High-Plains Roosters

Feathers flew, accentuating the report of the shot. But they were only tailfeathers, and by the time I realized I’d done nothing but hasten the bird’s departure my left barrel offered only a salute to his escape.
Fortunately, the sound of my futility stirred another rooster into the air and Steve Goldthwaite, walking 30 yards to my right, brought it sharply to earth. Moments later a handsome, bouncing English springer arrived to search for the single downed pheasant while I was left to seek an excuse.
My two time-honored favorites would not do. The sun was at my back, not in my eyes, and on the unobstructed high plains of southwest Kansas, where the sky stretches forever, I sure as heck couldn’t claim that a tree got in my way.
A short self-examination revealed the truth: I had been daydreaming, unready and slow to react. Even worse, my inattention revealed a touch of overconfidence. I thought I had known a thing or three about pheasants, but never had I hunted cover like that in which I was standing, cover I mistakenly had presumed offered scant chance of being productive.
Thankfully, I had four days ahead to enjoy new country and to hunt behind fine dogs that would give me plenty of opportunities to regain faith in the battered L.C. Smith I was carrying. Better yet, I also had Craney Hill Kennel’s Todd Agnew, one of the top flushing-dog trainers in the country, to teach me about chasing ringneck roosters across the harsh, arid land he has sought out as the most challenging grounds on which to train his talented pupils.
Before meeting Todd, most of my pheasant hunting experience had been garnered on annual visits to the wheat country lying hard against the Canadian border. The windbreaks, brushy draws and cattail sloughs there had for 20 years offered cover my dogs and I could understand. The pheasant population where we ordinarily hunted was seldom large, but shooting a few early season roosters over a point had always seemed fairly easy compared to the ruffed grouse we chased close to home in the southern Appalachians. Easy pickings, too, compared to the much more numerous birds of southwest Kansas, as I was to learn.
To begin with, Todd and his partner at Craney Hills Kennel, Christina Nelson, aren’t interested in the easy, uneducated birds of early fall. They are dog trainers and folks with very high standards for their flushing Labs and English springers. Todd’s and Christina’s focus is on hunting dogs. They want their charges to work to find birds and to learn their craft on truly wild quarry. To achieve this, they demand tough competition. After years of guiding hunts throughout the Pheasant Belt, they found what they’d been looking for on 13,000 acres in southwest Kansas.
The bird that offered me my first opportunity flushed from cover I foolishly thought too thin. The patch of untended land adjacent to a harvested field of irrigated corn had reverted to its natural state of shortgrass prairie, which modern ecologists refer to as “steppe” and define as “being distinguished by grasses shorter than three feet tall with many woody plants and much bare soil.”
I think it was the “much bare soil” that led to my too-casual approach, and I vowed to be more alert after that. Once my eyes were opened to the challenges of the dry country, I began to realize that although there were a heckuva lot of pheasants around, there were also plenty of places for them to hide, not all of which were readily apparent to a newcomer. I also discovered that putting those birds to flight in range and then bringing a brace or so to earth was not as easy as taking a limit of young roosters who imagine they can escape detection by hiding in a clump of cattails 20 yards ahead of a pointing Brittany. For me, Kansas pheasants and Todd’s flushing dogs provided an exciting new game.

My companions for the first two days were a group of old friends that included Steve Goldthwaite and Andrew Platt, of Mendham, New Jersey; Steve’s brother, Carlton, of Raleigh, North Carolina; and two of the veterans’ slightly younger protégés. These gracious, high-spirited gentlemen already had benefited from a day of exposure to Todd’s skills as a field general before I arrived and joined them. In addition to appreciating their outgoing good humor and excellent attitudes, I learned quickly that these guys were not afraid to take a difficult shot and that their abilities were, as often as not, equal to the task.
Although I’ve never been able to say it myself, one of the first things Todd explained was that he considered a 40-yard opportunity a “gimme.” “We’re not going to be hunting food plots,” he said. “And we don’t drive and block. That doesn’t work here. There are too many places for the birds to slip out. And even if it did work, I wouldn’t do it. We hunt in a way that maximizes the effectiveness of the dog, and we do it on truly wild pheasants. What we do may not be for everybody. The ‘bird fairy’ doesn’t show up here twice a week and miraculously repopulate a field with roosters. I train dogs for real hunting. I want them to hunt real pheasants. And I want to take those birds on their own turf.”
Todd Agnew is a genial, personable fellow, but he is very serious about his training methods, his dogs’ performances and his approach to hunting. I found his attitude—and his words—impressive. I also discovered that he is quite able to back them up.
The dozen or so Labs and springers I hunted behind in Kansas were all happy, hardworking animals so beautifully trained that they required almost no handling. As a fancier of pointing breeds, I teased Todd a bit about the relative merits of the two styles, but in truth I quickly became an admirer of his flushers, particularly the bouncing springers. The more I watched them and the more I learned, the more I appreciated the work they did.
Southwest Kansas is tough country for a dog. The prickly pear, pigweed, rabbitbrush, snakeweed and damnable sandspurs are obvious impediments, but a dog with desire and experience learns to overcome those obstacles. According to my guide, the hardest thing for the dogs is not the ground on which they run, but the scenting conditions they must deal with. And it seemed to me that that was where the springers shown most brightly.
The high plains of Kansas lie in what scientists refer to as a semi-arid region. Average precipitation is less than 18 inches a year, and most of that occurs in the summer. Snow normally is sparse, and the little that falls is usually blown off the fields by the wind, leaving the ground bare. This is a good thing for hunters planning trips, but the low humidity and lack of moisture in the soil create a challenging situation for dogs—a situation compounded by very thin cover at ground level. There’s just not a lot of vegetation for a moving rooster to brush against, and the sandy soil that reveals thousands of three-toed tracks to the hunter’s eye is not similarly useful to a dog using its nose.
These scenting conditions, Todd told me, are the main reason his flushers are more effective than pointing breeds and why he uses them the way he does.
“The dog doesn’t always have to track an individual scent trail to put a bird in the air,” he said. “What I want is for the dog to put ‘pressure’ on the birds. This country is so dry we can’t help but make noise as we walk through it, so the birds know they’re being hunted by something. But with the dog quartering in front of the guns, the rooster, who would of course rather run than fly, gets nervous—unsure of where the threat is coming from—and that forces him into the air. And that’s when you kill him!”
For the first two days of my visit my fellow hunters handled the large majority of that chore, and they performed admirably. Cheerful and attentive through the occasional slow spell, they were always ready with ounce-and-a-quarter loads of nickel-plated No. 5s when the action heated up.
Their efforts were rewarded with feathers and meat and spent shells and a fine finish when, on the last leg of their hunt, Steve’s young Welsh springer—a dog that Todd had trained—sent 50 pheasants aloft from a corner where standing milo bridged a harvested cornfield to an ocean of CRP grass. Four guns spoke, and the dog retrieved four wild roosters. 
At the lodge that evening, kicked back in comfortable leather chairs beneath the tall ceiling of the great room, the toasts my new friends offered to their three-day adventure may have lasted a tad longer than was wise, but they proved themselves to be veteran travelers as well as hunters. When I stepped out of my cabin before daylight the next morning, they were gone, off to an airport and then to scatter to their respective destinations. I bet they traveled tired and happy.

With his next group of guests not scheduled to arrive until late afternoon, Todd, who welcomes guests’ dogs but declines to involve himself with the pointing types, suggested that Roscoe, my four-year-old Brittany, and I take the day to amuse ourselves. I happily assented, as the dog needed the exercise and I was eager to see if he could handle the challenge of new—and very different—surroundings.
The answer turned out to be “sort of.” I put boots on my dog and recruited photographer Terry Allen for a morning swing, hunting a few corners of weeds near a circular, center-pivot irrigated cornfield. Roscoe nailed points on several tight-sitting hens and one foolish rooster that flushed well in front before challenging Terry by attempting to fly back over our heads. The result was a fine shot and an easy retrieve for the dog.
That afternoon, with Mr. Allen occupied in his trade, Roscoe and I tried our luck again. Luck we needed, for Roscoe’s skills proved difficult to utilize on the bone-dry ground we were hunting. With the morning’s faint trace of moisture long gone, my dog struggled. Most of the scent Roscoe picked up disappeared quickly, leaving the dog discouraged and much less enthusiastic than usual. Though we managed to take another bird, it was only because the rooster had taken cover in an isolated patch of weeds we happened to walk by.

The last day turned out to be one I will long remember. The combination of people, dogs, birds and shooting were all I could ask for.
I was privileged to hunt with Dale Brett, of Omaha, Nebraska, a smiling, 76-year-old retired surgeon. Dale had his young springer, Jill, a product of Craney Hill Kennel, and Todd brought along Jill’s mother, Lil.
We traveled several miles from the lodge, chatting and drinking coffee, before pulling onto a two-track that cut into a huge block of CRP grass. Three hundred yards later we stopped on a slight rise, the closest thing to a hill that that part of Kansas offers.
The sun was coming up behind us. Ahead I could see pheasants moving, taking short flights and settling back into acres of bluestem and sage surrounding a harvested cornfield.
Jill was the first dog out. Her excitement and that of her master was a fine, poignant thing to see, although the dog’s enthusiasm proved a touch more than Dale could control as she began ranging a bit too far ahead of the guns.
Todd’s handling suggestion was small and surprisingly simple. It was also beautifully correct and wonderfully effective. Our guide signaled us to quit walking and asked Dale to refrain from using his whistle. In less than a minute the 17-month-old dog, which had been too wound up to heed the instructions of her master, came in, obviously seeking direction and the comfort zone provided by closer proximity to “the boss.” With no fuss or hollering and without using the e-collar the dog wore, Dale was able to regain the dog’s full attention and easily establish proper range.
When we started out again, the dog quartering brightly ahead, I realized that I had witnessed an ideal situation for all concerned. Dale had had the benefit of a highly skilled professional trainer, one who had worked with his dog before, while Todd and Christina, like proud teachers, had been able to see a favorite client along with one of their kennel’s products take on the real world. And the dog was hunting wild pheasants, with her reward of warm feathers only a short distance away.
We worked through an almost imperceptible swale before approaching the harvested field, where several dozen pheasants found themselves trapped between the stubble ahead and the bouncing dog behind.
The pressure provided by Jill put them to flight. The work of Dale’s 12-gauge Caesar Guerini and my old Smith brought a pair of roosters to earth, allowing an ecstatic Jill to deliver a present to her partner—a present that made the man as proud as the dog, maybe more so.
As we turned and swept the prairie in an arc that would lead us back to the truck, it seemed that everywhere I looked there was a bird in the air. Some set their wings and glided, almost out of sight, before landing. Others settled back into the grass, keeping us alert and hopeful that they might make the mistake of flushing within range.
By that time I’d learned enough about springers to read a little of their amazing energy, so I wasn’t surprised to hear Todd say, “Be ready! Be ready!” when Jill picked up her pace where the cover narrowed between the farm trail and a fallow field.
From around our feet three hens flew, one after the other, and for a moment it seemed the flop-eared youngster’s work was over. But Jill didn’t quit, and from the last tangle of rabbitbrush and pigweed a fine, long-tailed rooster broke for the clear sky.
Twenty yards above us the bird hesitated before turning hard downwind. I raised my gun but did not shoot. Dale’s dog had worked the bird beautifully, and as someone who understands the pleasure of shooting over your own four-legged partner, I wanted badly for Dale to take the shot.
I watched the bird over the barrels of my gun, and when I heard the shot and saw the shimmer of copper and gold captured from the sky, I was glad that I had not pulled the trigger. The rooster, with its hard, shiny black spurs, was delivered by a happy dog to a man who couldn’t have been more pleased with their teamwork. And rightfully so.
With Jill watered, praised, photographed, petted and kenneled in her box on the truck, her mother, Lil, was brought forth to complete the morning.
Todd had explained earlier that Lil no longer exhibited the “flash” so highly valued by trialers of her breed. But at five years of age and having had the benefit of Todd’s tutelage along with thousands of bird contacts, Lil was my favorite of his string.
We put up more pheasants that morning, a lot more. And with each flush the dog plopped her little butt on the ground and stirred the soil with a tail that spoke of joy and excitement. Guns fired. Feathers flew. Lil marked and retrieved the falls, never mentioning the birds that got away. How could I not love a girl like that?

That afternoon I took Roscoe for a quick swing, taking one more rooster before returning to the lodge to organize my gear, clean my gun and pack for the long drive back to North Carolina. Preparations for leaving provoked a thoughtful mood, and I relished the opportunity to reflect on my experience.
The dogs I had walked behind were wonderful animals. My hosts were entertaining and knowledgeable—certainly more knowledgeable about flushing dogs than I was able to completely appreciate, but I enjoyed their insights immensely.
My companions had been gracious and affable. The birds had been wild, with all that entails, and my accommodations perfect. The lodge Todd uses is brand new, comfortable and spacious, and it offers excellent food in an atmosphere that is enjoyably unpretentious.
That night I, like my fellow guests of earlier in the week, enjoyed the conversation and camaraderie for a little longer than I had planned. But when my dog and I pulled out at dawn the next day, my thoughts were clear. I was wishing I could stay a little longer. Maybe I’ll get a chance to go back. I hope so.

Author’s Note: For more information on hunting wild pheasants in Kansas, contact Todd Agnew or Christina Nelson at Craney Hill Kennel, 815-358-2006; www.spanielsandlabs.com.

Tred Slough (aka Robert Holthouser) is a carpenter and freelance writer in Surry County, North Carolina. He is the author of the book A High, Lonesome Call, published by Countrysport Press. For more information, visit the SSM Store at www.shootingsportsman.com.