A trip like this requires lots of gear. Packing for Megs includes her kennel, containers of food, water bottles, food and water dishes, leashes, bells, whistles and her blanket. We had our regular clothing, hunting gear, shells, extra shotguns and rain gear, since rain had been forecast for Saturday. We stopped in Northeastern, Iowa at a small town for lunch at a farm café. I had been warned that for $5 you could eat a gourmet meal with roast pork, potatoes, gravy, vegetables and homemade pie. The warning was correct and I found that the one meal could last a person several days.

By mid afternoon on Friday, we checked into our motel at the edge of Marshalltown, and met the rest of our party. The motel had no vacancies, and without reservations made months in advance, there would be no place to stay. Most occupants were hunters and their dogs. There seemed to be as many, or more, dogs as there are people at the motel. The air was filled with excitement. Opening weekend for pheasants in Iowa seemed to me to be like a state holiday. Vehicles in the parking lot showed plates from Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and several other states.

Our group met for dinner on Friday night at a popular local restaurant. We all gained or renewed acquaintances and heard stories of past hunts. After dinner and some more time reminiscing, most of our group opted for an early bedtime. Our dogs were in the motel rooms with us.

Saturday, unfortunately, dawned to a cold, steady rain that lasted most of the day. The pheasants held tight in cover and the dogs had difficulty due to the lack of scent from moving birds. By noon we were getting soaked. Even with rain gear, water ran down our necks and seemed to gradually creep up under our rain pants. Out feet were getting cold and wet. We hunted several different farms and concentrated on the heavy cover in drainage ditches and CRP land. Megs did locate and point several birds. One bird I shot fell into heavy cover near a ditch, but ran off and couldn’t be located due to the rain and wet cover. When the day ended there were only a few birds in our bag, far less than expectations for opening weekend in Iowa. We read that in the previous season, hunters had harvested an estimated 1.5 million birds in the state and those of our group making that trip in 1996 did well.

Saturday was designated Iowa steak night by our group. After soaking in the hot tub and a cocktail hour at the motel, we met at a famous nearby broil-your-own steakhouse. The dinner was excellent and we again retired early, hoping for better conditions on Sunday. Again, everyone has a dog in the room, and in some rooms they have two.

Later in the evening the rain turned to snow, but we thought a little snow would help the hunting. We awoke in the morning to a world of white. A major snowstorm had moved from Colorado, through Nebraska and into Iowa. There were over five inches on the ground and it was still snowing hard. The snow continued much of the day and there was wind and drifting. Driving was hazardous as roads were snow covered and slippery. A few hunters ventured out, with only limited success. Megs and I hunted a field near the motel for a while without seeing a bird. Most hunters spent the afternoon watching football. Megs enjoyed lying on the bed eating cheese curls while we watched a game. I am sure she would much rather have been out pursuing pheasants. The snowfall accumulated to about 10 inches.

Monday morning dawned clear with a bright sun on the new white snow. Many roads had been plowed and hunters made plans for the day. I still have the The Des Moines Iowa Register for Monday, October 27, 1997. The headlines read:

FIRST SNOW WALLOPS IOWA
IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY BOMBED THE PLACE
Electricity is out for at least 100,000 homes. Some may be
without power for days.

After a hearty breakfast of eggs, toast and sausage, we ventured out to one of the farms we planned to hunt. The temperature was about 26 degrees, with little wind. The sky was clear and the day brilliant.. Sun on the snow-covered landscape made it seem like a mid-winter day. Our hunt began with a drive down a ditch bordered by a tree line. We soon realized that the pheasants had hunkered down in the thick grass at the edges of the ditch, completely buried in snow. Megs could scent the pheasants under the snow and pointed bird after bird as we hunted down the ditch. All of our group were good shots and everyone had a chance to flush and shoot the pointed birds.

Megs was in great form that morning. We have two labs with us, but Megs found most of the birds. It is her kind of day.

We moved on and hunted a small patch of woods and along another ditch, which held ice
covered pools of water, and was bordered by trees. There were more pheasants in this area. Megs pointed a snow covered brush pile and I climbed the pile and flushed two roosters. One fell to my load of number 5’s and the other to my friends’ gun.

The morning is a superb hunt. It is bright and cold, but with little wind.
The five of us who stayed for the Monday morning hunt had our limit of 15 roosters by noon. After cleaning the pheasants and a quick lunch we were on our way back to our homes near Madison, Wisconsin. The total number of birds in our coolers was less than expected due to the adverse weather on Saturday and Sunday. But the trip was a real adventure, and I doubt any of us will forget it.

On another Iowa trip Megs demonstrated her bird locating ability again. I remember a wounded rooster glided onto a large field of corn stubble. The hunter from our group who had winged the bird scoured the area with his Golden Retriever without finding it. The corn had been cut close to the ground and there were few areas of cover for a bird. I then took Megs through the area and she soon caught scent and ran over the field quite a distance before slamming on point by a small tangle of weeds and corn stubble. I walked up in front of the point and the bird ran off, but was soon caught and held by Megs. I picked up the rooster and gave it to the shooter, who had watched Megs’ performance and accepted the bird with no comment.

This incident was repeated later along a drainage ditch when Megs pointed a wounded bird in heavy grass. Even after several of us tramped the area, she held point and finally I caught the bird in thick grass and weeds right under her nose. My dog could certainly find birds if they were around.

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