It’s well into the morning, one of the glorious ones, light breeze and a sunrise, about to toast the oats still clinging in the harvested fields. We’ve been here several hours, and the wait should be over soon, but it’s so stunning a morning we don’t care, just keep sipping our coffee.
At each end of the box blind we sit in, is perched a highly attentive golden retriever. Heads in constant motion, then when they in unison lock on with an unseen radar, we four look up.
Fair distant is a scraggly gray as if shredded wool could float, bedraggled and ragged it comes on, it edges closer, the guides start calling, flags get flapping and the flock must like what it sees as the great air traffic controller in the sky sends them in on their final approach.
The barrels go up, the birds come down, two dogs, working like dogs, they are highly trained and it shows, and far too fast we had the four legal limits with the sky unloading flock after flock.
And like all good things that have to end, it ended on a very high note, this little shoot, at the end, all your birds were cleaned, dressed and processed. A fellow could get used to that.
--The trout whisperer
