Pheasant hunting in the snow 1

Pheasant hunting in the snow 1

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Josh Mills decides to go pheasant hunting in the snow. I looked at the forecast and we were supposed to get one to three inches. So my buddy calls and he's like, hey, you want to go out? And we'll go running his German shorthair pointers and we'll run my lab together. And he's got some ground down south of Spokane, and there's nothing better than chasing roosters in the snow. So the drive starts and we’re both kind of going, the snow's coming pretty good. And as we progressed south, getting closer to where we need to go, the wind was picking up. The snow was coming in sideways and the forecast had changed from one to three inches to five to 10 inches. And one of the situations we were going, well, you're going to give them hell and some part of the male bravado that nobody wanted to go. Maybe we should bail on that. We take off from the truck and we interspersing going back and forth over this decently sized creek. We did our best to keep our dogs away because there were certain places where there was ice sheets and you could tell ice wasn't very thick. But you don't want your dogs running out on that. Well, about two miles away from the truck, the pointer is on point, boom, a couple of birds came out and then my lab came through and kicked out another hen. Well, she took another couple of extra steps down the bank and onto the ice sheet and she goes through the ice sheet. Now, it's not a very rapid creek or anything like that, but she's banging away at the ice is going the wrong way. She's disoriented. I sprint down the banks, set my gun down to reach for her. Then the bank gets away for me. And I went up to my waist in ice cold water. Fortunately, it all worked out in the end.
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