Road Trip Time!
On a recent bird hunting road trip (yes, Mike was driving the truck in case you were wondering), I passed through South Dakota. It’s a great state with more ring-necked pheasants living there than people. WOW! There is also South Dakota’s Governor Kristi Noem, who hunts birds. Someday I would like to hunt with her.
Back to what I discovered in South Dakota. First, you can hunt, shoot and eat the state bird — the ring-necked pheasant. Wow, I like hunting pheasants, and I like eating them more than hunting them, so maybe I will move to the Mount Rushmore State. I’m researching now if any other state offers this benefit of eating the state bird. Always a top reason to live there in my book — and my cookbook!
Second, I discovered Mitchell, South Dakota has the one and only Corn Palace. This community center has artistic works made of kernels of corn applied to the exterior walls — yes, painting with corn kernels and glue. Guess there is not a lot of excitement in South Dakota, har har. The Corn Palace scenes are changed each year, and obviously this is America’s largest bird feeder. Thus, I saw huge dark clouds of pigeons flying overhead and my whining (I mean, encouraging) was for Mike to pull out his shotgun. I was fully ready to fetch downed pigeons. Mike, however, reported we can’t hunt in downtown Mitchell. You hoomans and your rules, LOL. Put out the corn and the birds will arrive, including pigeons. That’s a rule!
Now for an update on my research. I discovered several states where the recognized state bird winds up on the dinner plate: Pennsylvania has the ruffed grouse, California has the California quail and Alaska has the willow ptarmigan as state birds. All are hunted and eaten. Maybe it’s time for more hunting road trips. I also discovered that Alabama, Oklahoma and South Carolina have the wild turkey as the state game bird and Tennessee, Georgia and Missouri have the bobwhite quail as their state game birds. Load the truck, it’s time to road trip, hunt and eat some state birds!—Cameron
Try to imagine yourself hunting along the woods road on a clear October day. Your little Brittany spaniel is hunting the cover flawlessly and close. She locks upon a grouse. You know immediately that it’s a grouse because your dog never does anything wrong. You flush the bird and mark it cleanly with a remarkable shot through the dense strands of thick pines. And your dog retrieves the bird flawlessly as usual. Right?
Dream on, friend. All too often, your dog ranges too far, breaks point, and flushes birds out of range. And when you are lucky enough to get a shot at a bird, you miss. And finally, we all know that there is unfortunately no such thing as a flawless retrieve. But we still love our dogs and our bird hunting. The stories collected here are about hunters, their dogs, and the upland game and fowls that they hunt together. These are tales of remarkable shots and unexplainable misses. In this collection you’ll read about good gun dogs and heart-breaking hounds but never about bad dogs, as every true hunter knows that there is no such animal. Savor all these stories and then take your hound hunting. Buy Now
