Thanksgiving Day Limit

Normally, Thanksgiving day is spent on the couch either watching football, or putting down another slice of pie. Not to say that was not what we did, but Rachel and I had far more unorthodox Thanksgiving than most. We ate pie, and popcorn, and had leftover Chinese food as our dinner. It was just us and the dogs this year as Rachel took the on-call for the holiday. We spent the morning watching the parade, and spent the better part of the afternoon watching football. Rachel worked on Christmas shopping, and I worked on etching Dad's shotgun forearm. As is generally the case for me, I cannot sit and do "nothing" all day. I had to get out on this mild-weathered Thanksgiving day. I was not going to do a lot of pheasant tromping, but a quick walk would do both Lou and I some good.


We made the hop and skip to our spot not four miles from the house. I readied my gear in the car, and Lou was even semi-patient about the process. The wind was mild, and backwards for our spot. I wanted to walk the fenceline down to our patch and double back so Lou could use the wind to her advantage.


We made it all of 50 yards in the first sparse fenceline and we flushed a great big cackling rooster right in front of us. As it quartered out into the pasture, I was so taken-aback by it that initially, I forgot to shoot. I came back to reality and made a quick shot on the bird, dropping it without a hitch. Lou proceeded to get spurred by the bird and was struggling with the retrieval part. I dropped my gun, crawled under the fence and assisted the pup. A second year bird, this was a bonus amongst bonuses. The rooster surprised us both, but we made the best of it.


As we continued our walk I could see that we were not finding a lot in the main section, and the cornfield to the east was harvested as it wasn't the last time we hunted this property. When we came to north side of the main section, instead of cutting back like originally intended, I cut north to walk the fenceline. It was less than ideal with the wind at our back, but with that cornfield to our east, I figured we may find a bird. We unfortunately flushed birds wild out ahead of us, one of which was a super long-tailed rooster, but I suppose they don't get old being dumb. We headed west on the north end fence and found no birds there until the end. Another smart bird crawled his way out into the pasture before flushing wild 70 yards out. Lou and I doubled back to our original spot and again, instead of walking the main section, I had a hunch about the fenceline. We made it about 50 yards before Lou got birdy and pushed a bird out ahead of us again. This time, when the rooster flushed, I was able to make a flawless shot that dropped him into the cornfield. Lou was having some troubles with the retrieve again, but this time I was able to coax her to bring it most of the way back to me. After throwing the bird in my bag, we slowly continued our walk. I was uneasy and jumpy as I knew at any second there was going to be another bird up ahead. As we came to the last 100 yards of our walk, Lou again, went nuts and flushed another rooster for me. My third and final bird for the limit landed with a poof in the corn stubble. As Lou was bearing down on the bird, three more flushed behind me that we both passed along the way. Lou heartily picked the rooster up, and with her head held high, she hoped the corn rows and brought the bird to my feet. She was back to the races before I could even get the bird in the bag, and its not exactly something you can explain to your dog. We had our limit of roosters in less than 45 minutes. I didn't expect to so much as pull the trigger today, and Lou and I had a Thanksgiving rooster limit. This pup is already paying for her kibbles.

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