Stuart Schmidt's Milo Field...

...Bad Influences, and No Roosters

On one of the trips Maggie and I made to Kansas from North Carolina we were unable to coordinate schedules with others and made the long adventure just by our lonesomes.  It's great to have traveling companions, sometimes, and it's equally great to sometimes not.  We had learned early on that any attempts to hunt 5+ hunters behind one or two dogs was an exercise in futility.  The birds go where they want to go, as I outlined in the previous post, usually running.  The dog follows an instinctual pattern of covering ground until she gets the scent of pheasant in her nose, and then focuses in on that.  And since she doesn't waste time telling you that she's shifting from instinctual quartering mode into following particular scent-cone mode or into trying to corner running/stopping/running birds mode, the behavior is hard enough for one person to follow and adapt to, but impossible (not to mention maddening) for any kind of group.  And so even when part of a larger group, I'd always insist Maggie and I split off with only one or two other hunters, if they wished.  Of course, this method flew very much in the face of tradition with those Army Hunters, and led to some sore feelings.

This particualr trip, though, it was mostly just Mags and I plus the occasional, local friend.  Old Mr. Forsberg had told me the night before that, given the snowy weather, he recommended giving special attention to any milo fields, and a local photographer named Alan, whom I'd hunted with many times before, had also called Stuart Schmidt and set up precisely that plan in his fields.  Stuart's only proviso was that we not shoot at the 12-point buck he planned on harvesting.

When Alan and I arrived at Schmidt's there was another truckload of two guys (with four young dogs) pulled into the "parking" area across from his house.  If memory serves correctly, they were also from the Old North State--although we did not know each other.  They too, it turns out had gotten permission from Stuart to hunt that day.  No matter at all to us, we said, and you can bring your pups along...but we plan to follow Maggie, regardless of where the other pups venture off toward.

"Naw, we wouldn't want our dogs to be a bad influence on your dog," they replied.  Which was much less likely than her being a good influence on them, but I didn't press the point.

I told them that we'd like to work the long milo field, and that if they wished, why not take the long, parallel CRP, which would help slow the wild-ranging of those pups.  Everyone agreed to the genius of that scheme and we set off accordingly.

Now, to look at rows of milo, you'd never guess that such big-ass rooster pheasants could hide behind and amongst those relatively sparse and smallish plants, but they do.  They hide well, and they run from hidey place to hidey place without making noticeable commotion, not unlike much thicker cover such as CRP grasses.

Our field was roughly 75 yards wide (too wide to work in a single pass) and a 1/4 mile long.  Alan and I followed Maggie down mostly one side of it; I was trying to "lean" her attention away from the cacophony in the neighboring field, fairly successfully, I might add.  And I hoped to, for the most part, cover the width of the field in two passes.

The pass out, and away from the road from where we'd entered, produced no roosters, but several points on hens (which you know are off-limits per the law), and thus zero shots, but we occasionally noticed the keystone cops episode in the field next door: two guys changing direction behind four pups every tens seconds or so, also with no points, no shots, and no birds.

Our neighbor-hunters made the turn in "their" field back toward the road sooner than we did.  And, by the time we'd gotten to about 100 yards of the road ourselves, they had loaded back into their truck, even though there were other nearby fields (including a very eligible WIHA--walk in hunting area, an excellent KS open-fields program) worth consideration.

Then, as we were within about 30 yards from the road end of the field, those other guys pulled down the dirt/gravel road from Stuart's and slowed as they were passing.  Alan and I both waved to them, and some assessments were shared over the medium distance regarding the bird production: Alan told them about the hens we'd rousted, and they said they'd gotten no points from their pups, but lots of birdiness.  And just then...

Maggie locked up on point.  Hard, unmistakeable, unequivocal bird-point about 5 yards in front and slightly right of me, with Alan slightly ahead and to my left.  I'd made the mental choice to allow Alan the first shot, and when the rooster flushed, I just loudly confirmed its shootability: "rooster!"  Alan fired three times from his pump-action Ithaca (which was his manner, regardless of whether he hit a bird on his first shot or not) and downed the bird about 35 yards to our right.  As Maggie took off to fetch the rooster, I heard the driver of the truck commend Alan on the shot and say that he figured that to be the only rooster in the neighborhood.

Then, just after she began her retrieve on the dead pheasant, Maggie, without dropping it, locked on point again.  I'd come along quickly behind her, and was only about 10 yards from the second rooster when that one flushed.  Easy shot from the lower barrel of my Fausti O/U.  Maggie dropped the first bird to fetch the second one, leaving the first one for me to worry about.  And then...

We were started back toward Alan and the others.  I had gotten the two birds situated in the game pockets of my upland vest, broken my shotgun to eject the spent shell, picked it up, and just finished reloading when Maggie pointed again.  The third pheasant flushed ten yards in front of me, between myself and Alan, then banked hard left--the only direction I would have a good shot, and a good shot it was.  Score one for Alan, two for me, and three for Maggie, in the span of less than 3 minutes.

The best part of it was the look on the face of the guy in the truck.  I'll bet he wasn't so quick to give up on the next field.

On second thought, strike that.  The best thing was walking behind my dog, seeing her work her magic, and having a friend and some strangers witness her greatness firsthand, once again.