Alarm blaring at 5:00 AM, time to get up. Check the weather, let the dogs out, and chow down on a bowl of grain. Looks to be a nice day so I strap on the boots and gather the rest of the bird gear. The dogs new that we were headed out because they know the sound of the hunting boots walking across the kitchen floor. Whimper, whimper, whine, "lets go" they are saying to me.

"Bye sweatie, see ya we get back", I say to groggy half sleeping wife. "where are you going" she says. Being an ass, I reply, " Pheasant hunting" (something she already knew). "Dont give me that crap where are you going to be", she says. I reply, "I'm not sure....I dont know how many people are going to be out..........I might have to jump around to a few spots". That being settled we load up and head out. Half way to the gas station I remembered I forgot the e-colars (chit!). Back to the house and grab the colars. OK a little delayed but thats alright. Gas up the rig and head for the Palouse.

First spot I drive by and somebody is there waiting for dawn. OK next alternative but its getting light by now. I round the corner to next spot expecting to see several rigs but to my suprise nobody is there. Thats weird, in the past I have had to compete with other parties to get to into this spot. Far out, I got the place to myself for a bit.

Load up the vest with shells, water, camera, transmitter (damn this thing is heavy). Fire up the dogs and start stomping through the stubble.

10 minutes into it and I get a happy tail. Gun at the ready, the lab flushes a hen............OK good news birds in the vicinity. We continue a while and climb the hill aways and I get another happy tail from both dogs this time. CACKLE, CACKLE,.................BOOM, BOOM............and he gets away. OK thats to be expected for the first rewster fez of the year.

We finaly get up on top and the wind is blowing pretty good and scent was in the air. So good that my pointer was going on point at least every 50 yards. My left bicep was burning having the shotgun at the ready that much. But it was hen after hen after hen. I decide to cross the canyon and see whats on the other side.

Walking around on the other side the pointer disapears. Not hard to loose a 2' dog in 3' stubble. I walk in the general direction I last saw the dog and find him locked up tighter than an undersized condom. I call the lab in close and we approach the point. As soon as the lab picked up the scent she starts bouncing like the dog from the old school Nintendo duck hunt game. Boink, boink, boink, her ears flapping up in the air..........................................CACKLE, CACKLE...............BOOM, BOOM (hit), still flying, BOOM. I hit the bird but he flew about half the distance back they way we just had covered. OK lets find it. We get in the general vicinity of where I last saw the bird and the pointer finds it and drops it at my feet. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD BOY!!!!!!!!!



By this time I'm not impressed with my shooting with 5 shots taken and only one bird down. Anywho we continue our march across the Palouse. Jumped a few more hens and one rooster that was in the sun and a little far away so no shot. I decide to cut back through the field in a zig zag fashion and the same thing happens (I loose the pointer). This time I did not get the lab in close and she was on the bird in no time..............boink, boink.........perfect right to left swinging shot at 15 yards.....BOOM.....dropped it in one shot. Two birds in the bag and a little ways to go. Walk an walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and then we walked some more. Flushing a few more hens along the way. Stop by the creek and get the dogs watered and cooled off. Just about to the truck and I decide maybe we can get the last bird if we back track up and around where we had been.

By this time we were all hungry and getting pooped but we trucked on. Flushed some more hens and one rooster out of range. OK, I was tired and decided were done so lets just head back and we'll call it a day. The route back was 3/4 of a mile in some crappy stubble and I had to high step it the whole way. My hip flexors were burnin bad. Get to the end of the stubble to find some hunters who took the easy way and drove there rig up the hill. Dont know if they had permission to do so but I did not press the issue and asked how they did. They told me not very good and only flushed one bird.

On the way down the hill I decide to cut across and check one more spot on the way back to the truck. Just breaking into some cover, the lab b-lines into the thick stuff and out pops another rooster.....................WHAM...down he goes. LIMIT!

Stopped along the way for some pics. Excuse the blurriness and stuff in the way. I had to use old fence posts as camera stands.

In total we flushed 9 hens, 6 roosters, with seven shots, and took home a limit.





Man I love the October colors! Check out the purple in the tail feathers.









Of course no J7 post is complete without the meat.