A one-man, and dog, show

Sometimes there is a special excitement in hunting when you realize a plan has worked perfectly.

Wednesday evening, that feeling lasted several minutes as my heart pounded and my shadow stretched farther and farther across the tall grasses. At the whispered “Cade,” the Lab pup was gone from my side and into a feather storm of colors, cackles and flapping wings all around us.

Mine was the only shotgun to sound on a straightaway shot that even I couldn’t miss. That’s because I was hunting pheasants my favorite way – with only a dog for company.

Hunting pheasants, especially this late in the season, is a chess match where the feathered grand masters usually win. Step into one end of a field and they often exit the other within a few seconds. Many sprint far ahead, or around hunters, unseen like gaudily-colored roadrunners.

In these days of extra-large fields, the going tactic is to hunt the birds with extra-large hunting parties, some with more than 30 guns.

No thanks. I guess I’ve always been more of a loner when it comes to upland hunting.

I got my start with Rose, a Christmas-gift Brittany spaniel, and we often walked just beyond the edges of Tonganoxie after school. We got a whopping one bird in about three seasons on those treks, because I was limited to carrying a Daisy air rifle.

By the time I was trusted with a shotgun, I’d learned her nose knew more than my brain when it came to finding quail. So I followed her lead. When I was in college we did the same on central Kansas pheasants with the simple tactic offollow the dog, they’ll find the birds.”

In the long-ago days when farmers left their wheat stubble standing after harvest, I did the same first with Rose, and then Mysti, a golden retriever. The fields were a mass of smartweed that tugged at my boots and jungles of wild sunflowers that tried to tear my shirts. Trails in the snow showed I followed the dogs on willy-nilly patterns. The only straight trails were when we headed to the truck with a limit of birds or needed more shells.

In broad fields of Conservation Reserve Program grasses, Hank, the ultra-mellow black Lab we lost in June, thrived on such one-one-one hunts 13 of his seasons. Cade, now 9 months young, seems to enjoy it even more.

After he flushed his first pheasant, a hen, he ran to me and did his best Tigger imitation, repeatedly springing straight into the air high enough to look me in the eye, as if to say, “Holy cow, did you smell that thing? Wow!” Several dozen flushes later, he still gets as bouncy.

He has a lot to learn, but one of the things I like about solo hunts is that it’s easier to focus on the dog. Earlier in their career that’s a benefit in training. Later, it lets someone see that little extra snap in a wagging tail or frog-like pounce the belies action is near.

And I greatly like that special man/dog closeness in the field. Dogs have provided me infinitely more enjoyment than my favorite hunting partners. Some of my friends feel the same, though, and it’s not uncommon for us to hunt in different directions, even when we’re riding in the same truck.

Such hunts let you slide in and out of a field more quickly and quietly than if part of a sizable group. Dogs never grumble if you come home empty-handed, complain about sore muscles or give you guff when you miss an easy shot.

Dogs can be ready at a moment’s notice for a one-on-one hunt if you have a few free minutes to hit a field. Wednesday’s hour-long jaunt about 10 minutes from home had more time watching and waiting than actual hunting.

Warm and almost totally calm, conditions were horrible for hunting the chin-high CRP. The birds were probably scattered. Those in the field could hear every boot step crunching if I walked the grass.

Rather than educate everything within miles by hunting the field blindly, we spent about 45 minutes watching the grass from a deer hunting blind, seeing where cackling roosters flew into the grass as they came from feeding.

A dozen birds landed amid a scattering of small cedars I used for a landmarks in the grass. We eventually walked the quite edge of the field, stopping maybe 75 yards from the cedars. The plan was to let the birds settle deeply in to their nighttime roosting spots as long as possible, knowing the more comfortable they became, the less they’d want to leave that spot.

At 5:23 p.m., eight minutes before the end of legal shooting time, we headed through the grass toward the cedars. There I stood and Cade sat, hoping a rooster would flush on its own, then more would rise at the sound of the shot that dropped that bird.

When none rose, I released Cade, who already had a snoot full of scent and he flushed a hen so close she almost hit my leg. A few pounces later and the rooster came up five yards out, heading straight away. As he was falling I swung on another rooster to my left but held my fire when it went straight toward the setting sun. I’ve actually shot a limit of four on such set-ups in the past, but one was good enough Wednesday.

After delivering the rooster, Cade bounced around the surrounding grass, putting up several hens and couple of roosters in range. By then legal shooting time had ended. The scarred over/under was already unloaded and cradled across an elbow. The pup also pushed up a covey of quail as we headed to the truck.

Maybe I’ll go back and look for them over a lunch hour next week. My hunting partner, I’m sure, will be willing to go.

This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 11:08 PM with the headline "A one-man, and dog, show."