Luckily I could read the sign saying the waterfowl refuge on the other side of the road had just opened to hunting. My hope was that surviving pheasants living on the refuge had been pushed off the public land into this small parcel of private property I had permission to hunt. It didn’t take long to get into our first pheasant. Deke, my Small Munsterlander was locked up on a solid point. The only problem was that Deke was 127 yards away and the rooster flew the coop before I got there. Although the rooster got away I was impressed with my young pointer who had held that old cock pheasant in the brush and bramble for almost two minutes.
Deke had followed that bird into a five acre woodlot with a pond full of cattails and brush. There were tracks in the snow everywhere; tracks crossing tracks and trails crossing trails. I wondered how my dogs could sort it all out. Or did they just use that amazing olfactory system to locate the hottest scent and work that bird?
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
