12/4/10

Woke up Saturday morning and winter had arrived.  32 degrees 2 inches of the snow on the ground and it was still snowing, raining and spitting freezing rain.  A perfect day to go afield and chase a few quail.  But if anyone knows me any day is a perfect day to follow your bird dog around.  Picked up a friend of mine, Scott Williams and went to another friend, Brian Eagan's place to hunt.  Still spitting snow and frozen rain when we left the truck, I took 3 dogs Birdie, Rosie and the pup Patch.  They are works in progress and of course Patch is still just a pup but it is good to get her out in the field.  after hunting for about 2 hours we had not seen a bird then while standing in a trail I seen the birds running through the briers,  Scott moved down a bout 20 yards and stepped into the weeds to try to stop them from running I was trying to get the dogs to move in but the birds flushed wild, Scott got a couple of shots off and then I heard the rest of the covey fly but never did see them so I had no idea where they went.  We hunted for another hour and never did find anymore birds.  Patch did well when Scott shot she was not far and didn't even flinch just kept looking around through the weeds so a little preparation helps when it comes to introducing the dog to a gun.  I would have liked for her to have pointed/flushed a bird just to see how she acted with a wild bird but as it worked out none of that happened. 
  I did not take any pictures as I did not want to get my camera out in such nasty weather.  Maybe next time I will probably hunt a time or 2 this coming weekend.