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Sundown Roosters
- University of Wisconsin Press
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204 Sun down Roost ers I f I had to choose one hour of the day to hunt pheas ants with a dog, I’d take the last hour. Birds are ac tive then—fill ing their crops, pick ing grit, and mov ing to ward roost ing areas where they’ll set tle in for the night. As the air cools, scent ing con di tions are often the best they’ve been all day. The air takes on a heavier, al most pal pa ble feel. Some times it al most seems like I can smell the birds my self. Besides, it’s a beau ti ful time to be afield. The light sof tens and the au tumn sky ig nites in shades of orange, pink, or lav en der as the sun drops to ward the ho ri zon. Best of all, I don’t have much com pe ti tion. Many hunt ers have al ready filled their lim its. Oth ers have re tired to camp or motel for a cold beer and a hot din ner. And some are just plain tuck ered out and have packed it in for the day. So it’s just me and my dog out there, locked in a sun down chess match with a wily rooster. Does that mean I’ll pass up a morn ing limit of pheas ants if given the chance? Nope. I’m not crazy. Pheas ant hunt ing can be fickle, and 205 Sundown Roosters wise hunt ers take the op por tu nities as they come. But early in the sea son if the weather is warm I’d rather hunt for a few hours in the morn ing, rest dur ing the mid dle of the day, and ven ture out again in the cool of the eve ning. Later in the sea son, I often don’t have a choice. Days are shorter and pheas ants harder to come by. Late after noon often finds me lack ing a bird or two of a three-bird limit. Such was the case one No vem ber when Buck Ma cLau rin, Joe El li ott, and I pon dered our chances of find ing a late-day rooster in a north ern Mon tana Con ser va tion Re serve field. We had hunted most of the day with pre cious lit tle to show for it. We hadn’t hunted this field be fore so we took off with our dogs in dif fer ent di rec tions to scout it out. I hadn’t gone far when I started see ing pheas ant roosts in the heavy grass and al falfa under growth. But after comb ing the field for an hour with my Brit tany, Ollie, it be came clear the birds sim ply weren’t there. The weather had been un sea son ably mild, there was no snow, and plenty of hunt ers had worked the area. Foot sore and dis cou raged, I re turned to the truck, swapped my hunt ing boots for sneak ers, and sat on the tail gate with Ollie while I waited for Buck and Joe. As the sun moved closer to the ho ri zon, a rooster crowed sev eral hun dred yards away on the far side of a hill. Ollie perked up his ears. Then an other rooster an swered. Trou ble is, these birds weren’t in the Con ser va tion Re serve tract—they were in the mid dle of a big wheat stub ble field that ex tended east for a half-mile. That solved the mys tery of why I hadn’t found birds in the Con ser va tion Re serve— the warm weather had al lowed them to hang out in the stub ble where [44.197.114.92] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:35 GMT) 206 People and Places they could see and hear hunt ers ap proach ing from any di rec tion. They were dar ing me to put my boots on and come after them. So I re luc tantly obliged, fig ur ing the thin cover would make it a fu tile ef fort. I walked into the stub ble and re leased Ollie, who raced to the top of the hill a hun dred yards ahead, look ing for Loud mouth No. 1. By the time I trudged up there, Ollie...