On Monday we had a full day of hunting planned, but got off to a late start with more chores needing done around the place. When we arrived at the first hunting spot the rancher mentioned having problems with some red fox around his place. I was more than happy to oblige him and we headed out to scout the area and found a decent spot to visualize the den from cover. A quick glassing of the area showed no signs of any critters, but we did find several places where fox tracks were chasing cotton tail tracks. Tried our hands at trying to raise some reds with a wounded rabbit call and got absolutely nothing. Well, maybe if the hunting party was a little bit more patient we might have eventually called something in, but not everyone can spend 30 minutes sitting still and just waiting for something to happen. So after a couple of stands it became apparent that either the foxes weren’t interested or our tactic wasn’t going to work for us and we went back to hunting birds.
We made a couple of runs through a corn stubble field and managed to flush nothing. Red was having a hard time concentrating on the stubble field and kept trying to wander off towards an adjoining grass field. Since Red seemed extremely focused we figured we would trust his nose and walk the grass field that he showed so much interest in. We flushed two hens almost immediately and we knew the nose was on for the day. There were several more covies of Huns in the field and they were faster than even the quickest gun slinger of the group. We chased them around the field a couple of times but were unsuccessful in our attempts. While unsuccessful in hunting, there was plenty of awesome scenery to see and enjoy.
Christmas Day started out with a quick trip to the field while the noon feast was being prepared. Let me just say, my sister can still cook and I showed my appreciation by stuffing myself way past the point of safe operating limits. The first field of the day resulted in a full pickup load of firewood, I guess I missed that part in the pheasant hunting discussion; not that I was arguing against the opportunity to run a chainsaw and fall a couple of dead trees. With dinner rapidly approaching we headed back to a field we had walked the previous day and happened along some more Huns and Sharptail. Little D was caught napping while walking through the field and failed to even shoulder the shotgun as Huns where flying all around him, I wish I had it on video as he had such an interesting look on his face during the whole ordeal. This would be the same kid who gave me all sorts of harassment for not bagging any Pheasants the first day out. The Sharptail were a little more difficult to deal with but I managed to drop two into the game bag. Of course this was a significant event that called for photographs right there in the field. I had finally bagged my first birds of the trip.
Once we got back to town, Red was extremely excited to see me. He didn’t get to go with us and he was feeling pretty neglected but that was remedied by a sniff of the take. Now it all made
sense why there was no room for the dog in the truck as we unloaded a pickup load of firewood. The afternoon was filled with games, visiting and I even managed to get some homework done.
Tomorrow is back to the land of the Pheasants to see if maybe I have finally learned enough to be successful against the little creatures.
