On Tuesday, Oct. 20th, it was my privilege to pheasant hunt the Mitchell area with 15 gentlemen hunters. The day was cold and rainy, but we were dressed appropriately and had a fine time. As one of the blockers, it was readily apparent to me that all the men were fine shots, but the real stars of the group were the dogs.

Typically, a great bird dog will work the ground in front of the hunter, point the bird, and retrieve the bird after the shot. Sometimes a dog will display an almost human quality with a look that says, “You missed a really easy shot. What’s your problem?” As I said, this is typical hunting dog behavior.

During the hunt I observed some exceptional dog work. As a blocker, I took my post perhaps 10-15 yards back from the end of the field. Emily, a twelve-year-old black lab, took a “blocking” post in front of me and her master. From her vantage point she studied the action in front of her without getting excited about the bird retrieves she left to the other dogs. This required great discipline on her part as she patiently waited for me and the other blockers to provide her much anticipated action. Her patience was rewarded.

As a rooster flushed out of range of the advancing column and eventually flew from my right to left over the end of the field, I took a shot but only wounded him as he went down with his head up and legs churning. Emily was on him right now and the chase was on! This bird would have been lost had it not been for that very smart dog as my days of running down wounded roosters are long gone.

In the first food plot we hunted, I passed up a shot at a bird that would have fallen in eight-foot cattails. I pictured the retrieval of this bird as an impossible task. Minutes later I saw a pair of yellow labs charge into that cattail jungle and make a retrieve I thought to be impossible. As I said, the dogs were the stars.

Hunting partner Doug and I returned to the Black Hills on Thursday and Friday, the 22nd and 23rd of October, to resume our elk hunt. Our host Dave, who obviously knew the terrain as well as anyone, thought our best chances of success would come by driving the unmaintained trails that meandered through the Hills. We never saw an elk, and we returned home Friday evening because a storm was supposedly on the way. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and we should have stayed as I had a good feeling about hunting an area the next day that contained fresh elk tracks. The season reopens December 1st, and I hope to give it one last try.

Sitting in a Black Hills cabin illuminated only by a Coleman lantern fosters conversation, and I asked Doug, a successful farmer, for his thoughts on the scarcity of pheasants. He feels that the pheasant decline is directly related to the increased production of soybeans. Though he could offer no answer to the “why” part of his theory, his theory does make some sense. Up in the northwest part of our state where I have hunted deer and antelope for the past fifty years, pheasants are plentiful while soybeans are almost nonexistent. As soybeans become more and more our prominent crop, so our pheasant population seems to decline.

Pheasants like soybeans. In examining their crops, I have often found them to be full of soybeans. This doesn’t prove that soybeans are good for them anymore than fast foods are good for a society that is rapidly becoming obese.

Though my opinions are not popular with many farmers, I have to wonder about the pheasant chicks that ingest the young beans that have been sprayed with herbicides. However, I fully realize that soybeans are a profitable cash crop, and that they and the herbicides are here to stay – pheasants or no pheasants.

This last spring I planted a garden for the first time in many years. Though my acorn squash and pole beans did well, I was unable to keep up with the weeds, and I foolishly lost track of where my potatoes were planted. This fall I dug them as best I could, but missed many. I followed my harvest with a thorough spraying of Roundup, and then roto-tilled the entire plot. My tilling produced the potatoes I missed, and I washed them and brought them into the house. Betsy made me throw them away as they may have absorbed the Roundup. Was she right or was she too cautious? We might ask the same question about the pheasant chicks.

See you next week.