doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Your very best day afield

Well, bird hunting seasons are a long time gone, now. It's 50 days, 14 hrs., 58 minutes, and 46 seconds until dove season opens here on Sept. 3, but whose counting? Reminiscing about so many great days afield over the years is a fine way to pass that time until we can legally pursue feathers again. So, let's pass some of that time this way.

What was your most memorable bird hunting day afield? It may have been a day that you were literally in birds all day, one that you did some of the best shooting of your life, a day that the dogs were in supernatural form, or just a day with a special friend who has passed on into eternity. It may have been a day that you spent in the field alone, and felt the powerful presence of the Creator as you gloried in His creation. These memories are special, and remembering and sharing them may make them even more vivid for you.

I don't care how long-winded you get. As I said before, it's 50 days until I leave this keyboard, and monitor, in favor of the real thing. Let's hear 'em.

All my best, SRH

Stan,
Thanks for the memories, but there have been so many "best" days that to be honest, it would take several categories to do it. Let's just say many of the best days in my life were spent afield hunting.

Best day afield? I'm hoping it is coming this Fall!...Geo

C'mon Geo., get that old grey matter cogitating.

SRH

Stan in 1974 on November 20th opening day of bird season I went out in my brand new red and white Bronco and I quit at 230 with the most bobwhites I have ever bagged.I am ashamed to tell how many I bagged. Missed just a few with the little 20 gauge side by side. Bobby

2004 in Montana hunting very wild very large roosters in a creek bottom. Smart birds in nasty nasty cover. However we has some fantastic flushing dogs with great noses who had no problem with rooting them out and making some fantastic retrieves. Three of us limited out on a cool crisp fall morning. We are all older now and all the dogs who made that trip have passed on. It however was a very special moment.

Perhaps not my best day afield, but certainly my most memorable, was the day I killed my first pheasant, which I did as a 12 year old with my father's 16 gauge Stevens Springfield sxs. The cock bird was rocketing down a hollow along a stream and I was standing on the hillside. Mounted the gun, swung on the bird and missed with the first shot. The gun was muzzle heavy enough that it kept moving in spite of me and the second shot dropped that bird like it had hit a wall. Probably the most excited I've ever been in all my 50+ years of bird hunting.

In South Dakota, what a beautiful state. What a great week, not day, of hunting. Sure like to get back there someday.

October 1966, it was a cool day with a clear blue sky. My Dad and I drove up near Marianna Fl (Ocheessee) to shoot dove. The field was about 120 acres of harvested corn, and there were doves over the field all afternoon long. It wasn't quite S. American style dove hunting, but I don't think more than a minute passed without someone, somewhere in the field shooting at a bird. I was 14 and had just graduated from a single shot JC Higgins .410 to a 12ga Winchester Model 50 semi-automatic. I burned up the shells that afternoon.

My dad and I killed our limit and went and sat on the hood of the car to watch the shooting. A neighbor came up who was shooting his dad's 12ga LC Smith. He had only killed 2 birds and had run out shells. He said the barrels were warped on the gun which was why he didn't shoot better.

My Dad passed away in 2014 at the age of ninety one years and five months. The same neighbor came to the house to pay his respects and he still remembered that dove hunt. We laughed about the warped barrels excuse, which he also remembered. That day, nearly 50 years ago now, was just about perfect. Of course looking back, any day that I got to hunt with my Dad was a blessing.

Tut, Just curious, what breed of flushing dogs??

Great topic, Stan.

One of the most memorable days afield merely coincided with a Spring turkey hunt a little west of San Antonio near a small town called Pearsall. I was the guest of a neighbor whose wife's family has several thousand acres there.

There can be crawling, sitting, walking- all kinds of movement in, around, and through brush and brambles, all designed to separate you from your cell phone or any other valuable item not sewn inside your turkey vest. So the cell phone was left at camp, along with my wallet, after putting the license with tags in a zippered pocket.

We had arrived on a Thursday evening, and our Friday morning hunt was uneventful. We broke for lunch, and were discussing options for the afternoon when my neighbor's phone went off. He held it up to me and asked me if I recognized the number. I did and he handed it to me. The voice said, "if you pray for a miracle, you might want to be available to be informed of its occurrence."

Two days earlier I had spent a considerable time in prayer for my daughter. She wanted to attend a well known University in Texas, but the scholarships offered/available were insufficient. She had a full ride offer at a lesser institution, but they did not offer a degree in the field she wanted. Dad didn't have the money, and I was not too proud to ask for help. There was a particular scholarship that she had applied for, making it to the last cut. She was an alternate or some such thing. Anyway, my prayer was not that she would displace anyone, but that someone who had it would end up not needing it.

She had received a call late Thursday afternoon, informing her that a recipient of the scholarship had been accepted to one of the military academies, and no longer needed it. Could she come in Friday for an interview? By the time her mother got hold of me, the interview was to take place in an hour or so.

She graduated in 3 1/2 years, and came away with money in the bank. I came away that day feeling very humble- and grateful.

Remains to this day one of the most memorable days of my life.

I have never shared this publicly.

Mike

Good things come to those who deserve it, Mike.

Best day a field was about several years ago. Talked my father into going hunting with two of my sons. Doves were moving, weather was great and we hunted as a family one last time. My then 90 year old father killed 15 bird with less than a box of shells using a 16 Ga. A grade Fox I loaned him. My two sons each limited out and I did as well. On top of that we got four limits of birds and did not loose a single bird. I was taught by my father to find every bird before I was done looking. My sons were diligent to make sure they found every one of their birds and one of their grand fathers. I suspect he knew where it was all along but let them help him. Grandfathers are like that sometimes.

But if I never shot a shell that day I would still consider it one of my best days hunting ever. Dad no longer hunts anymore but my sons will always have that memory of his last hunt. I figure that memory should last another five or six decades as my memory of hunting with his father has lasted me five plus decades. That is a long time to remember a good day a field.

Like CRS it is difficult to just name one day so here are a few very brief:

My father's last hunt was for moose. He was 89. We partnered on the license and scored. He is now 93 and doing fine.

I field trial labs and I have only been serious for 5 years. In my 3rd year I made it to the 10th series of the Canadian National and lost on the last bird. The same dog is entered in this years Canadian National in September.

I guide for ducks and geese and one year with 10 hunts per week for 11 weeks we limited on every hunt.

I never thought I would get the chance to shoot a Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep and now I have taken 3.

When I was a teenager way back in the country we always had a hunt on the harvest moon. I won't say how long we shot and how many birds we took home or how many beer we drank on the way home.

A few years ago I took my Wm Moore hammer gun, finished in Canada, loaned it to a youth who had never shot a sxs before and blew a large hole in a duck puddling pond. He now has the collector bug for vintage sxs as well.

My personal goose hunting is in December on the edge of the city limits. We had a field we called the, 'killing field'. One year it was planted in canola and on 4 weekends we shot 288 geese. On the last hunt we took a guest hunter who was a chief at a nice restaurant and wrote an excellent book on cooking wild game. In and out of the field in 1 1/2 hours with 42 birds. To see the delight in his eyes after the hunt, I will never forget.

I take my friends to a private hunt club I belong to in January and February. I am the only one with a vintage sxs with black powder rounds. I shoot my fair share then I am very content to hang my gun over my shoulder and just run my dogs. One of them is a 12 year old miniature wirehair dachshund. It is a great pleasure to see that dog and the other hunters enjoying themselves.

And last I have always drooled over fine double shotguns but never thought I would have the ability or finances to own one. Now when I'm asked how many I own I suggest the questioner ask what is the most interesting gun I own.

We were running two springers and a field bred golden. No bird that hit the ground got away. All those dogs could flat out retrieve birds. The Golden was mine and what inspired my Abby Gun.





Abby passed at 14 years old and was amazing. Miss her every day.

I generally hunt in the evenings for 30-45 minutes and rarely shoot more than one bird. Annie was working a mixture of Multiflora Roses and Reed Canary Grass. I couldn't see her, but could track her by the sound coming from her bell and the movement from the tops of the grass.
After her bell went quiet and the grass quit moving, I waited. I was about to throw a rock into the tangle when Annie bolted out the cover and ran along the edges for about 30 yards and then dove into the heavy stuff again, but this time she was coming to me.
Her bell sounded for a few seconds and then all was quiet. I walked to where the grass tops quit moving and I could see her head and shoulders in the Multiflora Roses. She was in a classic point, left leg up, stretched out and facing the opposite direction from her original point. As I stood in anticipation our eyes met and I knew she was hunting for US.
She had run in front of the bird and headed it off. I've had only one dog that has performed that feat. As I stood there with a smile on my face the rooster cackled and went airborne. I shot the bird with my 16 Ga. using 1 oz. of #6 NP shot and bird folded, dead in the air.
I asked Annie to fetch and as soon as I said it I knew there was going to be a problem. the fence that she had to go through is a very tight 7 strand barbed wire fence with only about 6" of space between the wires.
She managed to get through the fence and scooped up the bird. Getting back was difficult with the bird in her mouth. She manage and added a few more rips to her vest, delivering the bird to me with tail buzzing.

I can�t single out one day or hunt. There have been many memorable days in the field in pursuit of ducks, dove, quail, snipe, woodcock and turkey. Almost 40 years ago I hunted on a lowcountry plantation that specialized in wild quail. The game manager�s covey board had 86 coveys located. Covey rises only and the three guns hunted on horseback with dog and horse handlers. The course was planned to stop at noon for lunch and earlier birds killed were grilled to perfection. It was a day I�ll never forget, but no more enjoyable than many other hunts on public land with an old friend and his dogs in the days when wild quail were there for the taking.
With ducks, several days stand out. One over 35 years ago was on a lowcountry freshwater pond a stone�s throw from the saltwater marsh. It was snowing and windy and the baldpate came in by the hundreds to our decoys throughout the morning, whistling in with set wings, with no other place to go, or so they thought. It was like being in a Chet Reneson painting. My hunting buddy on that day is now dead. Another special hunt was an afternoon with Billy when we went to a wooded Savannah River island that had small beaver ponds holding over 2,000 mallards that all got up at once and slowly drifted back in small flights to our calls and decoys. It was like a quality Stuttgart hunt in the pin oaks, only better as I didn�t have to drive a 1000 miles from home. Another time was in the old rice fields 3 miles from where I sit today at work. Six of us in two boats left the landing and I was in David�s boat with Jimbo and David. The motor wouldn�t start. �Oh, damn same problem as the last time�. �Did you get it fixed?� �No, I thought it would be better today.� I jumped in the boat with Billy and Joe and we went to the potholes in the old ricefields. It was cool, not cold, and a windy front blew in, dropping temps. Ahead of the front came flights of black ducks and mallards looking for a place to set wings and drop their feet. We never had another hunt like that one in those potholes, but David finally got his motor straight the following week. Jimbo and David missed the hunt.
There is no �best� hunt with turkeys. For me, turkey hunting is the main event. I enjoy the cool spring mornings, the ride from my home in the pre-dawn as I head west with the constellation Scorpius low in the southern sky riding shotgun on my left as I head to places I have hunted for over 40 seasons, all on public land. I love the taste and smell of black coffee out of my 35 year-old Nissan thermos bottle which has been a constant companion to the turkey woods for as long as I�ve had it. With turkeys, the solitude during the hunt is paramount to me. It is just me and the turkey. It is not a social or team event, as is dove or snipe.
Every day I can go with my two Britts, Abby and Willa, into the huckleberries and rivercane in pursuit of woodcock is special. Last season with friends was spectacular. I hope we have more to come and I can�t help but think we do.
The bottom line in my hunting is the enjoyment of the home woods and locations. While a jet plane can take me to distant woods and waters, nothing to me is as satisfying as home woods and waters where hunting and fishing can be woven seamlessly into my life at home.
Gil

1987- Black Tuesday in Oct-if memory serves- but the stock market is always a gamble. Hunting with my old HS pal Bob out on the Big Horn River area, where he guided fishing parties in his Lavro boat. We floated the river from the Yellowtail Dam downstream and stopped at islands and access fields, with his two Labs- Mork and Mindy, and our lunch and coffee, and our shotguns. Bob had an older field grade LC Smith 20, a gift from his grand-father, but a client from Texas gave him a used Browning 20 O/U, which Bob liked better than the Smith, due to the single trigger on the O/U-- I had a Model 12 I still have today, a 1921 Nickel steel barrel 28" Full field gun-- with 3 shot plug. We would stop upriver of an island, and I'd do a "pawnee sneak" downside on the water's edge, and wait for Bob to let Mork and Mindy move out- birds flushed like crazy, all the pheasants pushed by the few hunters in that area flew to the islands for safe haven, I guess. We both shot our limit of 4 roosters before noon, and a big rooster dropped in the water like a duck sure looks different than one dropped on land. I also had a shot at a drake wood duck, a species which I do not usually shoot at all back home, but Bob wanted it for the feathers as well as for the dinner table, as he was a first rate fly-tyer as well as a great fly fisherman-

Two days later, a strong wind was blowing all day- and as they say out West- the wind doesn't keep hunters inside-you only have so many days, as each one counts-- We were hunting a private ranch where Bob had permission, I was downwind a bit as he and the dogs approached a small stream, I heard the pop-pop of his 20 bore, saw a duck drop, and then a large rooster, with the wind up his ass was coming at me at about Mach 2- I swung through- the "Bum, Belly, Beak, Bang technique I love for incomers, and shot- the bird dropped like a bowling ball, and bounced hard off the grassy ground ahead of me- about 30 feet or so-- When Bob and the dogs came up, he said: Wow- what a hellofa shot that was. That rooster folded up like a cheap cardboard suitcase in a hailstorm--"" Still remember that shot- I was using Federal Premium coppered No. 5 1&1/4 ounce loads on that trip- wish they still loaded them yet today.

I have fotos and great memories of that trip-and others as well. Bu8t to this day, I reflect on what my pal said- and wonder: "Is there such a thing as an EXPENSIVE cardboard suitcase- Louis Vuitton, Gucci??

Like CRS-- "cold rolled steel"?

I am partners with my two brothers on some waterfowl hunting property at Delta March in Manitoba. Like a lot of duck hunting, the focus is on the early morning shoot, with afternoons tending to be a little more relaxed and more open to improvisation. The water levels in the marsh will fluctuate year to year and some years, if the water has dropped, there may be the occasional extensive mud flat.

One year, I was out in the morning with my brother and another good friend of ours and had a great morning shoot on ducks. When we got back to the lodge to make breakfast around 10:30 or 11:00 am, I noticed that across the bay about half a mile, directly in front of our place, a very large number of snow geese had gathered on one of these mud flats. While I was cooking and eating breakfast my mind turned to one of my favorite pastimes....wild goose chases. Because while there is a great deal of truth in the cliche, sometimes....

I talked my two companions into rowing across the bay (really, circling it to try to slide up reasonably un-noticed) but of course, before we could figure out how to get within range, the several thousand birds all got up and left. Now with Canadas I wouldn't have bothered, because when Canadas leave, they leave. But snows sometimes will come back. With that hope in mind, we slide the duckboat into a hiding spot and started to wander the mudflat, looking for a good place to set up. The mudflats, BTW, were quite dry and easy to walk on. We found the spot!

In almost the dead centre of about a 200 yard radius of mudflat, one outpost of reeds had managed to grow up. Circular in shape, about 15 feet in diameter and with reeds 6 to 7 feet tall. When we poked our heads in, we found it was hollow....essentially a circle of reeds. We carefully climbed in, lay down and began to wait. Truthfully, after a late night before, a very early morning with a limit on ducks and a large breakfast recently eaten, all three of us were quite relaxed and soon we were all sawing logs.

I don't know how much later but guessing an hour or so, I awoke to an amazing sight. Directly above me, as I opened my eyes, the sky was dense with birds coming in to land. So close you felt you could reach out and grab one. I rolled over and peered through the reeds......it was a sea of white starting not five feet from where I lay. I kicked my companions awake and shushed them at the same time. We spent probably 15 minutes just enjoying being in the middle of all this. Completely unplanned and just damn lucky.

This was before my SxS affliction took over so I was equipped with an 870 as was one of my companions. My brother had his Win M1200 with him. When we were ready, we took up positions 120 degrees apart from each other and stood up. I had three shells in the gun, three shells in my hand and three shells in a specific pocket, ready to go. On a signal, we stepped out of the reeds (it was that easy) as chaos erupted everywhere. It is the only time I was six for six on geese. As were my brother and his friend. The total count was 22 birds and while it was a slaughter, given that the daily limit is 50 and unlimited possession, I didn't feel too bad.

The best part was waking up to that cacophony! Very, very memorable.

There are many, many other great days but the days that stand out in my memory tend to be days where I watched my dog, or someone else's, do something amazing.

Best days afield don't have much to do with the number of birds in the bag. That said, I remember a day when I took a limit of four wild prairie pheasants with four shots from my old Stevens 5100 16ga.

That gun was my first double gun, and that is a feat I've not accomplished since, even with my modest collection of much "better" guns. I sometimes wonder why I don't shoot the old Stevens every time out. For me, a day to remember indeed!

when i hold semi annual shoots at my home in mo..

Couple years ago, I was posting a shelterbelt in western Ks. My brothers and son were walking it to me.
My gun was a Beretta 12 ga O/U.
I dropped four very high and fast flying roosters stone dead in about one minute. One shot each.

I have wonderful memories of a quail/pheasant hunt one November day. At the end of the day I set up my camera to take a photo of the four of us. I had the photo printed on coffee mugs for everyone. The four of us haven't hunted together since although we regularly did before that day. One moved out of state, one has mobility issues with his knees, and one lost his son to suicide and hasn't been quite the same since. The place we used to hunt was a wonderful bit of land that was owned by the old farmer who farmed my land. It was prairie pasture land with two spring-fed ponds, rolling hills, and stands of cedars along the creeks. The land has been sold off and is a trophy home farm now. Everything changes.

Not exactly a day afield, but a night awoods.

In Scotland some 20 years ago together with a pal I was invited on a woodcock moonflight by John our 'keeper friend as a bit of a reward for some work we'd done for him. We'd been walking up all day in typical west coast Scottish weather and I'd left my Springer in the vehicle all nicely rugged up, the poor old boy was pooped.

John stood us on a ride in a Christmas tree plantation; they were maybe 12 -15 feet tall. We waited for the flight to develop and it did so, but very slowly with just a few birds, not any numbers at all.

I did see birds, but they were too quick for me so I never had a shot, although chum Gordon did connect with one and dropped it behind him. I walked over.

"Where is it Gord?"

Pointing in the general area of Somewhere In A Galloway Forest, "Err .... well in that lot."

"Dead is it?'

"Not sure. Might be."

"Stay here, I'll get Chrissie out of the motor and see what he can make of it."

I guess it took 15 minutes to walk there and back, so when I cast him off the dog was looking for a bird at night, on a blind retrieve, that might have run anywhere, in the pitch dark of the Xmas tree understory. At first we could hear him moving about, but then we lost the sound, and had no idea where he was. After maybe ten or twelve minutes we heard him moving around once more, and he came out with a very much alive 'cock, looking fairly pleased with himself.

John came over and said "I think that's one of the finest bits of dog work I've ever seen, well done the pair of you."

"Nah, nothing to it me old china, he does that all the time!" Lying git.

In truth it really was a terrific performance and has never left my memory. So one of my very best days was just a single retrieve of probably no more than sixty yards. Wonderful.

Here's the great man himself, looking just as wise as he really was. My heart breaks.



Eug

Another John the Scottish 'keeper story that sticks in the mind no matter how much I try to forget ....

We were on a driven shoot in Dumfries on the Stairs estate, and I was shooting with a single trigger Rizzini O/U (sorry purists) as flank Gun. Three quarter choke and full using Eley nickel plated trap cartridges. A hen bird slipped out to the side about thirty plus yards off and I shot at it ..... with both barrels, the bloody thing double discharged. It's fair to say the hen was hard hit.

John walked over with it and held it up shaking it so everyone could see there wasn't an unbroken bone in it's body; I swear it rattled. "Eugene, Ahm nae sure, but this burrd appears tae be ******* deid!" Oh the shame of it.

Anyway after that I just loaded the one barrel and things went reasonably well until the last drive which was a down the length of a steep wooded hillside. Virtually all the birds come down the line of the Guns so it was a bit of a killing drive and not exactly my idea of fun, so I (hero) decided to be really selective and only go for the truly high stuff.

Well pride cometh before a fall. A cock bird, a real skyscraper came down the line (I was again the outside or last Gun) and nearly everyone had a pop and missed. He was going like a train, dropping down the hill with wings set, and a bit of a curl on him, a stonker.

"Come on my beauty, come on." A classic gun mount, faultless footwork, perfect timing on the trigger and CLICK. I'd loaded the wrong barrel.

I knew what was coming and it did; "Eugene, everybody made a bollix of that cock, but nae one made a bigger bollix than you just did. We'll see ye in the pub and your buyin'!"

Some days go better than others.

Eug

These are wonderful stories, fellas. Please keep them coming. Thanks to all who have taken the time to contribute.

I'm still a'thinkin.

SRH

At one time, duck hunting was permitted in the old ricefields which make up a part of the 29,000 acre Savannah River Wildlife Refuge. My late duck hunting buddy Bill A. and I stumbled into a conveniently located honey hole, a series of beaver dammed waters formed by a newly installed subterranean gas pipeline through the fields about 200 yards off Highway 17 near the Georgia line. We were in SC. It was an easy walk through the freshwater marsh to the holes. The potholes weren�t large, maybe the size of a school bus, but were loaded with natural food and drew in the big ducks, mallards and blacks. Woodies were there to fill the limit on slow days.

One morning, Billy C., Clark and I pulled onto the road shoulder and started to trek towards the holes. We heard a gawdawful sound coming down the highway towards us about a mile away and gaining. We couldn�t see headlights but saw sparks shooting out from whatever it was heading our way. It turned out to be a hysterical woman driving a beat up car on four rims at low speed. She and her boyfriend had been drinking and fighting. He had slashed her tires and passed out. She was hauling butt to get away from him. She stopped and asked us to take her to the cops. This predated cell phones and any sense of obligation I might have had for a damsel (large damsel) in distress during duck season. We were about 20 minutes from legal shooting and she was about to ruin the dawn flight with all the racket she was making. Once we figured out she wasn�t hurt, we told her to get back in the car and continue driving to the nearest town which was a half mile down the road across the river into Georiga with the Mayberryesque police station on the left. Last thing we wanted was for the hunt to be ruined by a hysterical woman to whom we weren�t related. We killed a few ducks, but that wasn�t what stuck in my mind about the hunt. At least on that particular morning�.I still think Billy took her phone number.

I have so many memorable hunting stories with my dad, brothers and friends. Of hunting waterfowl,upland birds and big game, I'm not sure which to share.

Home for Christmas break from college a good friend and I went out in the evening to locate a good spot to set up the following morning for some waterfowl shooting. We turned west on a narrow gravel road that skirted along the edge of one of the many lakes in the area. The water was at it's winter level exposing some mud flats where earlier some wild rice had been growing. As we topped out on a slight rise in the road, we stopped to watch mostly mallards and widgeon flocking into a mud flat area.

Calling another friend to let him know that we had found a potential hot spot, we made plans for the next morning. There was an old farm fence that skirted the edge of the mud flat, with some sparse brush growing along side. The plan was to sneak in along the fence before daylight and hide behind the brush, hoping that the birds had rafted in the lake the night before and would fly back in the morning.

We met up in town and drove the 6-8 miles to our destination, snuck in along the old fence line and luckily, the birds had done as we had hoped. We didn't set out any decoys on the mud flat and just hunkered down for the 30-45 minute wait.

As dawn approached we could hear the wings and see the silhouette of birds as they landed on the flat to feed on the exposed wild rice. The birds just kept piling in and by shooting time, there must have been 700-800 birds sitting in front of us, some within 15-20 feet of where we were sitting. in unison we stood up and one of the friends shouted HEY! Nothing happened, so he yelled ""HEY" again and the birds exploded off the mud flat. We opened up and when it was all over, we were 1 bird shy of our limit.

What I particularly remember of that hunt is sitting behind the old fence, hearing the wing beats and watching the birds come sailing onto the mud flat as the sun started to rise and after the smoke had cleared, thinking I'm going to have a coronary as I chased a few cripples across the mud flat that oozed to mid calf or higher with each step!

My old Brittany, Mandy has been gone for almost 5 years now but most of my great days afield revolve around her. She had the heart of a lion.

She demonstrated that heart one day in the goose blind when dropped a huge gander who jumped to his feet and was ready to fight even if unable to fly. Mandy was out of the blind before he hit the ground and the two of them circled each other like a pair of prize fighters. The gander made a couple of jabs at her which she deftly side stepped. About the third time he made a poke at her she jumped in, grabbed the gander's extended neck and for a few eternal seconds all I could see was a dust cloud of fur and feathers. What was only seconds seemed like minutes. Pretty soon the dust cleared and the lion hearted Brit dragged a very large and very deceased goose back to me.

Her favorite game bird had to be valley quail. She loved to hunt anything but I could tell by her intensity level when she was on quail. Her stub of a tail would have an almost audible frequency it was moving so fast. It seemed she loved hunting quail more than anything.

She pointed one covey and I stepped in to flush the birds. I made a nice double with my little 28 gauge Beretta 686 and Mandy went out to retrieve the pair. She made it almost back to me when she locked up hard on point, with a quail in her mouth. She was pointing a tuft of grass that didn't look like it could hide a cricket, let alone a quail. I asked what she was doing. The birds are already gone. She ignored me and just kept pointing, all the while still holding the first quail. I toed the little tuft of grass and low and behold, out came a lone quail.

One last story. I parked at a local, popular, public hunting area just in time to see a guy coming out with his dog. I'd seen him before and spoke with him a couple of times. He always struck me as a know it all and today was no different. He had his three rooster pheasants and assured me they had hunted the ground pretty hard and there was little chance of me finding any birds. His dog he assured me, was exceptionally thorough and they had worked all the cover pretty hard to get those three birds. I congratulated him on his good morning and said I'd hunt it anyway and maybe get into some quail or huns.

Mandy and I headed down a particularly thick strip of grass that always seemed to hold birds despite being close to the parking area. We hadn't gone 75 yards when she locked up. I stepped up and told her okay. Out came two roosters, doing their best to imitate a post three pair of trap doubles. My favorite post when shooting doubles. I just reacted instinctively and had two puffs of feathers in the air simultaneously. Mandy started after the downed birds and swung around hard and locked up tight on point. I got my Beretta reloaded and told her okay. Out came a third rooster, slightly quartering to the right and at the shot, folded neatly.

Mandy retrieved the three birds and since the know it all was still at the parking area I just had to saunter back that way. He had a stunned look on his face and I just smiled as we loaded up and headed for home.

I miss that little Brit. She was a great little bird dog and taught me more than I ever taught her.

Christie was a beautiful dog, Eugene.

As I recall a lifetime of dove shoots, duck hunts, bobwhite quail hunting at it's best and days in the woodcock cover, I have so many fine memories of hunts, alone and with friends, and with family. There have been days in C�rdoba, Agentina that I took over 1000 doves in 6 hours shooting with my 20 ga. 687 SP II Sporting, mornings in the Bayou Meto that as many as 8 of us all limited out, morning hunts on the L' Anguille River when 4 of us limited so quickly that we had left the blind, trailered the boat, and we're eating a hot breakfast at the Pancake House by 8:30 a.m. There are memories of dove shoots with Grandaddy after school, as a kid, that seem to mark the passing of my childhood into adolescence, and on into manhood. He made the greatest impressions upon me of any man in my life, especially on the water and in the field. I miss him greatly, even after 41 years.

Maybe because the relationship between my Grandad and me was so special, as I have tried to think of my most memorable day afield I keep recalling days with my oldest Grandson, Jackson. He lives pretty near me, so I have been blessed to be able to include him on many shoots and hunts, since he was very young. His very first time with me on a dove field was most uneventful, until the very last moment. Jackson was 5 years old, as I recall, and it was a blustery, cloudy, cold January day. The wind was just knifelike, cutting through your clothing. I knew there weren't many doves feeding in this particular peanut field, but I hoped to take a few for Jackson to see, and also for my yellow Lab pup, Fowler, to experience. I set a little blind up, under the pivot, and the two of us sat down inside, with Fowler at heel on my left, just outside the blind. We sat, and sat, and sat ..... seeing nothing. The wind was playing havoc with Jackson, but he braved it well, not wanting to complain. Gunner began to grow impatient, too, as puppies will. I wanted so badly for Jackson's, and Fowler's first time out to amount to something, but it was looking like it was going to be a bust. I looked over at Jackson, and his lips were blue and trembling from the cold. It was getting pretty late in the afternoon, and I was beginning to feel guilty about keeping Jackson out in such cold. I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and prayed ........ "Lord, I know You have a lot more important things to tend to, and I know this is an infinitely small thing in Your great plan, but if You would look down and have mercy on this ragged bunch huddled here, please send us just one bird so these two pups can see what this is supposed to be all about. Thank you, in Jesus' name."

As I opened my eyes, right out front was an incoming dove at 12 o'clock, about 8 ft. off the ground and closing. I whispered to Jackson, "Sit still, here he comes". He saw the dove, Fowler saw the dove, and I raised the gun and folded it cleanly. It fell about 15 yards out front, and slightly to Fowler's side of the blind. Perfect! Fowler had marked it down, and I sent him for his first dove. He ran to it, started to pick it up, but stopped and looked at me quizzically, as if to say, "What the heck is this?". I said "Fetch", he picked it up and ran straight to me with it.

Both Jackson and Fowler soon developed into real fine partners on the dove field. Jackson began shooting for himself at age 8, and Fowler was hit by a vehicle one night and I lost him way too soon. But, that one dove taken, and that bitter cold afternoon with two "pups", stands out in my memory as one of the finest afternoons I have ever spent.

All my best, SRH

Marvelous photo of a very beautiful dog.

Jay

Your story Marty reminded me of a hunt to Canada a few years back. We were hunting Saskatchewan and a flock of cranes swung by our spread within range of my buddie on the outside edge. He dumped one and same thing.....the dog was out after the bird as it hit the ground. The crane was up on it's feet, and the bird and the dog started doing the dance.

We watched for a minute as the dog dodged the jabs as it watched for an opening. This went on for a moment, with my friend stating "I'd better go over and help get the bird." When he arrived to the bird and dog show, he attempted to grab the birds neck but the bird jabbed at him as well. Finally the dog circled around and with the birds attention on the dog, my friend did a quick grab on the cranes neck and secured the bird.

I thought at the time, I wish I would have taken a video of the whole show. It was funny watching the dog and bird circle one another but even more funny to watch when my friend got involved.

One of my most memorable is a late season pheasant hunt with my brother, day trip from the Twin Cities to north-central IA in the late '90s, still the good years of CRP there. More than 6" of fluffy snow fell overnight, heavy cover snow-laden, birds still roosting beneath it at mid-morning.

Unforgettable images in my memory. Brilliantly colored roosters flushing into the bright sunlight, glittering clouds of snowflakes breaking open around beating wings. We shot well that morning. Our springers bounded through the fluffy snow, intoxicated by concentrated scent. They brought in retrieves wearing snow-coats, prancing proud through the snow, birds held high.

Gosh ... thrills me again to remember it.

Jay

Again, proof of what my Grandfather always said: "Wimmen have no damn business out hunting- nor meddlin' in politics, or shootin' pool or playin' stud poker. Nothing can Fubar a day out duck (or other birds as well)huntin' like a large PITA woman- or women, if she has an uglier twin sister. You did the right think in givin' her the old "heave-Ho" RWTF

Thanks for the annual dove count down Stan.

Lots of good memories, but I mostly think of the simple stuff. When my boy was too little to shoot, he was sitting with me on a so so duck day. I was watching where I knew they would come from, he was watching in the other direction. Pretty calmly he whispers some are coming. He spotted them and by luck I got a clean double. He was the retriever and didn't want to walk out in ankle deep water about twenty feet out. After he got over the hump of that first retrieve, I had to call him back when it looked like he was going to get water over the top of the wrinkled up over sized waders on him later in the day. He was antsy to try, so I finally let him line up on a duck that had landed and was paddling around a good seventy yards away. He was way off, could barely steady the gun, but then he was in the hunt and couldn't wait for the next chance.

I like a lot of the memories of hunting alone. I like the feeling of a ten minute nap on the edge of a marsh after really busting my tail, getting all fired up, but now it's only nine in the morning and the limit is lined up near by. It's usually no fun while it's happening, but I remember the really bad weather hunts and never regretted it when I decided to go out. I like the rare times for me, waterfowl hunting in pea soup thick fog. You can hear birds around, but can only start to make them out when they're inside fifty feet. I'd rather be around a little bit of good dog work than do a lot of shooting.

Late October,2013 I drove up to a ranch I hunt in Nebraska. A storm was forecast for that evening so I planned on a duck hunt. Ducks were swarming the lake I hunted, almost too windy to launch the duckboat. I shot 4 drake mallards, a drake redhead and a drake can in an hour and a half. Back to the landing, loaded the boat and decided to walk the edge of the lake for grouse. Walked less than a half mile and my Springer flushed a covey of Prairie Chickens and I was pleasantly suprised to double on boomers. On the way back to the truck the dog started working the cattails and flushed two rooster pheasants, a real bonus for that country. I'm one shy of my daily limit for grouse, hit the sandhills and got into a covey of Sharptails and knocked down my third, and final grouse. The hunting was so good I drove to town and got a motel room. The next morning the lake was frozen solid and temps in the low teens. Couldn't find a grouse to save my soul. I've hunted for 60 years and had many, many memorable hunts but that one about tops 'em all!

Mine was just this last spring. I have not done a lot of turkey hunting and was pleased to get an invite to a friend�s land in Mendocino County. I brought my Smallwood 10 bore Damascus underlever hammer gun, loaded with brass shells, black powder and #5 shot. I heard turkeys up a steep hillside, set out a couple of decoys in a compromising position, hunkered under a bush about 20 yards away and started calling. In no time at all a young male was next to the decoys, wondering if he had any chance of getting some action with that old tom already wooing the fetching young lass. Pulled the rear trigger and when the great cloud of white smoke cleared, the turkey was stone dead � he never even twitched. Damn, that was fun.

That was a great day, Cobbhead.

Thanks, SRH

I wholeheartedly agree there, that is one beautiful dog,

Probably my most memorable hunt was my first Pheasant. My Father was not a hunter but I had older cousins that were. We had heard hunting stories from them both and got to taste some game at family dinners. I knew next to nothing but made a pain of myself asking questions and spent every weekend exploring the local woods. An old retired feller who was a close family friend told my older brother and I tales about duck hunting and shooting some little birds that he cooked on a wood fire by packing them in mud feathers and all and cracking them open and picking out the meat. Any way he loaned my brother and I a 10 ga Winchester 1901 lever action we of course told him that it was ok with our parents who I think never knew. It was heavy and we bought shells for it one at a time at the local hardware store and shared it .My Older brother turned 16 bought a car from afternoon and weekend jobs. I borrowed a 12 ga model B savage Fox. So at 15 borrowed gun and a brand new hunting license pinned to the back of my jacket My Brother Tom and I went out to a place where it was rumored to hold some Pheasants. To tell the truth it was pretty crowded and I started walking around a large field edge just inside the tree line.
I climbed a large hill looking down into the field and saw a Cock Pheasant fly out into the field way below me into an island of trees and woods far below. Several other hunters saw the bird too and went running into the island from different angles and from my vantage point I was high enough to see the entire island from above. After some time the hunters left the small island of woods and nobody got shot including the pheasant and I was sure he did not come out either. I decided to go down and have a look. After about 20 minutes of tromping around the quarter acre patch of woods I looked up and there he was. He got nervous as me and began to take off . I threw up the 12 bore and fired my first shot ever from that gun I had pulled the rear trigger (full choke ) barrel and center-punched that poor bird at maybe 5 yards . My older brother had seen me going in to the trees and came in at the sound of the shot He looked at the bird and saw the mess so he reached down and pulled the tail feathers out of the mess I made of the bird for me. Funny after all these years Im 65 now I still remember that bird and that shot.

Another vote for that gorgeous Springer...it reminded me of my Springer, Tigger, who died a couple of years ago...brought a tear to my eyeAgain.
Fox, are you seriously with this drivel?

Quote...."proof of what my Grandfather always said: "Wimmen have no damn business out hunting- nor meddlin' in politics, or shootin' pool or playin' stud poker. Nothing can Fubar a day out duck (or other birds as well)huntin' like a large PITA woman- or women, if she has an uglier twin sister. You did the right think in givin' her the old "heave-Ho" RWTF"

God bless your Grand Pappy for passing along & fostering such sexist bullshit to you...he must of been a real man indeed.
May I go fishing with my wife? , you ASS ****
franc

Where I grew up in the red-clay hills of NE Georgia, I was never privileged to have the opportunity to chase after any of the "exotic" game birds such as pheasant, grouse, multiple species of wild quail excreta, etc. that I read about here daily; nor was I privileged to travel to parts of the country where such birds could be hunted, but I still enjoyed some great days afield with the small game opportunities presented (dove, bobwhite quail, and cottontails mostly). I'll always remember my 10yr. old (at the time) son's first buck (an 8-pt), or that Thanksgiving morning when he, my B-I-L, and I bagged 7 deer in less than and hour and let at least that many more walk. And I'll always remember the rabbit hunt where our pack of beagles flushed two grey fox from a thicket, and I scored a left and right with my old Belgium 16-gauge Prize Machine Gun. But my favorite times afield centered around my most favorite past-time, dove shooting; the most memorable of which occurred on a mid-September Wednesday afternoon in 1977, and in the end had nothing to do with the fact that I bagged my limit.

Seems my wife was working that day, and somehow I'd a day off and was in charge of looking after our 1 and 4 year old sons. But I had this over-powering urge to go dove shooting, something all hunters understand well; and I simply had to scratch that itch. So I began to formulate a plan of action and called my Aunt Peggy and offered her a "deal"; one limit of doves in exchange for 3 hours baby-sitting to which she graciously agreed. So I hurriedly cobbled together my stuff, loaded up my sons and their stuff; and went to see Aunt Peggy. With the kids safely secured, I hastily formulated the balance of my plan which was 1) I had to get the kids and be back home, innocently dressed, before 5:30 as my wife could not know I'd gone hunting as opposed to whatever the heck it was I was supposed to be doing
(she'd have raised immortal Cain!); and 2)I had to be very discrete, as I had not taken the time to ask for permission from the landowner (he knew me and probably wouldn't mind, but it's just not my nature not to ask beforehand). So when I turned onto the dirt road that bordered this tract of land, I made sure to pull my little car far enough into the pines opposite the field so that it could not be seen from the road. I then grabbed my dove bucket, shells, and my Borno ZP49 12-bore; then headed to my "spot". There was nothing planted in this large tract, it had simply been cleared and what had been standing timber was wind-rowed and awaiting burning. But around the edge of these wind-rows were large stands of poke-berry, rag-weed, and other natural plants that attract doves; and since I couldn't cover 50 acres by myself, the challenge was to find a "flyway". Setting up at the end of a wind-row, it quickly became obvious that I'd gotten lucky and in no time was knocking down birds. It was one of those days when it seems that every shot I took connected; and I'd limited out in just over an hour. I was ecstatic at this point because I knew I'd have plenty of time to retrieve my sons and be home well in advance of my bride; so I quickly gathered up my stuff and started up the long hill to my car, making sure all the while that I stayed low and out of sight of any vehicle that might be passing. There was a strip of planted corn maybe 75' wide that separated the road from the field I'd hunted, so as I neared the dirt road I made sure to walk thru the standing stalks; being virtually invisible in my camos. When about 20-25' from the road, I suddenly heard a vehicle; I froze. The vehicle was moving slowly and I saw its red-dust tail long before it topped the little hill to my right. As the vehicle moved toward me it began to slow even more; causing me to immediately conclude that my plan had been foiled, and I was screwed. As the vehicle got closer, Il could make out the clear image of a red 1967 Plymouth Fury 2dr. hardtop thru the corn stalks. This was certainly not the land owners pick-up; but it was a danged fine looking vehicle nonetheless! Then it stopped directly in front of where I stood frozen only a few feet away; and when it stopped I could see that a guy was driving, and on the passenger side sat a young woman. The driver looked carefully around(and also right at me!); then turned and said something to his companion who then jumped out of Plymouth. She hurried to the rear bumper, looked around anxiously one more time; then dropped her drawers and proceeded to irrigate that red-clay road. To that point I'd been virtually petrified with fear; but when I realized what was actually happening, my emotions went from one extreme to the other so that I suddenly burst out laughing (couldn't hold it back!). This gal instantly knew she was being watched! Her britches were up in a flash, and she dove back into that Plymouth; covering her face as she slid out of sight. Her companion then found where I stood amid the cornstalks, gave me a big sheepish smile and slowly pulled away.

There have been other unusual happenstances I've stumbled into over the years, like coming upon a murder scene for instance; but this comical experience always stands out. Any by the way, I bribed the kids for their silence; and to this day my bride (of 48 years now) remains clueless.

Great story, topgun!

SRH

Man enough that when a town drunk type neighbor, in a stupor, made a pass at my Sainted Irish grandmother Rose- he put the SOB into the hospital for a good long spell. He and my father taught me respect for women, even prostitutes that littered Canal St. in his era- post WW1. But he also believe in the Germanic code: Kinder, Kuchen und Kirch-- and that women were to stay home and tend their children and the husbands supported their family and shouldered willing their duty to same- no exceptions. Our Country went to hell in a basket in 1920- the women who foolishly thought that banning the sale of alcohol (VolsteadAct) and the suffragettes and Margaret Sanger and Lydia Pinkham were the future for the fems- women don't belong in politics (including Billary) and on the Courts, their judgement is affected by "hormonal issues". The few female Officers I saw, Stateside or in "Nam, we saluted them and that was that- they never served in any combat units that I knew of.

Fox, I really only meant to call you an ass, the hole kinda wrote itself.Sorry about that.
But come on man, your talking 1920,close to a hundred years ago...times have changed.
If you have kids or grand kids, I hope you haven't taught them that a woman's only place is in the kitchen, bare foot n pregnant .
But I have a feeling that you have...
I am sorry I called you an A Hole, that wasn't a good thing to say, as I don't know you
Just that chauvinistic stuff gets me fired up
Best Franc

My most memorable was the day I went hunting in upstate NYS with a couple of friends on some little cornfields and brushy gullies near the Mohawk River. I had just retired in 2006 and my older brother had given me a Ruger Gold Label SxS with pistol grip stock, knowing that I don't do well with "English" stocks.

I had only fired this gun in a couple of rounds of informal trap, never at a bird. My friend was taking his new Choco Lab pup out for a first hunt after a summer of field training. Dog had literally never retrieved a wild bird.

Took about 25 steps out of the truck down a corn row and a phez cock towered up out of the corn and tried to top an oak tree growing out of the bottom of the deep gully along the corn. I reacted before anybody else could and dropped him at the top of his trajectory with a high-base 6.

By the time I had got ready to climb down the 8' near vertical bank of the gully and start searching among the blackberries, here comes my friend's Lab pup with the big old rooster in his mouth. And he even lets me have it--no tug-of-war or coy "keep-away game," either! Couldn't believe it.

Rest of the day was fun, but a little anti-climactic for me. Missed another rooster, an easier shot, too. But nailed a ruffy in the deep jungle of a woodlot edge, and the pup retrieved that one perfectly too.

Good day: no injuries, everybody scored on a bird or so, and we were all very proud of my friend's Lab, who served for many years after and is just now gone to his long home.

Needless to say, I still have and shoot the Gold Label.

Some great stories here! Mike (Wingshooter), liked the non-hunting part of yours.

Looking back through 40+ years of hunting notes, it seems that one particular date stands out for especially good days: November 11. That was my mother's birthday. She turned 10 when the guns went silent in Europe. And it was also opening day of pheasant season when I was a kid, too young for my Dad to write an excuse from school and let me play hookie. (My older brother did get to benefit from those notes.)

But ever since I've been carrying a shotgun, Mother's birthday has seemed to bring me good luck. The one that really stands out was in 1995, several years after Mother had passed away. I was guiding hunters that year, but we had a heavy snow and my guys called to say their arrival would be delayed a day. So I rounded up my teenage son and my long-time hunting partner to hunt the place I had lined up.

A creek runs the length of the section, from north to south. We started at the south end, temperature somewhere around 20 and with a strong north wind. We were following Heidi, my 10 year old shorthair.

The first quarter hour or so produced nothing. My son suggested there must not be any birds around because we weren't seeing any tracks. About that time, Heidi went on point. "No tracks, Dad!" I told him to start kicking snow, right in front of Heidi's nose. Sure enough, a hen popped out. He looked at me, surprised. "Tucked in under the grass. Snow fell on top overnight. Like a pheasant igloo," I told him. From then on, we did not have to walk far between birds. And we wouldn't have found any without Heidi, because not only were there no tracks, but they were really hunkered down. Although Matt and Mike were not shooting well (I was mostly backing them up), we had 6 by the time we reached the north end of the farm. Heidi locked up, pointing into the fence, and Matt shot at something in the grass. "Did you shoot a rabbit?" I yelled. "No Dad, it was a pheasant. I saw its head!" But he aimed too low, almost cutting it in half. Followed by a stern lecture on shooting them in the air.

We got our last birds out of a patch of heavy grass in the bottom of a draw where the snow hadn't drifted as much. I borrowed a shell from Mike to load the left barrel of my old Hunter Fulton 16 (I was lucky he was also shooting a 16!) and made a particularly long shot on our 9th bird. A very basic scattergun, but one of the best "reach out and touch 'em" pheasant guns I've owned.

We dropped off the birds next to an old barn before making the mile long walk back to the truck. I'd lost count of the number of times Heidi pointed, but she stuck at least 25 birds that day.
When we cleaned them, all their crops were empty. They'd overnighted under the grass and snow. It was shortly after 10 when we finished, and they hadn't yet moved out to feed.

I still hunt the same farm, but there's not nearly as much CRP on it these days, and not nearly as many birds. But I'll never forget that particular November 11: cold morning after the season's first heavy snow with my son and long-time friend, shooting pheasants over the best dog I've ever owned.

My son is pretty busy with college, competitive sports, etc. so he doesn't get to hunt with me nearly as much as I'd like. But, any day he and I are out together is my best day afield, regardless of whether we even pull a trigger.

It was the late 70's and I had a brand new mortgage, a new Toyota 4x4 PU, a young family and a 2 year old GSP Amy (named by my daughter after her best friend). I got up at 5:00 AM on a Saturday and drove about 90 miles into far North Eastern Oklahoma to quail hunt. It was frosty, in the 20's with some sparse snow cover. The Sun was up but cloudy. I let Amy out and we skirted some fence cover around a long ago harvested bean field. I turned Amy back toward the truck through a shallow dry creek and the largest covey I've even seen flushed and sailed a 100 yards or so directly toward the truck. Three deer had jumped ahead of Amy and in turn flushed the quail. I can still remember the rushing sound of that flush on that cold still morning. I called Amy to heel and then sent her ahead. Within moments she went on point. I flushed and made the kill. She retrieved and the scene was repeated a point, flush, kill and retrieve. This continued until I reached my limit of ten. I then realized I had moved a total of about 5 yards. Amy continued to point and I would flush and allow the bird to fly.
I have no idea have many birds were in that covey but would estimate it had to be near 50. A great day that ended way too soon!

I accept that, as I respect your State and the great "Live Free or Die Motto" as well.I am the only son and grandson, I have 3 younger sisters, all good Catholic grammar school girls that I am sure, as Billy Joel said- "started too late".. No barefoot and pregnant scenario, we only had as many gals as we could provide for, as I wanted them to have a more liberal education and upbringing than I saw my sisters enduring. Being the only son, and also the eldest of 4 children, I was a lot closer to my father and grandfather-they both were machinists, shot Model 12's, and lived to hunt and fish, after work was done. My sisters were all "sheltered" by Catholic guilt- I was always testing the boundaries, so to speak. But I do tend to live in the past, when you could go to Corrant & Howe and buy a used Model 12 20 gauge, with a case and two boxes of Peters paper hulls in the snazzy yellow and blue trimmed mallard logo box, with three hard-earned $20's, and get change back- no 4473 form BS either. Aaaah Yess, as W.C.Fields used to say--

Ken, about 10 years after your hunt, I enjoyed some great quail hunting in SE KS. It seems, unfortunately, that that part of the country isn't much for quail any more. The DNR says they're coming back here in IA, but I can't imagine--mostly due to changed farming practices--that we'll ever see anything approaching the quail numbers we had in southern Iowa 40 years ago.

Larry,
It's true Northeast Ok/Southeast Kansas is not what it used to be as far as quail numbers. But....one of my buddies told me he spoke with a Oklahoma game biologist that is a mutual friend and he stated the Panhandle counties are shaping up to be very productive this year.

7 or 8 years ago, My hunting partner (He is also our Lutheran Minister) headed up on the Republican river in Nebraska to shoot ducks. Filled out with mallard drakes in an hour or so, drove about 10 miles to a corn stubble, killed 5 geese, pass shooting. Took a break and went into Stratton Ne, for breakfast. Then over to friends place. and shot 6 roosters and 4 quail...Headed home and as we got a mile or so from my place, saw a bunch of roosters fly into a draw, killed 3 and a Chicken...Double guns all day switching when it made sense...Grand day....Hunted 2 states, good variety of birds, excellent dog work, best of all good friends having fun...Last hunt together

My good friend Mark Kircher, a fellow PGCA member, and I belong to the same duck hunting club located in central New York�s Finger Lakes region. In addition to being a couple of duck hunting addicts we both enjoy hunting with Parker guns. The 2013 duck hunting season was much colder than normal. With two weeks left in our first season split, our marsh froze near solid with up to 3 inches of ice. Our 1000 acre marsh looked like a white waste land. We were both depressed that the season was over at our duck club. I turned my attention to deer hunting and Mark continued to hunt the big open water of Irondequoit Bay, a bay that empties into Lake Ontario. While out deer hunting on the uplands surrounding our marsh, I glassed our frozen marsh to discover mallards and blacks dropping into a little hole more than a mile away. The hole was about the size of a basketball court; I estimated 300 to 500 ducks were crowded into that small hole.

I thought what a set up but how to get to the birds? I made arrangements with my regular ducking hunting partner Jeff to try to get to the birds the next morning, a small creek channel with some water flow may make it possible to get close to THE HOLE! The next morning at zero dark thirty I get a call from Jeff that he had caught a stomach flu. He was up all night and sick as a dog and couldn�t hunt, dam! What to do???, it is much too dangerous to hunt in the deep freeze without a partner. I knew Mark was an early morning riser but calling at 5:00am on a work day was a long shot. But I thought maybe he can adjust, he is a duck hunting addict after all. Not wanting to wake up his family with a telephone call I sent him a text message on the chance that he was up and willing to give it a go. Thirty seconds later to my surprise I get a response, LET�S GO!
We met at our Knoll Landing to find solid ice that you could walk on. Determined to get to THE HOLE we broke enough ice to float the Jon boat and get the Go Devil motor started. We made some progress but the ice finally won the battle. Still determined, we pulled the boat up on the ice and walked the boat over the ice a few hundred yards to where a small creek runs through the marsh. To our surprise the creek was ice free. We pushed the Jon boat into the creek and motored towards THE HOLE that was still a quarter of a mile away. The open water ran out about 300 yards from THE HOLE but the noise from the boat motor caused the birds to flush. Hundreds of ducks taking flight all at once is an impressive sight and makes any duck hunter come unglued.
There was no cover around THE HOLE so we decided to set up at the end of the open channel three hundred yards away from where the birds were sitting. A dozen decoys were set, our boat blind set up and our Parkers uncased and loaded.
Mark is a Parker man all the way. He shoots a 20ga DH early in the season, a 16ga Trojan mid-season and his 12ga Trojan loaded with Kent Tungsten Matrix for hardy late season red-legged mallards. Mark�s high condition circa 1930 12ga Trojan serial number 235679 has 30� barrels, #2 frame, splinter forend, pistol grip and choked IM/F. I am a recent disciple of the Parker gun for which I take a lot of ribbing from my AH Fox collector friends. I was shooting my circa 1905 CHE 12ga with 30� Bernard barrels, pistol grip, splinter, serial number 131942, choked IM/F. I was shooting 11/8oz Bismuth reloads.
Almost as soon as we were loaded up the ducks came back in groups of from five to thirty. A highball hale call and a few hen mallard quacks interspersed with a feeder call and they were locked up decoying into our little piece of open water. The shooting was fast and furious, in twenty minutes we had a two man limit of ducks. To add to the fabulous hunt we killed every bird we shot at and didn�t lose a bird since the ice conditions meant no dogs. The duck gods were smiling on us this December day with an assist from our Parker Guns the �Old Reliable�.

Ken, I hunted the Panhandle for a couple days last season. Excellent quail numbers!

Except for the differences between your fine CHE Bernard barreled Parker and his well-worn Winchester M97 "cornsheller" you have a lot it common with Nash's "The Shootin'ist Gent'man" circa 1916. No misses or cripples- that is great shooting indeed.

Many years ago, I owned and shot a HE Fox 12- 32" F&F, restocked, but in the era of Federal copper plated Premium loads (before steel) it was one great waterfowling shotgun. I now used a Smith Ideal 12 Longrange with Bismuth loads "on special days", but in really nastier weather, tend to use a M12 3" Mag.

I also related to your wise comment about not going out to that "hole" surrounded by ice alone. Safety on the water when hunting, or in this case, on the ice as well, comes first. Do you and your hunting pals ever shoot the big lakes for divers from layout boats. Takes a fair amount of many power to set up the dekes, handle the layout boats and the pick-up boats as well, but when everything "clicks" and the flight birds are in, the fastest and most challenging of all waterfowling develops.

My day afield can't come close to others. I've told it often. My grandchildren and great-grandchildren appeared interested. It was a hunt long ago, of double guns, shells sparingly used, meat was important, and before outboards in our fishing village on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore. From my eulogy for Warren Baker eight years ago:

"Warren and I are cousins. We grew up together, next-door neighbours, and went to our one-room school together, and when I went away to work in Halifax I always returned to the village to hunt birds together.

There were no rough edges on Warren. He was the quiet and steady one, a wonderful companion, and he didn�t use bad words like the rest of us.

Warren made the best of the stuff he was. He worked and loved, and he and Neva made a good life and brought up a family from the place where he was born.


I�ve always thought making a living from the sea as something special, a sort of mystery of being able to find fish every day in the ocean, from places he couldn�t see.

He did that all his working life, and he did it well.

Now, here we are on this beautiful day, at the church where he and Neva were married, in the churchyard by the sea which provided their living for so many years.

I saw Warren miss a bird---once. It was a shot at a partridge going away across a little bog near Goose Lake. It didn�t happen often to one of the finest gunners on the Eastern Shore. There�s another story, though, that Warren would like me to tell.

From the blind at Rum Point we saw birds flying into Leader�s Lake, and Warren said �That�s where we�re going tomorrow.� We rowed up the harbour next morning, pulled the skiff up Big Brook into Leader�s Lake and shot 16 bluebills in 10 minutes.

We walked to Goose Lake where Warren�s beaver trap held the biggest beaver I had ever seen, maybe 80 pounds. On the way home, there was a smelt net to pull, with so many fish the headrope was out of sight.

While picking the fish, with a cold north wind making whitecaps all over the harbour, Warren saw a big buck swimming to Leader�s Island. He dropped me off at the middle of the island with instructions to make enough noise to push the deer back to him. I heard the shot---and when I got to that little cove Warren was smiling.

Warren stepped the sail and, down to the gunnels with deer, beaver, 16 bluebills, and five- or six-hundred smelts, we sailed all the way to the slip, home before nine."

This story can't compare to so many excellent days told here, but this was my best day's shooting on a dove field. It was about 1994, give or take a year, and my youngest son was dating the daughter of a country lawyer named Rowland Dye, who practiced in Augusta but lived just out of Waynesboro a very few miles. Rowland and I became friends, due to the interest our progeny had in each other, and we spent some time together.

Rowland invited me, for opening day of dove season, to be his guest at his home and sunflower/corn field about 1000 yards behind his country home. His lovely wife and he had prepared a fine lunch for everyone on the backyard lawn. Cold cuts, fresh fruit, I can't even remember it all, but a very sumptuous spread. There were about 25 shooters there, including three judges. After lunch we threw a few clay birds for warmups, then took the field about two o'clock. The field consisted of maybe 40 acres of alternating strips of corn and sunflowers, both of which had been partially run through with a silage chopper. Many, many doves.

I had taken a 26" BSS that I had recently acquired, and shot pretty well, I thought. I was placed near the middle of the field, but within sight of my host, who chose a shady spot for himself. I soon realized that killing a limit was not going to be a problem, and since, back then, the limit was twelve, I decided to pick my shots carefully, which I did. The pile began to mount by my stool, without a miss. I couldn't miss that afternoon, literally. It was along about bird number nine, I guess, that I hit another one, but not solid enough to put it right down. It was winging it's way, in a downward glide path, straight toward a very thick, and huge, briar patch. In an instant I realized that if it went into that briar patch it would be lost, and I hit it again with the left barrel, downing it. Well, the perfect average was gone, but I hung in there.

I would like to say that I made a true double, two birds with one shot (to get my perfect average back), which does happen occasionally, but I can't. I finished out my twelve bird limit without a miss, and ended up 12, for 13 shells. I actually didn't miss, but did have to shoot one twice. Highest average I ever had on a day afield.

BTW, the only man on the field that did not honor the limit was one of the judges. At least he admitted it, sheepishly.

All my best, SRH

104 Eurasian doves in one day. Had to do a morning and an afternoon to accomplish it. I had on many occasions shot 50-60
so I decide to see if I could get 100 in a day.

Stan- that is amazing- I just re-read Nash Buckingham's "The Dove" and he thought a 60% average on doves was world class shooting. Is the BSS a 20 bore? What chokes and loads were you using on your great "Red Letter Day" on doves? RWTF

Thanks, Francis. That BSS was a lowly 12 gauge. It was choked IC and M, but much less choke would have been fine on that particular day. As I recall, I was using reloads ....... 3 1/4 - 1 - #8.

I agree with Nash. A consistent 60% dove shooter is spoken of in hushed, and "reverent" tones. That day was just one of those "perfect storms" for me. Probably won't ever happen again, either. I have/had two different friends who claimed to have killed 25 with one box of shells, in their younger days. They both are/were excellent wing shots, but we all know how our memory works ........... good things get better, and bad things get worse. I am, however, certain about the 12/13 day. Several shooters noticed and commented on it.

SRH

I have killed a 15 bird limit of doves with one box of shells a few times but I can't do it consistently. Most of the time I'm about half way in to that second box before I'm done. For me, shot selection is the key.

Now, when I went to S. America, my bird boy claimed my average was about 71%, but they are very generous. You cut one feather and they count it as a shot bird. They want to keep the clients happy.

Stan, your word alone is good enough for me.

Thanks, I appreciate that. I agree that most bird boys, in Cordoba, want a good tip more than an accurate count. I got a really good one on my first trip, in '03. First 100 birds I grounded one day I turned and asked him "How many?" He replied "97". I was satisfied with his count after that.
SRH

For me, it isn't about the killing anymore.

My best hunt netted a pair of common Merganzers, fat, and fully feathered.
You see, a friend had pulmonary failure and was on oxygen. He didn't know if he would live to see another season or not. I asked him to float a river in early December. I'd paddle, he'd sit up front, and shoot some ducks. Then switch. Sort of a "One last time, just in case..." kind of a hunt.

He was on oxygen, and had a bottle that would last 4 hrs or so, if he took it easy. I had misgivings, seeing his huge abdomen, and spindly arms and legs. But hey, if death is coming, get on with living till you can't anymore.

So, off we go.


Well, there was a deep cold snap, and the edges of the Muskegon were heavy ice shelves. The water flowing well enough to provide open water for our drift all the way to the pickup spot.
Or so I thought.

I eased the loaded boat off the ice shelf, and into the river. The current would make the float much easier.
We floated about a mile before we hit our first ice jam. We breached it, floated some more, and a pair of Mergy's jumped up off the ice shelf and Russ downed the pair. The were choking on minnows picked from a power dam intake screen.
Fabulous specimens, hen and drake. Fully feathered and brilliant.

We floated deeper into the forest.
We hit another ice dam. It was river wide, and the river was frozen solid across as far as the eye could see beyond it. There was way more ice than I had expected for sure.

What to do? Well, Russ couldn't walk out, that was for sure. The edges of the river were all swamp and knee deep snow. He only had half a cyl of O2 left as it was. We were going slow, and he was breathing heavy.

So, I tied the anchor rope around my waist, and began to tow the boat, and Russ down the ice. It glided easily. I stayed to the sides thinking the slack water ice might be thicker. I made great time. I dragged them down river for at least a mile (later map verified). I didn't want my friend to turn blue and die on a lousy duck hunt.

Needless to say, shooting ducks on a frozen river wasn't happening, and had lost all allure by 3PM.

I'm tunking the ice, skating everyone merrily along, and "CRACK"! The ice disappeared beneath my feet. All I saw was brown water swallowing me up.
As I went down, I thought I'd hit bottom, as I thought it only a couple feet deep where I was pulling the boat. I was wrong.

I never touched anything, and the current swept my feet out from under me. The river sucked me under the ice. I can still see the sky through the brown water as I was sucked under.

I thrashed as I was going under, and Russ saw the whole thing.

He grabbed the anchor rope I was towing with, and pulled me up and out of the hole I had created. Hand over hand, hanging out over the bow of my skiff, grabbing a chunk, and reefing me back upstream. Cannula (sp?) draped around his head, eyes bulging.

My head broke water, but I was being pulled against the ice backwards, with nothing beneath me.

I rolled over, and with Russ'frantic pulling scrambled back up onto the ice. Like a soggy walrus.

He said something like, "Dude, when you disappeared, I thought you were a goner." Thankfully, the rope, and an inflatable turkey cushion that were around my waist, saved my life that day. That and the monumental task of a good friend pulling on a rope with God's will behind him.

He recovered pretty well with medication, and lost over 100lbs of water. We still go hunting together when we can. I am forever in his debt. And I'll always have room for him in my boat.

Duck hunting ain't for sissy boys.

Good story, CZ.

SRH

Best day (so far, I have a younger daughter too) was my son's first buck. A trophy only to us.
I love this picture, I think it might say more than a thousand words.



CHAZ