrieve.  I missed one.

We waited for Shawn to catch up.  While waiting, I hunted down the head of the large draw by numerous elder berry trees with fruit that acts as bird magnets.  Right where I had missed one the previous year, a ruffie flushed in front of me and I knocked it down.  Probably the same bird.  However, upon approaching where it dropped, I could not find it and Misty failed to retrieve.  In desperation, I called Josh down hoping his three Brits could help and we hunted down the draw and then up wind.  His Brittany Milly finally found it in the thick grass in the draw.  She is a dang good bird dog! I was so pumped.

We hunted up and then down toward the Pinch, but didn’t find as many birds as we hoped and the ones we saw flushed out of range.  We hunted to the bottom of the property and then up the property’s southern boundary that lies adjacent to a cut wheat field.  Josh took his second sharp along the fence line.  Josh’s dogs also found a ruff grouse in the quakie thicket close to the property’s southern boundary.  I heard Josh shoot and watched a ruff grouse fly out of cover and then drop up in the CRP about 75 yards from the thicket.  His great dogs found that one too.

Shortly thereafter, Shawn and I met up and hunted together back down toward the Pinch.  Misty found a covey of four sharptails and worked them a long ways before they finally flushed.  I marginally hit one on first shot, but thumped another with the back trigger, which is a good reason to celebrate given my problems last year of even finding the back trigger.  Misty helped me find that downed bird.  We then hunted back to truck.

 

The Wayment Brothers, a stack of birds, a pile of Brits, and an injured setter . . . sorry Gretchen![Author’s Note: Shawn and I then did one of the hardest things I ever had to do. We put down my elderly French Brittany, Sunny Girl, who was blind, deaf, almost crippled and suffering.  I will not share all the details here, but will note that we buried her at the Royal Macnab because it is the covert where she had her very first retrieve 13 years ago.]

After finishing burying Sunny, Shawn and I then drank a root beer and made a toast to Sunny Girl, who never gave up and was all heart.

Shawn then asked, “Do you want to keep hunting or should we just go?”

I replied, “Let’s keep hunting.  Sunny would have wanted to keep hunting.” We then realized that Gretchen, Shawn’s setter, had somehow injured her leg and was done hunting for the week.  So we had to deal with two hard things in succession.  Notwithstanding, we were determined to finish out this hunt.

For our last jaunt, we headed down through Sure Enough and the birds were exactly where they were supposed to be.  Misty had some beautiful finds and points. I shot my second bird down by the sage patch where we always find them.  Within five minutes of that, Misty pointed another grouse and Shawn walked in and thumped it.  Sure Enough was true to its name.

 

Misty on point.

Shawn walks in on point.

Shawn finishes his limit.Like I said, this stretch is not a sure thing, but it’s Sure Enough.

 

Hinterland

Back country remote picturesque sparsely populated lands…Idaho defined precisely.

I just returned from my annual trek to southern Idaho where I get to hunt with my brother (and best friend) Andy and visit with my family.  I enjoyed spending time with my mother and seeing my nephews and nieces.  This year Andy and I were joined by our friend Ron Coiro from Long Island, New York.   Ron had been dreaming of the Idaho uplands for many years and wanted to finish his quest for the North American quail (6 species in all) slam needing only a California or valley quail.

Andy and I started our trip with some low’s…we helped his beloved Sunny-girl pass on to the Rainbow bridge.  Sunny was a special bird dog.  Helluva a bird finder and retriever…I have many fond memories.  She reminded me of Rudy the Norte Dame football player who was puny but all heart and desire.  I will miss Sunny-girl!  She was buried in one of our favorite grouse coverts in a proper Grouse Dog burial site.

Another Low was that my setter Gretchen was three-legged lame from day 1, so Andy and I were dog-poor.   We made the most of it…Andy’s Misty has turned into a world class pointing dog.  Thank heavens Misty was able to run all week for us.

Ron arrived on Sunday and we took him to our favorite haunts in search of wild birds.  Ron was able to harvest sharptailed grouse, huns and valley quail over Misty and a chukar that my fb English cocker Ellie flushed…another first for Ron…wild cantankerous Phookars!

It was a great week with good friends forging that common bond and lots of wild birds and gourmet root beer…and of course…tacos!

My family has been recently blessed with a new family member….a cover dog setter of spectacular breeding with Penn’s Star and many more grouse dogs.  I’m ecstatic to get her on the prairie for scaled quail.  More to come on that in the months to come.

 

Setter Feathers…see you on the prairies.

THE LOST PHONE

Every Fall Brother Shawn and I get together for a week to hunt upland birds in Idaho.  We live for this time together with our bird dogs. Last year was a spectacular one and we found birds every day and the dogs did wonderful.

I take all of my hunting and fishing photos with an iPhone.  I’m no professional by any means, but I’ve found the quality of the photos to be excellent.  Last year during the hunt I took over 180 photos.  Also, while we are hunting, my son, Thomas, and I like to make goofy videos on the Crazy Helium Booth app and we had made many funny ones that trip.

On Monday, October 5, 2015, Shawn and I hunted a favorite spot in Southern Idaho for valley quail and we got into them pretty thick.  When we made it back to the truck after all of the action, I searched all my pockets and the truck and my phone was nowhere to be found.  We searched that afternoon and into the night with no success.

That night, while at our mom’s house, Shawn and I planned to go back in the morning, to look again and to hunt valley quail. I prayed that we would find that phone.

Try as we may, we could not find the phone.  The quail hunting that day was good, but I could not fully enjoy myself because of the lost phone.  Now, I’m not a materialistic person and I did not care so much about the phone itself as I did about the lost pictures and videos. I had posted many of them to Instagram and Facebook so I still had a few of them, but I was totally heartbroken about the rest.  The loss of all of those memories was a tough way to end the hunt.

This year, Shawn and I got together again for our week in the Idaho uplands and the hunting was great.  We hunted a lot of the same spots we did last year.

On Tuesday, October 4th, Shawn, our friend, Ron, and I went to hunt quail in the same creek bottom that we hunted last year.  With little hope, I jokingly said, “You guys keep an eye open for my iPhone that I lost here last year.”

We hunted the same loop up onto the bench and really got into the quail. Ron completed his quest for the Quail Slam, which is to take all of the North American quail species.  We all had a good time and got a few birds (although my shooting left a little to be desired . . . okay a lot!).

 

Quail Country. 

As we worked our way up the creek back to the truck, Misty had a few stellar points on quail and one giant rooster pheasant.  Shawn and Ron found a narrow point and Shawn said, “Let’s cross the creek here.”

 

Misty showing off. 

Hoping to find a few more quail, I replied, “I think there’s a few more birds on this side.  Misty and I will cross up here a ways.”  

We made our way up to a Russian Olive tree surrounded by a heavily-traveled sage brush flat.  In the flat, I looked down and spied a phone lying on the ground in the middle of a cattle trail face down.  I immediately reached down, picked it up, and flipped it over.  It appeared to be in good condition and upon closer inspection, I realized this was the phone I had lost almost exactly one year before.

 

Faded and a bit dirty, but still in good shape. 

“I FOUND MY PHONE!!!” I hollered at the top of my lungs.  My tone sounded like Lloyd Christmas on the movie, Dumb & Dumber, when he yells, “HEY EVERYONE, WE’VE LANDED ON THE MOON!”  To me it seemed nothing short of a miracle. Back at the truck, we celebrated the successful hunt and the finding of the phone with root beers.

 

No better way to celebrate than with a Boylan’s Creamy Red Birch Beer!

 

As we traveled home, after banging dirt and mud out of the bottom, I plugged the iPhone in not expecting it to work.  The phone showed no signs of life.  Still, I hoped that we would be able to somehow retrieve the data.  When the empty battery didn’t pop up, I unplugged it.  Still hoping for another miracle, I plugged it in a few minutes later and let it sit.  What could it hurt?

After driving about thirty miles, I picked the phone up and touched the home button and a clear picture popped right up on the unbroken screen.  My eyes about popped out of my head.

“Brother, it is working!”  I exclaimed excitedly as we witnessed the second miracle of the day.

Think about it.  This phone had been outside in the rain, snow, sun, dirt, mud, in an area heavily trafficked by cows for a year.  It would be interesting to see a time lapse video of the phone to see all that it encountered during that time.  What are the odds that it would be in good shape, let alone still work?  Yet all of my photos and videos were right there just like they had been a year ago.  For me, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Here’s a few pictures of last year’s hunt and a goofy video (don’t judge me!) from the lost phone.

 

Shawn with a beautiful gray phased Ruff we doubled on in the Outhouse.  Misty dropped it in the creek and that is why it looks soggy. Danny Boy found a nice Sawtooth Ruff for Shawn and worked it perfectly.  This was probably the coolest bird of the trip. Little Brother Jake makes a long shot on a Hun with the Auto 5.  Hunderful.  Great hunting at a covert we call “Tommy’s Covey.”  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quail Forever Bird Dog Blog Post: Dangers in the Field

(Above photo of the huns and pointers was providing by my good friends Dave and Kraig Kruger while rubbing it in during their trip to Montana)

Jack Hennessy contacted me a few weeks ago to get my opinion on things that we as bird dog owners can do at home to prevent injury or severe accidents to our dogs while we’re in the field.  Excellent article came out today on the Quail Forever Blog.

https://quailforever.org/BlogLanding/Blogs/Field-Notes/Bird-Dogs-Dangers-in-the-Field.aspx

Looking forward to ten days in Idaho next week with my brothers and friend and fellow veterinary from Long Island, Ron Coiro.

Be safe in the fields and enjoy your bird dogs!

Setter Feathers…