With ten years at my side I figure I owed my best friend something special for Christmas. Okay, I realize that Radar, my Chesador, is a dog and doesn't know a holiday from any other day. Bit Timmy had Lassie and I have Radar. He has been with me during the worst of times and never flinched in his love and devotion toward me. He has also continually reminded me of how one should act by giving friendship and affection to strangers and kin alike. He has tolerated much from man and beast, only reacting with aggression, extreme aggression, when pushed over a rather high limit. I think that all could learn much from watching dogs.
What would be a special gift for a ten year old dog? How about a day afield in search of game? After all, he is genetically a carnivore and thus is instinctively constantly in search of his next meal. For days like these I take my faithful friend to a pheasant farm (preserve) with good, no make that great natural cover. It is a member’s only operation where one can order a hunt by their and their dog’s ability. Since I, I mean "we" always bag more birds than were planted we get really good cover and tough terrian. This Christmas Eve I was given access to perhaps eighty acres of cut corn, thick three feet high grassland, hedgerows, marshland, and ravines. On it would be at least the four pheasants that I would pay for plus whatever birds escaped previous hunting parties on that or adjacent farms. Those survivors can be tough to get a shot at for it is not only hunters from whom they survived but foxes, hawks, and other natural predators. After a few days and nights afield those birds remind of fast running wild pheasants of North Dakota.
Having more Parkers, Smiths, Foxes, and other SxS’s than brains I can never decide which gun to honor with the days hunt. I ended up taking a couple Parkers, a 32” A Grade Fox, and a Charles Boswell Boxlock with me thinking that I’d change guns whenever I passed the truck to get water and drop off a bird. Yes, two guns proved sufficient with one being a heavy gun to start with and a lighter gun for when I started getting sluggish about swinging past the bird. Radar was ready and I drew a 32” #2 frame DH 12 weighing 8 lb 6 oz which I had never killed anything with. This was a recent buy from a fellow member and 10 bore fan. He could not shoot the gun properly and offered to me. My light Parker would be an AH upgrade 12 gauge with 30" barrel on a #1 frame weighing 6 lb 14 oz. Who needs a 16 gauge when one can carry a sub-seven pound 12 gauge?
Out of the truck Radar instinctively went through the tall grass with nose down and ears off. I followed manly wielding the big Parker with my eyes on Radar. Soon his focus was intense as he stopped. He was working the scent past and swirling around his olfactory receptors. I fashion this to me pausing to think about something. Radar had paused to interrupt what he was smelling. After a second or two of deep smelling or perhaps scent processing his nose was even closer to the ground and his movements like a panther sneaking up to pounce on its prey. Soon Radar stopped his forward movement and locked up like a thick-bodied German Shorthair. He had found the bird and that bird was his! I let him decide what to do for I know at this point of the hunt it is a game of chicken. Who will flinch first, bird or dog? I jhonestly don’t know what actually happened next. Maybe the pheasant took a deep breath or simply moved its head but as long as the bird doesn't move Radar will stay locked in a point as if he had been called to the position of "Attention!". But, as often happens, the bird decided that the 95 pound canine staring at the bush it sheltering behind meant it no good. A slight rustle of the bush and Radar leaped forward, nose first! A hen takes air and the big Parker with .018” constriction (almost modified) in the right barrel is shouldered and swinging past Ms. Pheasant. Boom with an ounce and a quarter of Kent Diamond #5 shot rips feathers from the bird as she stops flying away. By hte end of a drop of 8 to 10 feet she is dead. Radar retrieved the hen and I let him lick the blood. Good boy! Then we walked the exterior hedgerow for what seemed near a mile, but it may have been but half of that. We had traversed the exterior south side of the leased farm without finding any hot scents. The walk was grand but a little quick at times. Radar is a natural hunter and I’m afraid that I am not much of a dog trainer. I let him hunt and only cautiously direct him in the direction that I want to go. I have learned to "Trust the dog!" We are a good team. He knows what me putting on my hunting cloths means and that he cannot catch a lively pheasant without me and my shotgun!
We followed a deep ravine as we neared the southeast corner of the property. There was a farmhouse 130 or so yards outside the property’s corner so I knew if a bird rose in this area I might not get a shot due to the safety zone. Pheasants always seem to fly directly between my barrels and any safety zone! Suddenly Radar was on scent. He became rigid in some movement and slinking like a cat in other. The bird was running under the grass. Radar followed, locked up on point, and followed again very quickly. Whoosh! Up came a rooster crossing toward the farmhouse. Somehow my slow brain processed the firing solution and the big Parker once again was a one shot wonder! I was able to shoot much before being close to the farmhouse but another second or so and I would have not shot. The bird dropped across the ravine but without hesitation Radar swum across, picked up a very dead rooster, and retrieved it through the water like it was a Mallard.
After a few forays through cut corn with nothing flying I decided to return to the truck for water and to drop off the two birds which were starting to slow me down. Time had passed an hour and a half with us afoot and while Radar’s middle aged bones showed no sign or fatigue, my metal hip was telling me that it was time for a break. We followed the ravine on the north side of the farm toward the truck which was parked at least a half mile away. All of a sudden Radar was sniffing, pause, forward and lateral movements and once again he was locked up on point. I got ready for a shot and up came a rooster. Boom with #5 from the modified barrel and boom again sending an ounce and three-eights of copper plated #4 from the super-full .040” constricted left barrel. I really should have hit that bird. I watched where it landed which was in the ravine between us and the truck. After a quarter mile Radar put up a rooster with a broken leg. Boom, boom and it flew a few hundred yards landing the middle of a plowed field. Missing with a heavy gun after what may have been two to three miles walk told me it was time a change. Retrieving the dead rooster wasn’t anything more than walking over rough ground that I thought could be a good ankle buster! The rooster probably died in mid air for Radar found him in a position what looked like a face plant. I had a few landing like that on montain bikes a couple decades ago...
A break with coffee and dog snacks found us once again afield but with the lightweight AH upgrade. We, or should I say Radar found another hen within 50 meters of the truck so I dropped her off before continuing on. Oh, one shot from the AH was all needed. At this point I had shot all the birds which were planted and paid for. At this establishment I always take advantage of the “Western Option” which is for and additional flat rate of $10 one may shoot any bonus bird they put up.
For the better part of the next hour Radar sniffed his way across a few acres of heavy cover. I directed him from going in a circle too many times but he knew better than I that a bird was running and making a fool of him. We covered a lot of ground and found ourselves near where he had first lit on the scent. I let him go on auto-pilot for at least twenty minutes trying to stay close to him. Radar was on a mission and moving quickly! Finally, at the edge of a 30 yard wide slough surrounded by heavy brush I saw a flash of something to my right next to the water. Radar on my left was heading further left so I called him as I moved quickly to the far right to box in the bird. Radar noticed me moving away and changed direction toward me. Wham! He was on scent again with his nose was as a vacuum cleaner next to the fast changing ground. Radar closed and I stood my ground. Up came the elusive rooster and the boom of #5’s through the .015” (light mod) constriction of the right barrel and once again the AH upgrade had not failed me. Of course, neither had Radar.
Back to the truck for a half hour of NPR news and talk with coffee and dog treats. Oh, and lots of water for both of us middle aged men! There was a patch of cover that we had not hunted so off we went. I pretty much walked down a field road toward the cover when on the main (dirt) road on the far side of my truck a gator 4 wheeler was slowly passing. Maybe the vehicle’s slow pace made the rooster nervous for out of the corner of my eye I spied something in flight. What? A rooster was flying parallel to my path but perhaps 50 yards away. I hesitated and took the shot as it was starting to quarter away. I used the left barrel with an ounce and three-eights of copper plated #4 through a .025” constriction (improved mod). Why oh why was I so stupid to take such a long shot. Long ago I was “hard as woodpecker lips” on the Marine Corps Rifle Team and pretty darn wicked in NRA 3 gun pistol matches but wing shooting for me is truly a challenge. I probably scared that rooster into the next county! But since it flew over the horizon in a glide angle that would put it in that unhunted patch of cover I took Radar the long way around to ensure that if it landed anywhere near the cover we would find it.
Another 45 or more minutes of systematically hunting, or perhaps driving every square meter of cover and I decided it had been a good day. Five birds for the price of four is always a good deal to me! Remaining between us and the truck was a twenty meter wide by 300 meter long strip of thick cover along a shallow stream. Radar was by then following me through the thick stuff. He was finally getting tired. So I zig zagged across the cover and back as we progressed toward the truck. Do you know what? Yup, Radar hit a hot scent. I let him work it and finally he was on a bird. He locked up in his retriever-point for half a minute. Then, he started to route his nose in the ground like a hog feeding. Was it? Yes! Suddenly Radar lifts his head with a rooster in his mouth. “Fetch!” I called for him to bring it to me. Was it the bird that I had shot at? Well, it was still pretty warm and I had heard no other shots within a mile of where I was hunting. Also, we found it within a hundred meters or so of where I guessed it might have landed. I guess I’m not such a bad wing shot after all.
Merry Christmas to all my Parker and other SxS friends!
Mark and Radar
12-25-2011, 01:22 PM
scott
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