Super Bowl Sunday and time for reflection … look back at your bird season:
High point, literally: Buddy pointed from all four sides of this thicket before the ringneck finally panicked and flushed
What immediately comes to mind? Was it a double on pheasants? Taking a newcomer into the field? Good friends, great dog work?
Watching Manny “get it” on so many hunts, finding birds on his own, actually retrieving to hand, and extending his range are high on my list. The image of him honoring his Uncle Buddy’s point in the snow is indelibly etched in my mind. But so are the friends old and new, with whom I’ve shared a field.
What about you?
Scott Linden Outdoors 
For me it was taking my 8 year old daughter on her first pheasant hunt. She was only carrying a BB gun, but handled it with respect, and always keept aware of her surroundings. She is convinced that 2 of the Roosters where because of her… 🙂
And I hope you agreed those two roosters were hers! Just curious, do you let her shoot at the birds?
Scott…yep, she shoots her single shot Red Ryder BB gun. She also gets to carry all of the birds that she “shoots”.
Well I wouldn’t say we have had a real “bird season” yet.. just training. And our recent snow has kept me out of the field to complete her training. But the last time we were training she found a bonus bird, pointed it and held steady (for the most part) and retrieved to hand. Can’t wait to get her back out there. So maybe by fall we can do some real hunting.
You’d better! She sounds ready enough.
The highlight of bird hunting this year was good dogs, good guns, and good friends combined with the outdoors – and an average of 5 ruff grouse flushes per hour. I had a chance to get up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to hunt with my old college friends. It was great to re-connect with them personally, instead of electronically.
Five flushes/hour is pretty good, isn’t it Randy?
Yes it was! That kind of flush rate doesn’t happen often. The hard part was hitting them in the dense cover!!
Dense, sparse, it’s always hard to hit ’em. I hunt with ONE good college friend … should be grateful to have him. Even if he runs Labs!