Hunting Rookie

So this year made our annual trip over to Colfax for the fun and frolics which is Opening Weekend of Pheasant Hunting Season - but this time we had the added excitement of bringing our own rookie bird dog, Fergus! As Cortez always says, 'It's all about the dogs' - and giving them the opportunity to do what they were born to do. I think it's a great sacrifice those boys make for their dogs - after all it's a pretty grueling weekend of firing guns, drinking beer, eating good food and tromping about the countryside - selflessness, pure selflessness ;-)
It was almost a full complement this year, (absence of the newlywed Leighs notwithstanding - honeymooning in Fiji is a pretty good excuse in my book!) with 8 hunters and 5 dogs (plus Sydney who was representing the Leigh household!). In addition, Heidi took advantage of her post-Masters free time and made it over this year, as well as Wendy and the boys (Blake wins the youngest participant prize yet again!) and Jenni and Baby Bump Lothbright (future hunter I'm sure!). Jenni and I joined the boys on Sunday morning to check out the progress of Gunther and Fergus and get some of the fresh Whitman County air. As it turns out the air was more muggy than fresh and by the end of the morning we had halved our number of layers and doubled our thirst!
In the end the rookie had a good first outing; he flushed a bird on the first morning (nobody mention beginners luck!) and did a good job of staying close to his Dad. His stamina needs a little work (but then again so does his mum's!) but it made for a very docile hound for the remainder of the week!