The countdown lessens
We're getting closer and closer to my favorite day of the year. I mean that. Sure, Thanksgiving is always a blast and Christmas sure does rock, but I look forward to this day for 364 other days (365 in a leap year, but who's counting?).The plan is set. Dad's only friend Don will pick us up somewhere between 5 and 5:15 that morning. We have to be to Danny's at 5:30. I'm sure that Danny will run his dog the two miles to Joe's. I guess Danny's dog has a little bit too much energy. We will hunt and eat like kings and then I'll probably go poke around somewhere for the rest of the day.
Sunday we're heading out west and that will be a busy day. Right now, it's going to be Gsquared, Havoc Chaos, Nik, Nik's buddy, Rod the Bod, the Franzinator, Bryce, and myself, plus maybe some of the 'Ta guys. We'll leave somewhere around 4 ish in the morning. I'm pushing for us to hunt a patch that we walked on opening day 2002.
This particular patch is shaped funny. It's three quarter sections that all have irrigation pivots spanning the majority of the fields. Now you're not supposed to hunt the areas where the pivots do not reach. The corners though are fair game. We walked into one of these triangular shaped corners and promptly shot 3 roosters out of this little patch. Deciding to move on we continued on the same path only this time, Tony and his Dad went ahead to block the point. The next patch was shaped much like the first one, only it was twice as big. Russ, Gsquared, Fudd, Jarr and myself decided to work it to the point.
Now I had a sudden insight since this patch was shaped like a triangle. Jar and I decided to walk out to the south point to see if we could push anything out while the other three continued west. We got close to the point and Jar looks at me and says "Why don't you go stomp around in that corner to see if anything is hiding there?" He said it in a half assed manner as if he wasn't expecting anything to be there. To tell the truth, I wasn't either.
I walked up to the point and all of the sudden I saw one hen come scuttling out, and then another. I motioned like a madman for Jar to get the hell up close as there could be a rooster hiding in this little corner. As he moved, a rooster did break out. I jerked my gun up to my shoulder and missed with my first shot, hit it with my second, but I didn't hit it really hard with my second blast, so I fired again and missed. The second blast was enough to knock the bird out of the air, but I had only winged it. It hit the ground, rolled twice and popped up running. I fired again to try to stop it but missed.
At that point, I did my best olympic sprinter imitation as I took off after the little bastard. I shot again and missed and now I was empty. I'm running and trying to load my gun and screaming for jar to shoot this little shit. "SHOOT HIM!! SHOOT HIM!!" Finally Jar shoots.
Did you know shotgun pellets make a very high pitched whistle when they go right by your ear? I learned that information that day. Kind of scary, but I trust Jar, I think. Again he fired and this bird was still off to the races. By now Jar is running with me, and we must have looked like Special Olympic Hunters running the relay. Finally Jar hits the bird with enough pellets to roll him over and I manage to get a shell in my gun and finish off what we started about 150 yards to the east.
I grab the pheasant by the neck and I turn to Jar. We look at each other and we both start to bust up laughing, which is hard to do when you're out of breath from a mad sprint down milo rows. He sticks the rooster in my gamebag all the while telling me his version of what he was thinking. I'm laughing trying to tell him my version of what I was thinking. We laugh the entire way back to the blockers.
We're greeted by the other five members of our party. They greet us with a simultaneous "What the hell happened?" Fudd looks at me making the remark of "I heard a shot. I looked up and saw you running off down the field. Suddenly Jar draws up on you and I'm thinking 'What the hell did Rust say this time?' Next thing we know Jar takes off after you and we couldn't see behind the hill but we heard shots."
We tell them what happened to a chorus of guffaws. Only the two of us would have something like this happen.
Or so I thought.
posted by Rusty @ 10:27 PM
Comments: 1
