Rog's Rod & Nimrod

If you would have asked me back in early December if something was bothering me, you would have been right on. Tom, my son-in-law, Sam, my only grandson, and our mutual good friend, Gerrit, were coming to pheasant hunt. These Wisconsin guys were going to pay $121 apiece for licenses, they were filled with great anticipation for South Dakota’s fabled pheasant hunting, and the success of this venture rested upon my shoulders.

My apprehensions? Much of the corn was still unharvested, and many of my favorite spots were still under water or thin ice. Making the situation worse, the birds we did have knew all about the protection offered by that thin ice.

Thanks to the generosity and kindness of my friend, Don, and two of his sons, we would hunt under their guidance on Saturday morning and early afternoon. They shared the best habitat their farm offered, and we came away with three birds. We never actually discovered just where the wily birds were holding up. Unfortunately, the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday would be under my guidance.

As luck plus supreme effort and excellent dog work would have it, on both days the guys personally shot at least two birds apiece. I’ll give myself a tiny bit of credit for having a few ideas on where we might find some birds, but my praise goes to two canines, Liz and Remi, a German Shorthair and black lab respectively.

Many years ago, Sports Illustrated or some such magazine considered naming a horse as “Athlete of the Year.” At the time I thought that naming an animal was totally stupid. Liz the Shorthair has changed my thinking. As a former coach, there was nothing I appreciated more than an athlete leaving 100% on the field or mat.

When we were done hunting on Sunday night, Liz the Shorthair lay on our living room floor dead to the world. In trying to describe her, I would compare her to a sopping wet bath towel. If you lifted her head, the rest of her hung like that wet towel. One could arrange her body in any shape or position. It simply didn’t matter. In bounding through CRP covered with a foot of wet snow and nose to the ground, she gave it all…..a full 100%. She, and Remi to a lesser degree, were responsible for those pheasants.

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The Tyndall Tribune publisher forwarded to me a Wall Street Journal article sent by an area reader. It was in response to an earlier column where I cautioned about the rotten ice that results from recent warming trends. In that column I also took it upon myself to bash some of those celebrities/politicians who preach global warming but ride around in private jets.

The excellent 12/22/18 WSJ article, “Warming Seas Send Waves Through U.S. Fishing” spoke about how warming waters in both the Atlantic and Pacific have forced our commercial fishermen to head further north to fish the cooler waters now occupied by their quarry. In the not too distant past the local water temperatures satisfied the fish. Not anymore.

I don’t know that we need to look at migrating ocean species to see movement brought on by warming. Not too many years ago the Lewis & Clark fish beneath the Ft. Randall Dam gorged themselves on smelt that passed through the turbines from Lake Francis Case. Today the Francis Case waters aren’t cold enough to support a healthy smelt population.

In the early sixties, I don’t remember seeing the white egrets that like to hang around our cattle during the summer. In 1960 we never saw dead opossum along the road or in our barn stealing dog food. Our moose are moving farther north every year. Rio Grande turkeys from the South have completely assimilated themselves into our South Dakota Merriam turkey flocks. If you don’t believe me, ask a Gregory County rancher. I suspect that as I write this, the Texas armadillos are eyeing Oklahoma and Kansas. Might they occupy South Dakota some day?

Perhaps these “migrations” are figments of my imagination, but I don’t think so. See you next week.