Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/116174
Immediately Dan called, " . . . 'nuther bird!" from somewhere behind me, and I turned just as a single curved low past my shoulder. Not sure of Dan's position and with no chance for a safe shot, I turned back toward where the dogs had disappeared, moving just a few feet before once more closing my eyes and stopping to listen. I dared not call for them, for I knew they would be intent on finding the bird if there were indeed a bird to find. I could hear them breaking brush as they quartered back and forth below me before they turned to my left and went silent. Oh no . . . wounded bird, I thought, wishing I had not taken such a fleeting shot. But then the dogs began moving again, this time bearing back in my direction, and when Shooter appeared from the brush, he was carrying a thoroughly dead quail. He sat to deliver the bird to hand just as I knelt to receive it, and I couldn't help planting a big kiss squarely between his eyes. Dan and I eased back into the open trail and continued up the hollow as the dogs kept quartering back and forth ahead of us. Then Brute went low into a thicket above the creek and suddenly turned back toward me on point. I had barely taken one step toward him when the bird came up, a single that rose vertically into the sky and then angled far out over the creek. Still holding point, Brute tracked him with his eyes as I tracked him with the gun, and I fired just as he cleared the trees. It was a steep, 15-foot drop to the water below, but Brute was off that ledge and tearing across the creek as the bird tumbled through the air to the top of the opposite bank. Backlit droplets of water flew from him like diamonds as backlit feathers floated in the air, and I caught him with my camera just before he reached the opposite shore. When he returned with the bird I could not resist photographing him yet again, his beautifully sculpted face still beaded with water droplets and the bird centered smack in the middle of his big bird dog grin. The sky was pale and airy blue, but the woods and fields were bathed in warm colors of russet and oak and the soft cool glow of gathering dusk. T here's little more to say about the rest of that afternoon, except that we were heavy into birds and the dog-work was superb. We finally reached the head of the hollow, then turned and made our way back to the vehicle with an hour and a half of good light remaining, picking up a few scattered singles as we went. But we did not want to press them any harder, and knowing that Dan still had to meet up with Matt for their long trip to Kansas, I suggested we call it a day right then and there, for the day could be no finer. "Sure," said Dan. "But first let's hit the corner of that big field where we Continued on 175 S P O R T I N G C 125 L A S S I C S