Upland Bird
Hi, Jon,
I just want to send you a few photos and a report from this past season. As usual, each season has its own personality of sorts, and this one was no different. We had dog injuries that kept us out of the field for stretches, and road conditions and harvesting that limited us on occasion. The weather was as weather always is — some beautiful days you didn’t want to end, and some that were a challenge just to be out in. We had enough nice days with tailgate lunches to get us through to next year. The cover we hunted was very good this year, and bird numbers about the same as last year — enough to keep the dogs happy and give them another year of experience on wild birds. We tried some new farms and revisited some we’d not hunted in a while. This year I used different vintage guns throughout the season to make things even more interesting. As has been our practice for some years now, only a token bird or two was taken on each hunt, but we go to be out with the dogs in great places, not to kill lots of birds. I’m so grateful to have the chance to hunt private land that holds birds. Thanks for bringing your expertise to bear in securing land for the Association. (By the way, we saw some monster bucks on Association land again this year, so the deer hunters have something to look forward to for next year.)
My best to you,
Garry
Here are a few photos from this past season of hunting on Association land:
We had all kinds of weather this year, from dry and warm, to muddy, to drifted snow. Each kind of weather presents its own challenges for hunter and dog.
This looks like a great open field point, but it turned out to be a skunk. We can still smell the result of that point on Aspen long after the baths and skunk-off treatments.
In his third year, Aspen is starting to show he can find and handle wild birds consistently. It’s so good to have the birds.
For every open field shot, we probably had 5 in thick and dense cover.
And sometimes the birds “went out the back door.”
I’m blessed to have my wife tag along with the camera, and she often gets shots like this where the bird is coming right at her, offering no shot for me, but an interesting photograph.
Taking a bird with a vintage gun, this one a Parker 20 gauge in its 102nd year, makes a brace of quail a real trophy.
This old L. C. Smith 20 gauge from 1913 was my first good quail gun. I’d not used it in 30 years. It can still take birds.
Each day afield is special, and the older I get, the more I think I appreciate them. Thanks for the work that you all do to provide such great places to wander with a gun and dog.
