Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game First time for everything...

...went out pheasant hunting this morning and came back with a deer. Into the first walk, both dogs, my weimaraner and my buddy's lab mix lock up and head straight for the cattails in the road ditch. My weim locks on point and the lab moves in and looks like he's rolling in something. Other friend looks in, says it's a dead deer, we call the dogs off. But the cattails keep moving. Yearling doe that was hit by a car this morning. We got two inches of fresh powder this morning, so it was easy to see where it was hit and dragged itself to the cattails. I put a load of #5s into the back of her head, called my friend the conservation officer and explained what happened. He called his station officer and talked to him while I was on the other line, apparently I was supposed to call before I shot, but other than that it's all good. The CO said to just gut it out, load it up and if anyone gives me flack to have them call him. We were 50 miles from town, so he didn't want to drive out an issue the transport tag, so he just gave me a possession tag when I got home. Hit in the spine right about the tenderloins, shattered the spine. Amazed that she could drag herself at all. Shoulders and hams are good, should be some loin that still isn't bruised. First time for everything and glad that I have a good relationship with the local CO.

Oh - first real snowfall of the year, so the dogs were going nuts with finally having scent. Shot two birds, recovered one, the other one ran and I literally watched it jump into a badger hole just as my dog went to roll it. Didn't recover. Saw plenty of pheasant, my Lucy had 4 hard points with her nose almost in feathers, but they were all the wrong color. She also stuck with 4 other birds as they were moving and flushed them - all the wrong color. The good news is we saw over 40 birds today and only about 10 were roosters. Plenty of seed stock. If we have another easy or even normal winter our numbers will keep rising.

Still, it sounded like a good hunt. That badger will dine well.

It was a great hunt. Beautiful scenes as the snow hadn't fallen or melted off the trees and/or grass yet. Only regret is that when Lucy locks up on hard point I keep forgetting to use the camera before flushing the bird. The ones that held tight held hard, lots of others went out wild.

Selmer,

Glad you had a good hunt with some SNOW! Sounds like you and Lucy had a GREAT time. Nothing like watching our pointing dogs lock up on a bird. It is terribly dry in western Nebraska this year. I get out on the days when the humidity is up a little to help with the scenting conditions. Well over a month again with NO moisture. We did have 0.02" on November 10th. Today it is December 12th and we have had several days with high temps in the low 70's and many more days in the mid 60's. Send some of that snow our way if you can. We would really appreciate it!