Headed out with my buddy and his father in law. His father decided not to come.

We had a blast and walked between 9-10 miles per day. Saw lots of birds but with only three of us and no blockers we had a tough time getting close enough to any pheasants to shoot. I pulled up on a lot of shots to give him and his father in law shots. They both missed shots but that is hunting. I had a shot on the first day and bagged my bird.

On the second day we decided to get away from towns and headed south. We were very lucky in one field. We had the wind at our backs and my younger pup working downwind and coming back to us. The hunting gods intervened and Logan came around and went on hard point. Most of his points have been hens because the roosters have been flying early or blowing out the end of the fields. I had my buddy move up to take point. We were surprised by a nice rooster and he quickly dispatched with an easy shot. Logan got the point and chased his prize down. That was a successful closing of the loop I was looking for on this trip. I couldn't be more pleased with my young dog. And my buddy shoots his first wild bird in over 20 years. This land owner was having a oil well being drilled on adjacent property and we heard many roosters cackling at us from an adjacent field that was not posted able to hunt. Late in the day we were unable to find who the land owner was. We hunted a field just SE and I missed my bird of the day. It was going away and slightly down hill. I needed to start my point low and pull through and I shot over both times. Need to practice that shot a bit. While walking back some birds were coming in to the field. I knew they were not hen pheasants when they flew off but I hesitated on my shot not being sure what they were. I later realized they were prairie chickens.

The third day I was hoping the weather system would come in but it slowed down and was coming in later in the day (Saturday). I saved one of our favorite fields hoping it would be holding some birds. Most blew out early. By buddy and his father in law had shots on a couple of roosters. But most exciting was seeing my first covey of prairie chickens. I had seen them the year before flying over the highway and not sure what they were. I knew they were not pigeons, pheasants or quail. Luke and Logan were working in front of me and Luke cast his head up and starting stalking something. Before he got close enough for a point the whole covey came up and I got off a shot. I harvested my first ever prairie chicken. Luke found my downed bird.




We ended up leaving early on Saturday. We were tired and both of my dogs were spent. Luke did well for morning fields but his injury would catch up with him in the afternoon. For a younger dog Logan did very well and I am pleased on how hard of a hunter he is becoming. I hope after Luke is healed I will have two strong dogs for the fields and can rest one or another in the later parts of the hunts.