First Storm

 Saturday was the first storm of this upland season.  We heard about it`s arrival for days through the local television news, papers and various cell phone applications that I check religiously as of lately.  Waking up saturday morning, pre-sunrise wielded no weather at all.  Totally still.  I had expected to start out into a voracious storm with high wind and freezing rain.  Not this time.

We set out on a little privately owned 40 acre CRP field that screams rooster.  Plenty of habitat, feeding and watering ground for our little ring necked friends.  This place has had to be in the CRP program for a decade or so.  PRIMO.

We park about 400 yards away.  I was nervous because the wind was sooo still.  Out here in the prairie there is almost ALWAYS some sort of wind.... at least 15 MPH.  THEY WILL HEAR US COMING.

Its dark to the point where I cant tell if a busted tree stump is a deer or just some sort of, well, tree stump.  Shadows.  I know the birds have already gone out to feed.  We decide to split the field.  There are two bluffs and in the valleys of these bluffs are very dense and aged thickets complimented with large 6' tall sunflower wilts.  PRIME.

I take the first top, flat table and Donnie takes the other to the west.  I can make out a shadow of him and his two Vizsla beginning to cover their section on this field.  Picturesque.  If I operated this blog in a professional manner I would have photography of this moment.  I had the duty of holding on to my shotgun.

Again, it is so still and quiet.  I take to slowing my dog down and slowly zig zagging through our section.  She (my dog) hits point.  I creep up.  She sneaks further with nose to the floor of the field, her back legs tip toeing in such a classy manner.  This is so beautiful and personal when this happens. She stops.  No breeze, no nothing.  Fucking total silence.  I exhale and look to the greying horizon for a flushing rooster. We are getting to the end of the table.  Creeping further and then another point.  Something is in here.  I am so ready.  I have hunted this little field a bunch in the last few weeks hoping to timely wade into the flock that I know are here before they wildly flush off the very top that I am on right now.

STOP.  Another point and that little glance from my dogs left eye telling me that there are birds here.  She is telling me, "get ready dad, he`s in here".  I step forward half a boot length and BAMMM, a brilliantly colored rooster pheasant, my rooster, sets off and I hit him within a 5 second period of his flush.  Bang.

The rooster hits the floor, his escape shorted, and picks up heading down the valley to the west.  "GO GET HIM DARLIN", I yell and she is hot on his trail..10 yards below the shot she has him pinned down.  "Good girl", I say, "back off"... the rooster, bagged.

The snow storm started.  Slowly at first then, more and more the flakes piled up on the grass and on us.  It was one of the most beautiful mornings I had ever seen.   Later on that day, upon my commute to work the weather had become so fierce that I had to turn back to my home.  Resting in my chair with a cold beer in my hand, bird dog napping heavily at my feet, I thought away from a work shifts salary not met, but entertained the thought of a rooster in my freezer. Sometimes life can be complicated and simple at the same time.  This balance is gratification.