Rooster Red

The other day one of my kids at school asked me what my favorite color was…didn’t take long for my reply; “Rooster Red” I said…knowing that I would soon have to explain my answer. Not just red…but the color of a rooster pheasant as it climbs upward toward the atmosphere; on a bluebird day when the sky is icy blue, the red of a ringneck pheasant makes for an opposition of color that is almost hard to describe!

Sadly I thought I might actually go through a fall without a rooster contact. I had to make the prudent decision to not travel 14 hours to our sacred haunts of Kansas; truth be told it was a tough call that has haunted me a bit. Last year we journeyed out to central Kansas to find that a late December snowstorm had dumped about 15 inches of snow on the countryside…that by itself is interesting but when you throw in wind and big drifts you have a very serious problem in actually getting to the many hunting spots that I have accrued over the past 25 years. The bottom line is pretty simple and quite sad; we shot 4 birds in our 2 ½ days of hunting. I knew the numbers were not great last season and then in mid-September the Kansas pheasant hunting report came out for 2012…simply put, you know you are in trouble when the state game and fish department says the bird count would be about 50% at best and thus the decision to not travel the 700 miles to Kansas. Now this might not sound important, but it was…because I knew that my dad has always looked forward to our trips out west and this would have been 27 years in a row! So it goes….

Fast forward to early December and up popped an email from my good friend Jim Merten. I have written about Jim before but he and a group of guys purchased about 450 acres north and west of Attica, Indiana several years ago and since then the farm and its ground has gotten better each consecutive year…in fact I can say this with total confidence, the grass on Jim’s farm is as good or better than anything we get to hunt in Kansas. This group of 5 guys are total stewards of the land. In the past few years they have harvested several turkeys, a passel of nice deer (including an enormous 12 pointer earlier this fall), they have several coveys of quail, 6 lakes full of fish, geese, ducks, beaver, etc….and the list could go on, but what is obvious to me each year is the love they all have for their land. Jim’s email was straightforward…want to come up and hunt? My reply took me about the same length it took for me to type…YES! The rest as they say is history.

I love hunting with Jim. Of all the guys I have hunted with through the years Jim would be in the top 5 for sure…he is quiet, competent, funny and one heck of a nice guy. We came to know each other about 12 years ago when he purchased a puppy from me. Through the years that pup, Murphy, turned out to be a great dog, but like all good things… Jim had to put Murphy down this past year and if you have ever experienced a great hunting dog, well, it is hard to get over…oh yeah…hunting without your good dog is never the same; truth is you just have to move on.

I met Jim at the McDonalds in Attica at 7:45am and by 8:30 we were loaded up and headed west from his cabin on the property. In tow was my three knucklehead German Shorthairs; Cedar, Royale and Macy. To say the trio was rusty would be an understatement as Cedar bumped the first 2 roosters before we had gone 200 yards! The good news is that they came back down within some of the gorgeous grass located from coast to coast on the farm and our next two points were picture perfect with all three pooches locked up…Jim took the first bird and I popped the second one with my 28 gauge.

Our next two hours was what hunting with a friend is all about; we moved more pheasants, each shot a second bird, we talked habitat and how great their work has been on the farm, shared family news (we both have growing kids), and most important…relaxed from  the daily grind that we both experience.

The second rooster that I shot was special as Cedar made up for his first inning bobbles by nailing a raucous rooster…I should say that he was drilled into the ground and his owner didn’t quite believe he actually had the bird pinned down…not until it busted upward, scolding the two of us. The brilliant red against a blue sky was….well, my favorite color! I hope that nature can give you your favorite color as we all Enjoy the Great Outdoors.