Family quail hunting
With younger children, both under 10, doing things as a family is usually limited in some ways. We will not give a dime of our money or a moment of our time to the likes of Disney so thankfully most theme parks are off the menu. We took them fishing In Alaska last year for the first time, a real roll of the dice, and the outcome was awesome. We try to fish locally when it works out and I am getting my daughter into fly fishing if at all possible but you cant avoid the normal stuff. My son is into legos, pirates and the normal boy stuff, my daughter has regular girl things she likes to do as well but I try to influence where I can.
We used to big game hunt (my wife and I) a lot together before children showed up, once they did, I was pretty much on my own from there on out which is where my dog hunting buddy came into play. He and I have hunted many a field, hillside, lake edge and bottom together and at 7, were fairly in tune with each other. We have to hunt public land mostly so although he is a pointing lab, there isn’t much pointing or holding going on as wild pressured birds have a tendency to run or flush when the dog gets anywhere near them. This means you run. Especially here in Idaho, if the dog starts looking birdy, you just flat run to where the dogs are and be ready to suddenly stop and shoot at any time. Bring comfortable boots and get ready to huff and puff.
Fast forward to yesterday when we decided to take the kids out with both hunting dogs for quail. Covid has been the stupidest blown out of proportion thing I’ve ever seen. It fully accomplished it’s goal of purposely screwing up an election, the economy and the most powerful and affluent society in the world thanks solely to the organized crime syndicate called “the media”. Another unintended consequence of this stupidity has been everyone being sedentary, with kids as no exception. With school out, parents don’t have the regimented PE at home that a PE teacher has at school. PE teachers are graded on children’s heath and their only job IS physical education. Like or hate public school, that part seems to at least anecdotally work. Kids wont work themselves as hard as a PE teacher will and most parents don’t push the issue whatsoever.
Needless to say, my kids are out of shape. Its not like I am the bastion of exercise and physical fitness but I try to get out and really work myself on the weekends. Quail hunting here in Idaho is grueling. These quail don’t have the good sense to live on flat ground where access is easy and the walking is nice and smooth, no, these little satanic birds like to live on steep hillsides and refuse to hold for my dogs,,,, or me. So flushes are usually wild and although they like to be on hard to walk/climb hillsides, there no telling which hillside they will actually be on.
The first covey was big and about 15 feet from the truck. Although my family daily lives with 2 hunting dogs, nobody seems to remember that they will quarter for birds in the living room if you say “bird” loud enough. We let the dogs out of the truck and were leisurely getting everyone’s gear together when the dogs flushed a covey of 20 birds no more than 15 feet from the truck. We would end up seeing maybe 2-3 of these birds later but they were in no way interested in holding for us in the slightest. 3 other family members learned the hard way, you don’t let the dogs out until your ready to go and the guns are loaded.
When I was the age of either of my kids, I could go for miles, because I did go for miles. We have tablets now a days, couches on which to stare at them on and that’s in essence what we do instead of walking dogs. Pain of any kind is considered bad, like sore legs, stretching lungs,,,,,, all pain is bad now a days. Wise up kids of 2020, pain is coming for the rest of your life. Run, lift, stretch, you’ll be glad you did later. The kids couldn’t keep pace with the dogs, which were keeping pace with the birds which meant we were nowhere near most of the birds when they flushed. I was a few times but as I needed people to help me spread out and pinch the birds in, I was relegated to watching bird flush way ahead of us.
All in all, not a bad day for a gang that had 3 inexperienced out of shape hunters and only one aging experienced hunter with 1 experienced dog and one immature one. Everyone seemed to have a good time and we got a bird in hand. You cant hardly beat that. Sure, Id have loved to had half a limit of quail but everyone got to see birds, see the dogs work and even hold a bird so it was a success.
Got over the frustration of the fact that your kids (and if your lucky like me, your wife hunts) and wife may not be on par with your old hunting buddies afield but your BUILDING not just the next generation of hunters, but as well, your hunting buddies that will help you get out one last time when your probably too old to get out.
