As 2024 winds down it’s time to reflect on the year and the outdoor moments that made it special.
Topping my list was a successful 2023-24 hunting season. It was successful not in the number of birds killed or exotic locales hunted. Instead, the season of a year ago was special because I learned that, at least for now, I’d be able to hunt mostly as I did in the past before I broke my ankle in 2022.
My first broken bone put a scare in me. I spent the summer in rehab and the 2022-23 hunting season was the first in which I was happy to limit myself to the flat expanses of the Great Plains.
Last hunting season I was much more mobile, and by January of this year I was ready to hunt in a state that offers elevation. The quail hunting in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains was only fair, but when it came time to trek uphill I realized I was almost good as new.
The next milestone came in the spring when the carp frenzy broke at a favorite fishing hole. Topping the list was a healthy 10 pounder that I watched sip my mulberry fly from the pond’s surface.
Good fishing continued on a fabulous week on the North Fork Tongue River in the Big Horn Mountains just south of the Montana border. This stream was a favorite of mine when I lived in Wyoming and has remained so since I became a visitor. I believe the Elk Fire raged downstream of my preferred stretch of this dry fly paradise, so I plan to give it a go again in 2025.
And maybe best of all was the maturation of my 4-year-old English setter, Jade. It hasn’t been as busy a season as I’d hoped, but buying a house and moving is a months-long distraction. We’ve settled into the new joint, however, and the pup and I are now getting our time in.
We had a great day recently. After flushing a covey in a red cedar windbreak, the two of us went hunting singles. She nailed one right at the corner of the break, where the row of trees zagged west. Jade locked up on a lone bird hidden in a tuft of grass. I hit it with a quick shot as it winged for the trees.
We got No. 2 a short time later. I watched as the quail settled in some big bluestem. Three or four birds. Finding them would be impossible without the power of Jade’s nose.
On the ground was a thick thatch of dead grass. You’d have to dig quite a ways down to find dirt. The tallest of the grass was more than a foot over my head.
In that mess Jade went on point. I walked to her, right at the spot she was pointing. She adjusted her slightly. I stomped around a bit more and she repositioned her point again, this time forcing her nose into the heavy thatch with an intensity that screamed, “It’s right here!”
I stepped in and the bird flushed.
Jade rose up after the quail so I delayed mounting my gun. Once she was out of the way I had time to square on the bird, flying barely above the grass.
The extra time allowed my pattern to spread a little wider and find the fleeing quail. The bird fell nicely, into that thatch. I never would have found it, but it took Jade’s nose all of two second to get back on the bird and pull it out of the grass.
We’re headed back to California in January. Quail numbers are higher this year. Assuming I dial in a few more birds, Jade will find the retrieval simpler on those bare desert slopes.
It seems the ankle will get me there just fine.