It is the Saturday before opening day; my husbandreaches into the closet, dusts off the gun cabinet and unlocksthe shotguns. He is carefully cleaning the stocks and barrelsand checking the actions when a very eager and excitedGolden races into the room alerted by the familiar “clickclick” sound of the actions. Even the 10-month-old pup is

wiggling harder then nor-mal and darts around likeshe knows what all thismeans. It won’t be today;only two more “sleeps.”

Wild pheasant hunt-ing (not banded orreleased birds) is a stead-fast yearly get together forour family and friends.2

The phone starts ringingearly in the fall to let usknow if they can makeopening day, which has

fallen on a Monday this year. It looks like we will have sixfamily members shooting, two dog handlers, three Golden

Retrievers (two 10-month-old pupsand one 5-year-old male that has abirthday today), plus our son’s 3-year-old black Lab.2 We will dearly miss ourold Golden girl this season; the mem-ories are overwhelming since we bothstarted this sport together, and it istough for me to hold back the tears. 3

Okay, it’s time to regroup thoughtsand start making the list of stuff weneed for the hunt and all the outdoorfeasts during and afterwards. Tomor-row we will drive to the local sportinggood store for the annual shopping

spree. Hunting licenses, shotgun shells, a new whistle lan-yard, sporting clays to shoot when it gets slow, maybe somenew hunting attire—it’s all on the checklist and after that tripis complete, then it is off to the grocery store to stock up withenough grub to feed eight hungry hunters and our four-leggedhunting buddies. Checking the weather, it looks surprisinglywarm and sunny for the season so we are planning outdoorlunch barbeques andcrock pot dinners.The menu willinclude the recentlyharvested pheasantand partridge forsupper on the secondevening.4 Havingthese delicious meals

together is just as important as the hunt itself, since it is whywe harvest the birds in the first place.

The night before opening day is busy packing for thethree-hour road trip to the south of the province deep inpheasant country, where we will find only wild roosters, par-tridge, antelope and many other wild critters not on our din-ner menu! Trying to remember everything and get a decentnight’s sleep doesn’t usually go hand in hand

Finally, it is really andtruly opening day; the alarmbells ring very early in themorning and the dogs some-how just know it is their bigday.5 Barely able to wolfdown their breakfasts, theyare bursting with excitement,so I try to settle them with aquiet walk and then loadthem into the truck. Off wego, just three more hours andthe birds will be flying.

After a breathtaking drive on a brisk frosty morning withbrilliant autumn colors and scenery that whisked our mindsaway from the daily race that we run, we arrive at a quaint,quiet, southern Alberta town and meet our family and friendsfor breakfast at a local haunt. The meal chatter is about yearspast, the dog stories, the bigones that got away,6 and thespectacular sunrise this morn-ing that gave a pink and pur-ple hue to recently snowtopped mountains. Thereshould be a fair number ofbirds this year. Maybe even asecond hatch since the springwas good to the baby pheas-ants by not freezing late orbeing too wet, and the coveris not sparse due to a drought. We all pile into three vehiclesand, with the land owner’s permission, are off to drive in afew grain fields that have been harvested for the season. Thefields are shimmering, sparkling shades of gold backed withwild rose bushes and thickets of cover in multiple autumncolors.7 Pheasants will be in these grain fields this morning

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Hunting BuddiesA Photo Essay Celebrating Pheasant Hunting in Alberta, Canada.

By Barb LoreeHunters/Editors: Terry Thornton & Kathy Miner

having theirbreakfast, too.

Our con-voy drives afew miles onlyseeing somecoyotes andmule deer atfirst; some ofwhat’s knownas pheasant

weed is blowing in the fields and playing mindgames with us, since it can really resemble abird bobbing for grain. Then just around thenext corner at the edge of the field, we spotthree or four roosters with brilliant full feather-ing. At the same time a covey of hens flushright beside the truck and the roosters start run-ning. We’re only out for the roosters; we wantthe girls to produce more of them next year.

After all the preparation, it is time for thehunt. Immediately on opening the car doors,two roosters flush early and land fairly close ina large thicket; the other two larger roostersalso flush, but set their wings and sights on thenext draw over half a mile away. These wildroosters grew up in the tough terrain of theriver draws with many predators, so they arespooky, smart and extremely fast (able to run atleast 20 miles per hour on the ground, and flymany miles to safety). We rarely have a chanceto get close to the larger 3- or 4-year-old birds.

I lift thetailgate to seetwo vibratingretrievers justbursting withanticipation.They launchout of the truckand, on verbalcommand, areoff to hunt thethick coverwhere the first

two roosters landed. One shooter goes to thetop of the draw to block the birds and the huntis now on in earnest.8 The dogs move out withintense purpose, noses to the ground, eyes andheads turning in every direction, oblivious toeverything but the job they love. Bird scent iseverywhere. The dogs easily burst through the

thickets andthe tails startwagging reallyhard, indicat-ing they arevery close.Immediately,one roostercackles andthen flushes,exploding

through the cover driven by the dogs behindhim. Then within seconds the other roosterflushes and both birds are brought down bythe skilled shooters. The Lab easily retrievesthe first bird shot and my male Golden ishard after the second one down the draw,that is wounded and running.9 Within a fewminutes he struts back to the top of the fieldwith his prize in his mouth. The color of themale pheasant glistening against theGolden’s coat is simply breathtaking.

By the morning’s end, we harvested fourmore roosters and six partridge that we spot-ted in the fields. Now our sights have turnedto the river draws, which can be miles longand hundreds of yards wide, thick withcover, thorns, burrs and hopefully, pheasant.Initially we look for smaller draws to bringthe young pups out for their first hunt of theday. Calling them back and forth theyquickly start to quarter naturally into thewind, and within minutes those tails startwagging instinctively indicating they are onbird scent.10 How do they know? Who whis-pers to them that the birds are in there, readyto be flushed and retrieved?11 You can trainfor eons with dogs and birds, but you can’tever re-create the excitement and difficultyof the actual hunt. But somehow they alwaysknow. They’ve been exposed to pheasants atpheasant farms and know birds live in cover,so they hit the cover hard to roost out theirprize.

This is tough cover – cover that you needdogs to push through – a human would sim-ply never make it. They both flush quite afew hens and look puzzled at the lack ofshooting for their work compared to theirpheasant farm encounters.12 About halfwayup the draw one pup starts to bark from themiddle of very thick cover and he won’tcome back to the calls or whistles. We allknow from experience when a hunting dogbarks they usually have encountered a crit-ter, so dressed in protective chaps I quicklyhead into the cover to locate the pup.Through the thick bush all I can see is ablack and white tail about three feet in frontof him which is not a good sign, since itmeans badger or skunk. We need to get thepup out of there fast. With big time encour-agement the pup turns to chase me andcomes safely out of the cover to my calls.13

We sensibly leave that area quickly and startworking the top of the draw when two roost-ers flush way ahead of the pups, but right infront of the blockers. Shots are fired so thepups instinctively run to the gunners andeasily spot one rooster that has been hit. Therace is on for the bird but being very polite,the boy lets the girl eagerly retrieve the flut-tering bunch of feathers,14 then she in returnshares a feather or two with her hunting

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partner. They are so playful, it is hard not to laugh at theirantics. They instinctively quarter, flush and retrieve,so theyabsolutely have earned every right to be our hunting buddiestoday.

The next draw weapproach looks familiar. Thesight and sounds take meback to last season and lastyear’s story about the “bigone” that almost got away. It was summer weather justlike today and my old girlwas battling cancer, yet herhunting passion kept hergoing.15 The shooters hadharvested six roosters and

two partridge from the draw so we were all on our way backto the trucks when pheasants started flushing everywhere outof one thicket. My girl was tired so we stayed in some shadeand rested while proudly watching our Golden boy trackdown a running rooster. As he approached me with the bird Inoticed a face full of porcupine quills and substantial bloodon the front of his thigh. Frantically I ran to his location whiledigging the needle nose pliers out of my pocket. It is almostunbelievable he stayed with his bird after being quilled and it definitely had been a runner since it was still kicking. After handing me the bird, he settled easily and never evenflinched while the quills were being pulled out. The blood onthe leg was from a huge thorn and once removed the woundclotted well and the dog started to relax.

We had fallen waybehind the rest of the hunterswhen shots echoed throughthe draw. I looked up to seemy husband watching a hugerooster set its wings, coastand fall into some heavycover below him. Our Labhad marked the fall, so Irelaxed with the Goldens,then cooled them down withsome water before we slowlyventured up the hill.16 When

we got close to the top, there was no bird and the Lab hadbeen badly spurred in the face (the roosters have large spurson their heels which they do not hesitate to use), so this bigpheasant was still very much alive and running. Time was ofthe essence but the dogs were all pretty tired. I hunted ourGolden male in the area of the fall trying to pick up the trail.The old girl was hot and heading downhill towards the riverbottom to have a cool down swim, or so I thought. Weworked and worked for close to one hour and to everyone’s

disappointment we had to give up, exhausted by the heat and cover and hating the idea of leaving awounded bird. As I turned tocall the dogs in, here camethe old girl Golden,17 climb-ing up the river draw, hold-ing her head high andproudly packing a very largerooster that was still alive

(she had been working the trail all this time). I ran back downthe hill to give her water and bag the bird which had 50 barson the tail feather and spurs that looked like talons. It was nowonder the young Lab decided against the retrieve; it took adog with experience to flip a fightingcock pheasant and grab hold by theback to finally bring him in. Whenwe got back to the trucks, I gave herthe bird to hold for a picture and sheproudly wiggled around everyonehappily, woo-wooing with herprize.18 She had a sparkle in her eyeand so did my husband, and in mymind, that sparkle will be in thisplace forever. Today we will walkthe mile to the bottom with all fourretrievers and challenge this drawagain, hoping for a safe hunt and thepromise of some prize roosters, withher memory in our back pockets.

A strong wind has picked up andall the dogs start quartering too farahead of the guns with the scent of running birds beingblown towards them. Our gunners try to keep up, but I knowwe are traveling way too fast and might very well miss a lot ofbirds. The dogs are intensewith the bird scent when onehuge pheasant flushes and theshots from three gunnersdoesn’t even flick a feathersince he was too far away.That big rooster is this year’s“one that got away” story. Hisharem of hens continues toflush as we work the draw. 19

Our Golden male finallychecks back and seems to beon another runner. He pointsto a bush, and the bush itselfseems to cackle, thenexplodes with a flushingrooster.19a My husbandreleases the safety, takes abreath and pulls the triggerslowly with the bird in sightflying uphill and away. It wasa tough shot and his patiencepays off. Our Golden in hotpursuit tries to fly over a ditchand ends up slamming hardinto the other side. I flinchwith worry but he quicklyrecovers and runs up the hilluninjured. The pups are alsoin hot pursuit, but they don’ttry to steal the bird; withrespect they watch and learnfrom the older male as hescampers down the hill with aspectacular rooster against acrisp blue sky.20 By the time we get to the top of the draw, thedogs have slowed their pace allowing us to harvest anotherfour roosters and both pups end up flushing and retrieving

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one of their own apiece.Stomachs are starting to rum-ble and the dogs are too hotto work another draw, so it istime for lunch.

We drive to a secret spoton the river, surrounded byfall colors and out crop rockformations, park right besidea small gurgling waterfalland take the dogs down-stream for a big swim.21

Time to fire up the barbeque, relax and have a feast, maybeeven a nap.

Feeling rejuvenated we make a plan for the afternoonhunt, deciding it is too hot to hunt the draws for pheasant, wewill sneak some mallard ducks instead. The lead truck identi-fies a flock of mallards a few hundred yards down the canal,so we all pull over and quietly open the doors, careful to notmake any loud sounds that will spook the ducks early. Wesneak into the grain field below the canal road and quietlywalk with the pups on leash just behind the guns, toward

where the mallards were lastspotted. The gunners try toanticipate where the duckswill be and start sneakingback up the hill a little fur-ther then they need to be.Once they crest the top ofthe road the ducks spook,take flight and a few shotsare fired from one gunnerwho is in range bringingdown two big mallards thatland in the canal. We sendthe pups on their very firstreal duck hunting retrieveand they both hit the waterhard in search of twowounded, but live ducks. Theboy pup easily retrieves onethat is flapping at him,22

while the girl is chasing aflapper that is headed downstream. She is within inchesof the duck, opens hermouth for the retrieve whenthe duck disappears divingunder the water. She stopsbriefly then continues swim-ming ahead when the duck

pops up right in front of her nose then dives under again.23

This time I see the ears go up—aha! So that’s how they dothat!— and under the water she goes after her bird coming upfor air with a wing in her mouth. The duck gets re grippedvery carefully when they reach the shore and she continuesto hold on pretty tight while proudly delivering her prize. Thenext time I let her out for a retrieve, she thought it would bemore fun to watch her hunting partner almost get the duckback to shore then sneak attack and pounce on him to tryand take it away. Again the pups made us laugh and through-out the afternoon we continued to hunt for mallards giving allthe dogs lots of retrieves. It was important one of our dogs

knew how to handle becausewe ended up with three blindretrieves and one was a swim-mer.24 The last blind was areally tough one, but ourGolden handled the anglewell, took straight casts acrossa road, canal, ditch, fence,another larger ditch where hehad to hold his line out of sightand then 150 yards straight outinto a cut grain field. What apleasure it was to work with allof these great retrievers andthey ended up with 12 big mallards.26 (This is a perfectnumber for our annual neigh-borhood spaghetti duck dinner)

Now that our hunting bud-dies are cooled off and feelingfrisky it is time to return to thefields for another pheasanthunt.

In the late afternoon the skylights up and colors dance offthe mountains making the grainfields shimmer again. The windhas died down to a whisperwhich holds promise that thepheasants will be making theirway further into the fields fortheir grain. At the very first turnwe flush a covey of partridgeand follow them deep into thefield. The pups are out to see ifthey can quarter a grain fieldand pick up the scent. Theirinstinct pays off; the covey isflushed and they each get adouble retrieve since five par-tridge went down in all differ-ent directions.26 The last birdmust be running, so our olderGolden is sent into the field tofind the bird. He ends up trail-ing for close to 15 minutes, butwe didn’t loose one partridge.With the sun slowly setting, wepass by a river bank that sendsme down memory lane again.It was two years ago that arooster I shot set its wings afterbeing hit and went hundreds ofyards flying over this high bankinto the river far below. Myyoung male Golden burst outof the cover in frantic pursuit.Fumbling, I got the whistles in my mouth, but he never evenglanced back at me.27 As a younger pup he always thought hecould fly, so my heart was in my stomach not knowing howhe would manage that steep bank. After what seemed like aneternity a hand came down on my shoulder and my friendsaid, “He navigated the bank with the ease of a mountain

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Hunting Buddies, continued

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goat, has his bird and is nowplaying in the river.” Finallymy lungs filled with airagain, but now we justneeded to find a spot tobring him back up that bank.We walked a half mile withthe Golden cavorting belowus in the river before wefound a spot low enough forhim to navigate back up,28

and he never once droppedhis bird the entire way.

The truck quickly stopsbringing my mind right backto today’s hunt for someroosters that were just spot-ted. The gunners easily hitthe flushing pheasants andthe puppies both get anothermarked retrieve, this time inthe grain field where I cantake pictures of them play-

fully running with their roosters.29 We end the day with twomore marked retrieves in the grain fields for the older dogsand that makes a total of 14 roosters, We have reached ourlicensed limit for pheasants on opening day. We drive back tothe hotel where we will have a picnic and tailgate supper, butfirst we take care of our hunting buddies. The dogs are fed,brushed, de-burred and checked over thoroughly forscratches or seeds in the paws; then we make sure to flushthe eyes with a gentle saline solution to get rid of any seedsor dust. With full bellies they are tucked away on comfortablewarm dry bedding for the night to dream of chasing pheas-ants tomorrow.

Then it is our turn to fill our bellies with savory crock potchili, hamburgers and three different types of salad. Oncecleaned up we all sit down to relax, pour glasses of red wineor warming cups of cocoa, talk about the ones that got away,tell dog stories and discuss some of their spectacularretrieves. And dream about tomorrow! 30

Photo credits: Barb Loree and Kathy Miner

Goldens pictured in the hunting photos include:“Jessie” – Can CH. Bojszasgold Jessie WCX; Can CD JH WCI

VCI (waiting at the bridge)Owner: Barb Loree, (Am-Can CH. Cherren’s On The Road Again

CD; Can CDX WCI OS ex Bojszasgold Goldpaw Dia Gypsy)

“Chase” – Rio’s Take The Money N Run SH TDX WCX;Can MH** TDX WCX VCI

Owner: Barb Loree & Terry Thornton (CH. Amigold On AWing N A Prayer CD MH*** WCX OS DDHF VCX ex

Goldenloch Ouachita Maiden)

“Lira” – Amigold Sky Hi It’s Only Money SH WCX Can MH WCXOwner: Terry Thornton (CH. Amigold On A Wing N A Prayer

CD MH*** WCX OS DDHF VCX exGoldenloch Ouachita Maiden)

“Likah” – Rio’s Likah Bird On A Wire WCOwner: Barb Loree & Cathie Hay (CH. Amigold On A Wing

N A Prayer CD MH*** WCX OS DDHF VCX exAmigold Dukes Takem JH WC)

“Edge” – Goldcker 1DrDog’s Next Pushover WCOwner: Kathy Miner, Lori & Brian Lancaster (Can Dual CH.-

AFTCH Firemark’s Push Comes To Shove*** ex Can CH.Goldcker’s What’s Next Can CD AGN AGIJ CGN VC

In memory of our first Golden hunting buddy (not pictured)“Janeiro” – Jenner’s Hi’River Queen

Owner: Dwight Loree (Can CH. Gold-Rush Meryl-T-ValentineCD OS SDHF ex Can CH. Redpepper Free Spirit)

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Hunting Buddies, continued