[Harold Pickens]

Shoot, wish I had kept that tail. The bird was on our sportsmans club property.
We raise birds and release them, and do have some carry over from the past year. When I pulled in to hunt, my best friend was pulling out of the switch grass fields, and said his young lab, in his first year, had worked a bird back in the corner, but never put it in the air. I turned loose my 2 young setters and as soon as we got back there, it was point-move-point-move on a running bird. With the dogs on point, I moved in and the bird went out in back of me. I missed the first open shot, but on the second , I saw the leg drop, but it continued over the hill, out of sight. Damn, I thought, that is going to be a lost bird. The line took me into an autumn olive/multiflora hell hole with a big wolf oak tree in the middle. Suddenly the dog bells went silent, and I pushed thru to find him lying in the open under the oak with his wings outstretched like he was flying. I got to the bird before the dogs broke and picked him up, stone dead.
The gun is a Quality O 16 ga hammer gun with lightening cuts in the receiver. Barrels are 26" Twist(letters as such)--I forget the chokes. Fishtail top lever.