MY DOG HUNTS 

For years I had been buying a North Dakota hunting license and a South Dakota hunting license for separate time intervals. Taking 2 weeks off from work and hunting each state over a 12 day time span. The area I hunt usually has decent numbers of sharp-tailed grouse so if I limited on roosters I could spend the rest of the day hunting grouse and the odd covey of huns. So a few years back I decided to save a week of vacation to spend in Kansas in January chasing quail. I couldn’t decide which state to buy my Dakota pheasant license for so I bought it for both state over the same time period. I decided to start the day with my wirehair in a cattail lined drainage on very popular piece of public land in North Dakota. As we we neared the pinch point where the drainage ended, pheasants where flushing out of range by the dozens. Caytee my wirehair typically gets lost in the moment when this happens surprised me when she locked into a point. Two roosters flushed, I knocked the first one down but I could tell it still had life when it was falling. I swung on the second rooster and missed twice. I thought; that is not how I wanted to start my day, chasing a cripple rooster through brom grass after giving up an opportunity on a double. Both my dogs are good on cripple pheasants but if I had to place a bet on which one will find a bird first, I’d go all in on Caytee every time. So after nearly 200 yards sprint through the brom grass Caytee had our bird. Most of the season I would dream of a day starting like this but not in this area. So I switched out dogs to reboot and get my head back in the game. Charlie, my shorthair was on his 8th season at the time. This dog’s super power is to find birds in the oddest areas I’d never put much emphasis on hunting. So leaving the truck we were on a power walk to get back to a cover I knew would hold the 2 roosters I needed for a limit. And in typical Charlie fashion he was locked into point within a hundred yards of the truck. Typically a point in the brom grass is a hen or a grouse. Roosters rarely hold in this light cover. I walked in fully expecting a hen, when a rooster flushed giving me a lay up shot. Once at the shelter belt I was hoping to find more roosters at . I sent Charlie in and hung back. Now I’m not a pointer purest and only shoot birds my dogs point especially when it comes to roosters. And I have learned over many seasons of solo hunting that a smart rooster or two double back and flush out the end of the shelter belt at the point where we start from. So shortly after Charlie went in a cackling rooster came flying out right at me. We had our North Dakota limit. It hadn’t occurred to me to even try for a double limit until we had our North Dakota limit and it wasn’t even shooting time in South Dakota yet. My game plan for the day was just to spend it in North Dakota hunting grouse. Then it dawned on me that I knew a spot about an hour a way in South Dakota that I had a pretty good chance at taking a limit of roosters in one walk at. So off we went to South Dakota. There’s a food plot at this public spot close to the parking area. And every all the hunters that walk this spot hit that food plot. I usually just bypass it and walk the cove furthest from the parking area where the roosters get push to but most hunters are too lazy to walk to. So I released Charlie and he used his super power once again. He was on point in the food plot. Within sight of the truck. Thinking these bird are never going to hold in a food plot, I walked further ahead than I would in most cover then cut into the food plot to cut them off. A dozen or so pheasants flushed and I had 2 roosters towards my 3 bird South Dakota limit. So I was positive no one have hunted this spot yet that day, and I was also positive Charlie and I were going to find more roosters here. I felt like a quarter back in the superbowl walk up to the line in victory formation. As we walked towards some heavier cover I suspected more pheasants to be Charlie went on point 20 yards from the cover with his head high in the air. After fallowing this dog for 8 seasons I was sure this cover held multiple birds by his body language. I walked into the cover and pheasants began flushing, and I picked out a rooster that flushed on my side of the cover and had my South Dakota limit. My thoughts quickly turned to greed as I thought of heading to Montana as I held a license for the too. But this being my first pheasant double limit I decided to get some good pictures, clean my birds, watch the sunset, and relish the moment.

Ruffed grouse and woodcock go together like peanut butter and jelly. But add a third species to the bag like sharp tailed grouse or spruce grouse and now that walk just got really interesting. In recent memory I have had two walks stand out. One in the Dakotas with pheasants, a hun and a sharpie. The other in Minnesota with a sharpie, a ruff, and a snipe. I have had many times where I have encountered the third species but for whatever the reason (mostly my poor shooting) did not get the third species.

There are still places where it’s possible to take 3 or more species in a single walk. Its taken me a while to figure out that I’d rather have a chance at a multiple species hunt than filling bag limits each day on a single species. Many times I have had the opportunity to take the third species but I have flat out missed, didn’t buy the required license (fall turkey), or didn’t have the required nontoxic shot (snipe) to take the third species in a single walk. In the north woods, I have taken sharptailed grouse, ruffed grouse, and snipe in a single walk. Out on the prairies, i have taken pheasant, sharptails, and a hun in a single walk. Some close calls that I will always remember. Once in Kansas, I had a few bobwhites and a rooster in the bag. The WIHA I was walking looked like prairie chicken habitat. I criss crossed the grass praying for a chicken only to find hen pheasant after hen pheasant. Then once back at the rig, gun unloaded and cased, dogs kenneled. As I looked out the windshield as I climbed in the truck a flock of 20 or so chickens flew directly over and landed on private just to rub a bit more salt in the wound. Last season I had an amazing walk, I had 2 roosters and 3 sharptails in the bag when I got back to the truck. But what has made my wife think Im crazy the last few months by my spontaneous shaking of the head an a few chuckles. Is that on that same walk the dogs and I moved 2 coveys of Huns. The first covey my wirehair had locked down but as I just crossed into gun range she decided to take one step and busted the covey. I marked were they flew to and headed that direction. On the way, another covey flushed out of range but close enough to where I marked the original covey land that I thought I just had missed marked the original covey. I walked to my mark anyway, there was no good way to approach with out being detected and from my mark the original covey flushed out of range.