Gene was the guest of honor at one of the Iowa Governor's annual pheasant hunts. Usually a dozen or so teams of hunters. Unfortunately, I was not on Gene's team. But I spotted him wandering around as some of the other hunters were still lingering over lunch. I introduced myself and struck up a conversation with him. He indicated that he wished those slow pokes would hurry up and finish eating. He wanted to get out there and shoot some more pheasants.
I had a somewhat embarrassing moment on one of those hunts. The governor and his youngest son were having a friendly contest to see who would shoot the most birds. At the end of the day when we gathered to report our results, the DNR's MC asked the governor to report on the results of his contest. I'd hunted with the governor that afternoon, with my shorthair Blitz providing our team's canine support. Governor Branstad had a real flurry of action. He killed one rooster over a Blitz point. Another one flushed as Blitz was making the retrieve. He also killed that. Then there was another flush from our left. I was to the governor's left and I looked for him to shoot. Didn't look like he was going to, so I pulled the trigger on that one, right before he did. The governor reported that he was down 2 to 0 at our lunch break, but that he got 3 birds to his son's zero on the afternoon hunt. At which point our Pheasants Forever guide piped up: "I'm sorry, governor . . . but Brown killed that 3rd bird." No hard feelings I guess. They kept inviting me to those hunts.
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