Many years ago I read a poem, by an anonymous author and published in a national magazine, that I committed to memory, and which I concluded must have been written about some November or other.

Into the skies cold emptiness
Suddenly now is thrust
The clangorous tongueing of iron bells
Throats half stopped with rust

Pity him who has never seen
The wild geese flying high
Nor heard their rusty iron chorus
Thrill the autumn sky

One bleak November day, I tried to present a word picture of November in Wiscconsin:
Dawns come dark and dreary
The sky is sullen and low
The wind cuts faces like a knife
And swirls the early flakes of snow.

The trees stand as stark sentinels
Weed pods and cattails are blowing apart
Along fence lines and near marshes,
As seeds are scattered for a new start
Ponds and marshes begin to freeze
On our walks the fallen leaves rustle by
And cries of migrating Canada geese
Fill the cloudy nighttime sky

The icy fingers of winter will soon
Reach out to grip the barren land
And hold it in white silence
Until spring is at hand

Nature’s plants and some creatures
Prepare for a long quiet sleep
To escape the cold of winter
With its silence white and deep

The bare and gray November days
Hold us in dark and somber mire
But we can stave off the late fall chill
With a crackling, cheery wood fire.

The deer hunting season begins in Wisconsin the third weekend of November, and is probably the single biggest outdoor event of the year. In some years deer hunters have bought between 600,000 and 700,000 deer hunting licenses. Some bird hunters are purists to that sport and do not hunt big game, but many hunt deer also. I have hunted deer off and on over the years and enjoy participating. But my first love is walking after birds with a good dog. Years ago I learned that as deer season approaches, those bird hunters who also hunt deer, leave the fields and marshes holding birds to spend a weekend or two preparing deer camps, scouting for stands and sighting in rifles. On many of the days within a week or two before deer season opens, a bird hunter can be alone in the fields. It can be like owning your own private land.

The second Sunday afternoon of November, 1989 was a cloudy, cool day I still remember well. Megs and I drove to hunt the Lodi marsh area. With the diversion of pro football,
and preparation by many hunters for the deer season, I expected solitude that afternoon. However, contrary to our expectations, as we drove into a parking area, five hunters with two black labs and a golden retriever slowly worked through some high, weedy cover toward their cars. They exchanged greetings with me and Megs, saying there were no birds in the area. Then they unpacked a late lunch and opened refreshments.

So I was resigned to a pleasant two-hour walk through the cover and didn’t bother to load my shotgun as we left the parking area. About five minutes into the weedy cover, Megs became birdy and soon her bell stopped. She was on point. A nervous rooster exploded from the dense cover. I tracked the bird with my gun, but realized it wasn’t loaded. It is always distressing to miss a good shot, or not get one off, especially when the bird is likely to be the only one in a heavily hunted area. Megs, as she usually did when I miss a bird, stood with a look that seemed to say “how could you do that especially when my expert work gave you such an easy shot.”

I was not happy with myself for violating one of my rules-always load your gun.

I corrected that and within a few more minutes Megs pointed a second rooster. This one flushed in range and fell to a load of number fives. I decided to continue to walk for at least another hour. After only five minutes more of slow hunting, Megs was on point again. This bird decided to run and Megs and I hurried in pursuit, with her moving in a stalk and me at a fast walk, through the heavy cover. The rooster flushed at about 40 yards climbing rapidly, almost out of range, but a hasty shot was on target and I had filled my limit of two roosters. This second rooster fell in a particularly dense area so it took some minutes for Megs to locate it and point it again, and I was finally able to pick it up.

We had been hunting for less than 20 minutes, had flushed three birds and bagged two, from a heavily hunted area. Needless to say I was proud of the dog. Later the thought came to me that the five hunters had driven birds in front of their line but as they came to the end of the field approaching the parking lot and road, the roosters must have doubled back but their dogs missed them.

When I returned to my car to empty my vest of the two roosters, the five hunters were still in the parking area finishing lunch. They had witnessed the whole show. They were a quiet group while I put the birds in my truck, praising my dog. Locating birds, as she did that day, was not unusual for Megs, and neither was my pride in her.

Megs and I returned to the field for another hour just to complete our walk and we had most enjoyable hike.

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