ONCE MORE INTO THE THROWS...

Author John Taylor and my son Dylan in Southern Kansas chasing Scaled Quail...John is doing field research for his up and coming new book "Autumn Prairie"
When in Rome...I laugh every time I look at this photo...Casey had a great quail dog he'd run down the burrow ditch looking for coveys on a very busy 55 mph hard ball road...this is legal in KS if you know who owns both sides of the road!
This is a photo of Dr. Walt Cottrell from the "Upland Almanac" out in KS a few years ago

Fightin' Dogs and Cocks at this location! Great place to hunt quail though!


Uncle Gary walking in on a covey

Casey...the ultimate quail bum!
This coming weekend is one with great excitement and anticipation! Not because of it being Super Bowl Sunday and the first time for AZ Cardinals to be there. But, it's the last chance to chase birds in Kansas this year, and my first time out with Partner-in-Crime and good friend Gary Ruppel. This year with the economy in the crapper, Gary and I haven't been able to match our schedules so that we could hunt together! We were thinking about heading to Mearn's Country, but got the call...some 300,000 acres of private access in the Garden City area...prime quail country south of the Arkansas River bottom! Pheasants thick as flies! Anticipation upon anticipation...even if we only move a few coveys a day, it's all good for me! Here are a few photos from the past few years of chasing birds with Casey and Gary! Can't wait to get my dogs down there for one last weekend in bird country! Then it's on to training, skiing, fly fishing and chasing long beards with my long bow! September is just around the corner!

Chasing Birds with Sterling Part the Second

Sterling and I made a whirl-wind trip to Kansas Wednesday night to chase quail for the day...what a day we had. We moved 9 coveys in 8 hours of hunting...we kept joking that the stars we aligned right for us! Here are a few photos from our day!

Gretchen backing Gep!!!

Sterling and BJ the quail dog

Nothing Gold Can Stay by robert frost

This is a photograph of the most precious gift I've ever been given by a client as a veterinarian. This photograph does not do the beauty of it justice! This gift came to me by the way of a loss of a gelding that was most dear to her...he was gently laid to rest last week after years of terrible arthritic discomfort and pain.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by robert frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower,
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.


In memory of Casino...a great horse!

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BIRDDOGGIN' DAYS

The girls and I have made many great memories this year chasing birds! I wanted to share something I experienced this weekend...the poorest form of sportsmanship I've ever witnessed! Mark Volk wrote a story about some guys from another hunting party walking in on someones dog on point and shooting the grouse when it flushed. I read that and thought to myself that it wasn't possible!
This past Saturday in NC Kansas I had a similar experience! I was down in a creek bottom after walking 2 miles into the place. I thought that there were no other people around, and I had the place to myself. I realized that Gretchen was missing, so I headed up out of the creek bottom and found here on point at a nice plum thicket. I pulled my camera from my shirt pocket about the same time 3 guys ran over and flushed the covey, and blazed away at them as they departed up the hill. They paid no attention to me or even acknowledged my presence! They took their 6 dogs and went after the singles! I grabbed my dogs and headed straight out of that WIHA! As I write this, I still can't believe what happened!

We still had a great trip...Andy and Eric were supposed to be hunting with me...that's a whole another story! Next year will be the year I take Eric out to chase quail with his bird dog. I have one more short trip to Kansas planned for this week...and then I'm headed to southern AZ to celebrate the Super Bowl while chasing Mearn's quail. Then I have to spend the next few months making up to Karen for all my time anyway from home...it's been a great Fall/Winter season!


Dilapidated Dreams


This photo is of my Elhew Pointer Gep on a nice covey find. Click on the photo and see the intensity on her face...I knew she had a covey!

Frosty Morn'n Happenings

It Finally happened yesterday! Gretchen honored my Elhew Pointer while we were chasing quail in southeastern Colorado! I've been working with her all year, and she does great in mock situations but not in real life! What a sight for wind blown eyes! But...can she repeat it? I'll find out this weekend in Kansas!

Marc and Remy

My good friend and lawyer Marc with Remy his new pup after a successful day chasing Colorado scaled quail! Marc's new prospect is really coming along this season!

Hunting Quail with Sterling

Ms Ellie did it again! She tried to catapult herself over a 4-foot barbed wire fence! Bummer!!

Gretchen with a sundowner covey! It was 60 degrees at 4:30 p.m.

Old farm implements make for great quail hang outs!
Nice Tail! Gretchen on a single
Sterling's BJ becomes a quail dog!
Strong human-animal bond! Sterling praising BJ for such a fine job!

I figured that Gretchen had a hen pheasant nailed...I about had a coronary when a 20 bird covey exploded in front of her! I'll stop chasing bird dogs when a covey flush doesn't stop my heart!

Tumble Weeds...Pointin' Dogs in South Eastern Colorado

Yesterday came with long anticipation! I had to get the holidays over in order to get the girls back into wild bird country. The holidays have come and gone, and we survived! Now on to more important things like pointing dogs and birds...scaled quail to be exact! Tumble Weeds is a lame title, but that's how I'll remember this day. The day started out with a nice warm breeze from the south, but as it progressed the wind turned Arctic. I kept thinking to myself that I should pick up one of the weeds rolling across the prairie and sale it on eBay!

I spent the day with my friend and client, Rob Warne. Rob's dogs are awesome...Kate's new name is Motating Kate! GPS had her 750 yards away from us in a half second flat! If there's a better way to spend a day (including Arctic winds) with birds and pointing dogs, I'm not aware of it! I'd rather be out with my dogs than anything else (period).