Kansas Quail
 

Great day with great friends and great guns.

Looks like a great day, Dan.
What is the gun on the top of the picture.
I went to Kansas in January for three years, lately been going to South Dakota.
Maybe back to Kansas next year.

AYA 28 Harold. Quail numbers are good this year. And it was 65 degrees today. Tough on the dogs but they still found birds.

Beautiful Dan. I am still kicking myself hard over the number of aYa and Arrietta I passed up over the years because I thought, "That's so expensive, I'm not spending $2500 on a used 28 gauge..."

Andy...:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

I worked in a shop that sold AYA guns. As I recall, the #2 was bought wholesale for about $2300 and I never took advantage. The #4 was under two grand. A friend sold me his #2 .410 for about $2600, just months before they started selling new for over $7000. It happened very fast.

Been a long time since I've seen 11 wild bu'hrds on a tailgate. A most sincere congratulations to y'all. Good picture!

Kansas wild bird hunting
 

I have hunted Kansas for many years starting in 2008. When Ruby my Gordon setter was 10 months old, we had a great 6 full days in Hill City area Kansas. I got my first double on wild Quail over Ruby...I miss that girl. I lost her a month ago at 14 years and 9 months. Kansas is on track after the years long drought and I have joined a face book blog for Kansas hunting and folks are doing very well now out there. Its time to take my two young setter pups out this coming November....(-:

Kenny, did not know that sweet, old Ruby had passed. She was such a nice old gal. So sorry to hear this, I know you and Kim were heartbroken.

Kenny, I’m so sorry to hear about Ruby. She played her position and did her job nobly for many years. My thoughts are with you and Kim. Thank goodness for your crazy pups to fill the void. And those two are on their way to being fine bird dogs in their own right!

See you in a couple weeks.

Dave

Thanks Guys....Ruby was a Jewel. My good friend had his mom paint this picture from a photo we took of Ruby when she was about 8. It is a great likeness of her! It sits on my dresser, and I see her every day.

Sorry to learn of Miss Ruby, but she owned you for a long time. We are the richer for having been owned by a dog.

My VHE 28 had a wonderful day.

Nice shooting Dan!

If you know, you know.

Boundary marker?

We find those fenceposts throughout the prairie. Particularly poignant along the Cimarron Trail in SW Kansas.

Limestone fence post. Absolutely mind boggling when you consider the effort required. Settling and surviving in these beautiful, yet brutally demanding areas of our country, gives me incredible respect and admiration for the men and women who dared to travel and settle here.

Although I am guilty of being geeked out by stories of the birds, dogs, and guns, the curiosity of “finds” like the fenceposts paints a vivid picture in my mind. For me, it makes me feel a bit small to think someone set these posts as a matter of their daily life.

Dan, do you suspect the horizontal marks on the post you pictured are from harvesting the stone (drill marks) or from fence wire rubbing over the decades?

Dean, I am of a similar mind. While I am often stunned by the sheer beauty of a dog moving gracefully and purposefully across a hillside, head high and taking in all the wind has to offer, I am also overcome with a desire to lie on the ground and “feel” the rich history it holds. Did a group of Cheyenne braves hunt these very hills and draws? I just can’t adequately describe the fullness that visiting these wonderful places provide me.
We saw various means of attaching the wire to the posts. I think it’s likely that the first installment of wire was simply wrapped around the stone like in Gary’s picture. I think the subsequent generations of wire were sometimes attached by drilling and inserting a pin into the hole and wrapping the wire around it. It’s counterintuitive for us to realize that a fence post might outlive several generations of wire.

They’re drill marks from cutting the stone.

That’s a good point Phil. We did see posts still in use with pins in them to hold the wire though.

Yeah, they'd use that way of attaching the wire. Those grooves left by the drills were handy for keeping wire in place too! Those posts can weight several hundred pounds; that's probably one reason you often find them where they were put originally :). I have just a piece of one that often finds its way into some seasonal decor here at the house...

https://i.imgur.com/dafltK9l.jpg

I find it interesting to see how different regions solve the same problems. Fence posts are a good example. Depending where you go they’re made out of different materials, using what was available regionally. Osage orange is pretty common where I’m from, Kansas definitely takes the award for heaviest fence post and probably most long lasting!

The Midwest prairie can grow Osage Orange also. It is some of the hardest — and heaviest — of all woods. You can dull a chain saw or burn out a stove with it.

On our great waterfowl lease off the Wye River (MD) years ago we had 4-5 ancient Osage orange trees. As the decrepit branches would die and fall off, we set about them for firewood in the old house. They would bring visible sparks off a chain saw in broad daylight; trying to split sections with a mall would spin you around as the bit sank into the wood spiral grain, hard as a rock and super grainey. It burnt slowly and hot as a coal furnace. When we would make a fire with it, last man up to bed would rake the remaining pieces and coals to even out the bed then replace the screen. When we came down the next morning, the ash was almost as fine as sand.

Years ago I bought my firewood from a fellow; every year he asked the same question “fireplace or stove?” Fireplace I’d say and he’d say “I’ve got some hedge (that’s what Osage orange is called in these parts) it burns good and hot and works great in a stove but it’ll pop like hell; you don’t want it in a fireplace.”

Many years ago some friends of mine that leased some of my land for deer hunting had a set of identical fixed blade skinning knives made by a custom knife maker named Larry Page. When they told me of their plan I asked what they were going to have the grips (scales) made of. They had no idea and I donated some seasoned, dry osage orange.

They presented me with one of the knives. Each one had the owner's name engraved on the spine. The osage orange scales are very dark in color and, as mentioned, very hard.

https://www.pagecustomknives.com

https://www.arizonacustomknives.com/...er/page-larry/

Very nice about the knives. One of a kind!

We go to Stuttgart chasing ducks most years and probably 15 years ago had a guide whose brother made calls. I was able to visit him while in the area and had a call made from osage/hedge. It is a nice call. Not my favorite for actual use but the circumstances around it make it special.

I've hunted ducks in eastern AR, beginning in Stuttgart, then eventually about a 40 mile circle of there, since the late 80s. I've hunted the Bayou Meto WPA and also with guides, but met some farmers up around Forrest City and we became close friends. For the last 25 years they have come here to hunt turkeys on my land and a neighbor's, and we go out there for ducks.

Where have you hunted around Stuttgart, Rick?

Granite fence posts are fairly common in New England. New Hampshire and Vermont have many quarries still in operation.
Splitting a stone is pretty fascinating to watch. A row of holes are drilled, spacing dependent on the depth of the stone. Two steel 'fingers' are set in the hole, and one tapered pin, in between. The man would go down the line of holes, giving each taper pin one tap, then back again. The accumulated pressure along the line eventually split the stone.
I always said you could split ash darn near finished lumber, but granite fence posts are a close second.

We have hunted a lot near DeWitt and Searcy. Some around Marianna and Jonesboro. We will be west of Stuttgart near Tucker this coming weekend. You are fortunate to have a farmer friend. I have tried Bayou Meto - I never have enough time to figure that place out - very competitive. I hope birds are moving.

The plains Indians valued Osage Orange for bow making. As I said, most folks around here call them hedge trees, maybe because they’re often found in the fence lines between fields. And their thorns will flat tear you up!