Colorado Springs Gazette Small Game Article

Here's the article in the Colorado Springs Gazette on Colorado small game hunting opportunities...(Click Here)


Setter Feathers...

God Made Birddogs Tuff...

My quail-bum friend & I exchanged texts today that went something on the lines like this...

birddogdoc: How many coveys did you move today?

Quail-bum: No hunting today. Dogs are 3 legged and a lot of swelling and feet are sore.

birddogdoc: Liar...I know you! So, how many coveys?

Quail-bum: No really, hunted a pasture last night with lots of cactus.

birddogdoc: Oh, so what you're saying is that ur dogs are wussies?!?!?!?!

Quail-bum: I guess if sixty-six coveys and ninety-nine miles in 8 days makes them wussies, then they are pure wussies.

birddogdoc: Touchée...God made birddogs tuff!

The truth is 75 different coveys in 8 days, but Quail-bum was never one to be a braggart or exaggerate...if I told you where this wealth of quail country was, I'd end up at the bottom of a well with cement boots...honest injun!

This conversation got me thinking about how tough our birddogs really are...they'd gladly pay a pound of flesh to pursue birds with a smile.

I just returned from the land of OZ...pursuing said birds. To paraphrase my favorite author on bobwhite quail, Havilah Babcock...I don't want to shoot an elephant when there's gentleman Bob so close to home.

Here are some photos from my recent trip...see ya on the prairie!


Setter Feathers...




Wonderful eats on the Kansas prairie
Tanner and Josh with a grand bag of bobwhite

Great quail habitat

Gretchen nailing a covey


Tanner walking in on a single
A morning's treasure
Sterling's lil' house on the Kansas prairie
Gep on a single


If these walls could talk


ROOSTER right here!

Coveys on the Prairie Wind

The windswept Colorado prairie is home to many creatures great and small...antelope, mule deer, pat rats, jack rabbits and most importantly, scaled quail. Double gun, bamboo, and birddog affectionado Gary Thompson from Silk Lines & Paper Hulls and I set out to the eastern Colorado plains in search of the proclaimed elusive bird of the cholla and greasewood prairies.

We burned up boot leather and blistered our heals...the hues off the horizon changed from cobalt to varying shades of gray as we pressed onward across the prairie with birddogs a running. We had some solid, honest dog work among the rhythmic metallic clanks of the windmills.

Below are some photos from our successful day...




Cholla

birddogdoc
Gary Thompson

Grouse River Gretchen backing Gep's covey find
Gary walking in on a point

The end of a perfect day
Gretchen pointing a covey


Setter Feathers...

Ginny Girl Retrieving a Scaled Quail in Kansas

This is a photo from 2007 from one of the last hunts with my favorite setter! Ginny Girl was something special...



Quail country, here we come.

Setter Feathers...

William Harnden Foster

Excerpt from Animal and Sporting Artists in America by F. Turner Reuter, Jr. © 2008:


Foster was born in Andover, MA, on 22 July 1886. The son of a railroad man who was also an avid wingshooter, he grew up around shotguns and steam locomotives and retained a lifelong interest in both. He studied for three years at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MA) with Frank Benson (qv), Philip Hale, and Edmund Tarbell (qv), and for another three with Howard Pyle (qv) in Wilmington, DE. He worked for Scribner's, covering the building of the Panama Canal; he wrote and illustrated two articles entitled "The Canal Builder" for that publication in 1910. In 1911 he produced Highways of the Skies, a book of paintings of airplanes. Returning to Massachusetts, he settled in Andover and, after his marriage in 1910, summered in South Freeport, ME. He spent some time sketching and painting steam locomotives. He also worked on shooting subjects, another interest from his earliest years. He was himself an avid upland game and waterfowl shot and a gun dog handler, and often served as a judge in bird dog field trials. He invented and popularized the shotgun sport of skeet shooting. He painted dog portraits and hunting scenes in Massachusetts and in Maine. He was associated for some years with the National Sportsman, a Boston magazine, serving for a time as its editor; he also edited another periodical, Hunting and Fishing. He wrote and illustrated New England Grouse Shooting, one of the great classics of this upland sport. He also provided cover illustrations for his friend L. L. Bean's mail order catalogue beginning in 1925. Foster's portraits of the National Champions Sports Pierless Pride, a setter, from 1939, and Lester's Enjoy's Wahoo, a pointer, from 1940 appear illustrated in National Field Trial Champions

Foster died while attending a field trial in Scotland, CT, on 30 October 1941. He was living in Andover, MA, at the time.

November

Here are some final photos from my Idaho dream trip. A photo essay with the great words from my brother and favorite hunting partner.

Andy, thanks for such a memorable trip!

Enjoy...







By Andrew M. Wayment




[Author's Note: With October quietly slipping away, I am beginning to think of the times to come. This piece is my tribute to November. Maybe some of you can relate].








November. The kindlier months have come and gone and Ol' Man Winter grows stronger each day, eager to rule his kingdom with his icy grip.



The harvest is over, the leaves have long since bloomed with color, wilted, and trickled to the ground where they are tossed to and fro by the cold wind. What are left are skeletal tree trunks and branches, harsh lighting, and shadows.






If we're lucky, the month may give us a few warm Indian summer days. Such days afield with bird dogs should be savored as a gift. However, the birds are much scarcer, warier, and less apt to wait around to see what predator is in pursuit. The birds seem to have even more of an advantage in November.





Yet most diehard hunters are not willing to hang up the game bag or to put away the shotgun for the year. The dog still wines eagerly in her kennel. Instead, we welcome the challenge and even chase after the more difficult species, like the Chinese dragon or the fast-flying demonic birds of the near vertical, rimrock slopes. When we and our dogs occasionally connect with a wily November ringneck, it is truly an accomplishment—a reason to celebrate.






November is an opportunity to sit by the fire and reflect on what has been and what will be. In November's scarcity, the bounties of the past spring, the summer, and the harvest seem almost embarrassing. We realize that we have taken things for granted. November is a time to give thanks, to count our blessings, and to pull close to us those things that matter most. November is a time to pray for better days to come.









Kansas Bobs...here we come!

Setter Feathers...