At this time of year, I always wonder when I’ll get my last woodcock point of the year. Which dog will be the one to lock up on the point that will carry us all over until next Opening Day…

It was a long way to the end of the fencerow, and plantar fasciitis was killing me. Each step felt like a spear was being jammed into the bottom of my heel; and to avoid the torture, I cut each step short, trying not to stretch my Achilles’ tendon. Hopping along like a lame chicken, I remembered Ruth’s words the night before: “You must have some sort of insanity, going hunting where you have to walk for miles on rough ground, when you can’t even put your foot flat and walk to the kitchen.”

In my early days, during bird season I’d hunt an old spur-line railroad while walking to school. Bobwhite quail were the only native upland gamebirds to hunt in northern Illinois, and a flush of quail didn’t come often. But that didn’t stop me from pursuing them with Mike, an untrained springer spaniel, even though the quail population did not decline because of our efforts. Those were memorable years, and certainly influenced the course of events later in my life.

Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to live most of my life in the shadow of the northern Rocky Mountain Front, where the Highs Plains slip downward toward the nation’s breadbasket—out where there is no limit of how far you can walk or how far you can see. It wasn’t long before two important elements emerged in my youth: the first was to have bird dogs surrounded by miles of unmolested country from horizon to horizon; the second was a covey bird called gray partridge or what we call Huns.