Tuesday Evening Hunt

Perhaps the finest night I’ve ever had afield with Daisy.  Finally, I broke through for her. All the practice over the summer is paying dividends. I am falling in love with the Mossberg 12 gauge.  Daisy flushed a wily, old rooster in the heavy brambles.  I hit it hard with one shot and it crashed landed.  It scampered only a few feet before dying.  Took some pictures and rewarded the dog with a beef stick.  We moved on to the hemlock thicket above the lake.  Daisy opened up hotly, but I made another mistake.  Tried to follow her into the thicket instead of waiting in the field.  Saw the rooster flushing away, but could not shoot cleanly due to the thick overhead cover.  We worked the long curving hedgerow to no avail, but as we moved across the hayfield, Daisy picked up a short trail as I scrambled over a red-berried deadfall. Suddenly, in a flapping of wings, what I thought to be a wounded bird raised a commotion under the cover.  I lowered the gun and tried to find a better position, when the hen, apparently unscathed, burst out into the open, and escaped my shot. It presented me with the most difficult target a bird heading directly away often does, so my shot was difficult, yet the disappointment lurked inside.  Knowing the bird had landed unharmed about 100 yards down a clear lane, we made our way toward it.  Daisy never completely lost its scent, of this I am sure as I observed her continue to work the bird, despite the fact that it had taken flight.   She was literally scenting the path it followed through the air.  Within minutes she picked up on it hotly.  Switching back and forth between wood lines, I quickly sought a good shooting position, and no sooner had I stepped into place than did little Daisy flush the same hen.  An amazingly fast hen, she zinged away and I missed her with the first shot again!  But, I nailed her with the second shot from about 35 yards and she fell dead.  It was my best shot of the season so far.  A great night! In two hours, we had made a lifelong memory.  This is the evening hunt I know I’ll look back upon years from now and say, “Finally, I am becoming a proficient pheasant hunter”.   Vest heavy with birds, I thanked the hunting gods for sending me the best dog a man could ever want.

Daisy’s 2009 Bird Count: 10