Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/812511
72 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S ranging dogs with good noses, a ton of stamina, and the ability to handle birds that are far more apt to hoof it than to hold. He likes a dog that hunts with a high head, too, his experience being that they're the strongest bird-finders. They have to honor another dog's point, of course, and while they should make an honest effort to find dead and crippled birds, Jones is willing to cut them some slack on that score. "You don't get the total package with every dog," he acknowledged. "Sometimes you only get part of the package, so you learn to adapt and work with what you have." Sort of like quarterbacking a football team, if you'll pardon what may strike you as a painfully obvious analogy. J ones grew up during an era when Louisiana still offered what he described as "old-style Southern quail hunting." "We hunted the pea patches, the field edges—all the classic spots," he said. "We hunted both on foot and on horseback, and Daddy always had great bird dogs, mostly pointers in those days." His earliest quail hunting memory is of a horseback hunt when he was about 5 years old. "There were seven kids in our family," he recounted, "five boys and two girls, and Daddy would grab whoever was little enough to pick up with one hand and sling him or her on the back of his saddle. "Well, that day it happened to be me, and after a while the dogs went on point. It was on kind of a sand flat, and when Daddy got down to go to the point, the horse suddenly started rolling around on his back! I started screamin' and hollerin', so Daddy had to leave the dogs to see what all the fuss was about." Clearly bemused by the memory, Jones added, "Daddy's never let me forget that I made him miss that covey rise." Bert's daddy, by the way, was a pretty fair country ballplayer in his own right. A star halfback at Tulane, Dub Jones enjoyed a long career in the pros, mostly with the Cleveland Browns, and as his son proudly points out, he still co-holds the NFL record for most touchdowns in a single game—six. Oh, and remember me mentioning that Bert was the second overall pick in the 1973 NFL draft? I'll give you one guess who the second overall pick in the 1946 draft was. Here's a hint: It wasn't Sammy Baugh. 18—13 setters and five pointers. "Three of them are old-timers who now live the life of leisure," he explained, "and I have four year-old setter puppies that I'm just starting. I typically like to keep twelve to fifteen dogs in my string." He's always had pointers and setters— sometimes more of one, sometimes more of the other—but he's also kept a few Brittanies over the years, and even a red setter or two. It's not about breed for Jones; it's about having the talent to make the team. He has a three-acre "running pen" at home where his dogs are exercised every day, and while technically he does his own training, he insists that what he really does is let their genetics train them. "I allow them to do the things they were bred to do," he explained, "and once they figure that out I try to stay out of their way. They have to want to please me, of course. They learn that if they make me happy, I'll make them happy." The West Texas landscape is big, hard, and unforgiving, and to hunt it effectively you need a lot of dog. It's not at all surprising, then, that Jones' tastes run to tough, wide- I'd find it cool as hell that this NFL legend is a hard-core quail hunter and bird dog man. "He couldn't be a nicer guy, either," Joe added. "Unassuming, down-to-earth—a real gentleman." Of course I had to know more, and when Joe called Bert at his office in Ruston, Louisiana—the place where he grew up and still makes his home—he assured Joe that he'd be more than happy to talk dogs and bird hunting with me. When I finally caught up with him on his cell, he was en route to his quail camp in the West Texas caprock country, pulling a trailer loaded with a dozen pointers and setters and his good walking horse. B ert Jones proved to be everything Joe Augustine made him out to be, only funnier. At one point during our conversation, he pulled to the side of whatever lonesome highway he was on in order to snap a picture of a bizarrely indescribable piece of West Texas architecture, or installation art, or something. "You've got to see this!" he exclaimed, texting me the photo. I have no idea what it is; the wreckage of an alien spacecraft, possibly, or maybe a temple devoted to the cult of Marilyn Monroe. Bert was still processing the odds of running into a man leading a pack of field-bred English setters through the heart of Manhattan. "I was only in New York for a day and a half," he marveled. "I'd had lunch with my friend Ernie Accorsi, the Colts' GM when I played there in the '70s. He'd just retired after a long career in the Giants' front office. "Well, it was a nice day, so I decided to walk back to my hotel. I saw Joe and his setters and thought, 'What in the world?'" I asked Bert how many dogs he owns at the moment, and after doing a little mental math, he came up with a total of