We took my two dogs Kassie (WPG) and Cash (GWP) and his dog Clancy (WPG). Kassie isn't quite 2 so still rather inexperienced and always excited. Cash is 7 and rock solid if Kassie doesn't get in his way. Clancy is 9 and also rock solid.
I'd have probably taken more field photos and staged dead pheasant photos with nice backgrounds instead of the tailgate variety had I been on my own. As it was, I didn't carry my camera in my vest. May not have mattered because I couldn't keep the battery charged in the cold weather (need new battery) and these wild late season roosters have a way of flushing at inopportune moments, so I didn't want to spend too much time trying to get photos of dogs pointing.
Our typical plan was to hunt from both ends of sections of cover to try and effectively block the birds and get some of them to hold. Even with that we had lots of birds flushing well ahead of us and in some instances as soon as we drove by. My shooting on this trip improved over some of my early season performances and the new/used 11-87 that I picked up back in the fall performed flawlessly.
By 1:30 on day one we had a limit of roosters for both of us. Note the new dog box/topper I built for the bed of my Tacoma. I finished it just in time for this trip. It is somewhat heavy, but not too heavy for two people to load. The additional weight actually helped on the snowy roads.
Rooster tails in the Big Sky
Leftover "Christmans ham" sandwiches are my favorite, especially made on the tailgate in the field.
It's hard to see and doesn't look like much, but the coulee in front of us snakes off to the left and right. The bushes in the distance are along it's edges and was a good place for multiple birds to hold up after beeing pushed from the cover in the previous photo.
On day two we hunted with a couple locals that my buddy met last year. We pushed birds from a stubble field into a big block of cover then hunted them in the cover. Three of us hunted from one end with one guy blocking. We ended up with three of us having a limit of birds and the fourth guy's bad luck kept him from anything other than shooting a bird that was already on it's way down.
I didn't get any photos of the 9 roosters because we were in a hurry to try and make it to a stubble field where they had been smoking the geese. I was going to settle for a shop photo of the roosters but by the time I got in behind the guys they were already taking them apart in a hurry to get to the geese.
I haven't waterfowl hunted in a long time, so I was looking forward to getting in on some mad decoying goose action. We were a couple hours later than we needed to be and apparently the geese had moved somewhere because we didn't see a fraction of the geese that they had been seeing. We still had a good half hour of shooting and killed six honkers before the skies went blank.
Cleaning pheasants and geese in a heated shop beats a cold tailgate
Day three took an all day effort to find birds that wanted to cooperate. We started with the same fellas from day two and hunted until 1:30 for only four birds and one coyote that was unlucky enough to slip out of cover right on top of the blocker. My buddy and I said our goodbyes and parted ways with the locals so we could try and hit a couple locations before dark on our way toward home. We got lucky and were able to push a good number of roosters from a windbreak. Birds went in every direction but just enough roosters sailed to a ditch that snaked through a stubble field that we were able to finish up our limits before the end of the day.
Cash (left) and Clancy
Kassie (left) and Cash
Some of the best memories from the hunt:
-- Cash and Kassie pointing alongside one another on my first rooster of the hunt. Then the rooster struggling to make it out from under the grass and the lower strand of barbed wire he was hiding under.
-- Cash disappearing in a coulee for long enough that I knew he was pointed. Then when Kassie and I went to investigate she circled downwind and pointed in a bush 20 yards to my right before I realized Cash was pointed 10 yards to my left in the cattails.
-- A rooster that I thought was dead but we couldn't find in the heavy grass and snow. Both dogs had acted birdy in the area I was sure it fell dead, but turned up nothing. Cash disappeared trailing something but I wasn't convinced it was my bird. I thought the cover was heavy enough that the bird would have just burried itself in it if still alive. After Cash was gone for more than 5 minutes another rooster was pointed by Clancy and my buddy killed it. At the sound of the shot Cash came running back out of the cover to see if he was needed then turned and disappeared on the trail again. We continued to look for my bird for another 5 minutes or more and just as we got Clancy to start looking for it I looked up and here comes Cash running out of the brush 50 yards away with a rooster in his mouth. Apparently he had needed to chase it down because the bird was missing all of the tail feathers he had when I shot him. There is no telling how far he tracked that bird before catching up to him.
--The dogs had gotten birdy on both sides of a brushy area at the end of a short ditch we were hunting. The area wasn't more than 50' long and 20' wide and almost as soon as dogs started pointing pheasants started flushing. I dropped the first rooster out then missed a second. While reloading, a third rooster came out and one of the locals dropped it. Both birds were laying in the stubble, both with tails pointed straight up. Cash grabbed my bird and Kassie grabbed the local's bird. Kassie still needs some work on retrieving to hand and dropped her bird 10' in front of me before I crossed the fence. When she dropped it it took off running but she quickly caught it and held it until I took it from her. I didn't ring the bird's neck because I thought it was a breath or two away from dieing when she gave it to me. A minute or two later as I walked around the end of the brush holding both birds by the feet in one hand, the bird flutterd hard and I dropped it. It shot into the thick brush like a bullet and I thought for sure the dogs would never get it out as thick as it was. Kassie hadn't seen the bird get away but went right into the brush when I got her on the trail. I could see her pointing when she found it but several encouraging words had her snatching the bird out from under a pile of brush and giving it to me.
--Needing one last rooster to finish my limit on day three and deciding to hunt another 100 yard stretch of a cattail lined ditch. My buddy let me out of the truck and was turning around so he could drive back to the other end of the ditch and block for me when Kassie went on point 10 yards in. I flushed a hen in front of Kassie then Cash pointed 15 yards further down and I had my last rooster of the trip before my buddy even got out of the truck.
-- Four big Canada's floating into the decoys from left to right and raising up from a laydown blind set against a fence. Three of them didn't fare so well.
-- Bailing out of the laydown blind to run the fence a coule hundred yards then jumping the fence to find a Canada that had sailed a ways before crashing. I had just walked past the goose because it had layed out flat trying to hide before it coudn't take it anymore and took off running/flying and honking as it departed. It took me two shots to catch up to it. I then realized that I had left my gloves in the blind and my hands almost froze as I hoofed it back through the snow
When we started this trip both of my dogs were pushing their way out of the box everytime I opened the door. By the end of the three days, they just layed there and looked at me. Once home I gave them both a bath and they resumed their rightful places on the couch. They've not moved much since.
Hadn't thought of a fan. I had considered looking into how to wire a light inside so I could check on the dogs through a plexiglass window I installed in the box behind the cab. Our September grouse season can be warm, so I'll think about a fan also.