South Dakota epilogue - The Whistle

This is a bit different from the norm, but ultimately it was the V's that brought us to the point of getting the place in South Dakota, and this is something that touched me while we were there.  I've held this fairly close but people have encouraged me to share it.   I hope you appreciate the detour.


The Whistle


Written for Ron and Barbara Teare,  October 28th, 2010

It was a seemingly innocuous thing, dangling off the extended back of the old rocking chair, its lanyard frayed out at the ends where it had been rough tied into a knot. There was a smudge of dirt embedded into the raised black lettering that said ACME Thunderer. Its pea was dry. It was worn of use and bore the scars of being held in clenched teeth. It hung there, forgotten yet still easily at hand, as if it merely awaited its Master’s return to snatch it up once more and beckon to yet another in a litany of Pointers and Setters reaching across the Prairie.


Worth perhaps a nickel if one tried to sell it at a garage sale, yet somehow it evoked a feeling of pricelessness deep within the subconscious of my mind.  I pondered.  How many dogs had this piece shrilled for? How many days had it hung about the neck of its rightful owner riding the Plains of South Dakota helping to sharpen the instinct and intellect of the dogs to which it spoke?


There are many blessings in life and though I hope I’m not done receiving them I have had a fair share. This particular blessing on my account is also a time of sadness for those who came before me. We were fortunate to have bought an old summer dog camp in Firesteel, South Dakota. It would not have been available but for the ailing health of a previous owner, whom we now regard as a friend. This exchange opened a new chapter in an increasingly long book of dogs. As is often the case in the Prairies, one camp gets passed along to the next set of folks looking to train and tune their dogs for a few months each year on wild Sharptail Grouse, Hungarian Partridge, Pheasants and Prairie chicken. I’m sure our story is not unique – there are a number of dog camps in the region and points north.


As we walked through the old house the first time, we saw the evidence of a passion for dogs and the Field trial game. Aged and sun-faded American Field magazines rested on the side table in the living room and yet more adorned the desk in the bedroom. Dog art depicting Pointers standing game hung silently on the walls. A table lamp was festooned about its ivory colored base with hunting scenes. On the old rocking chair there lay an embroidered throw wearing yet more classic dog and hunt scenes as its decoration. The feeling in the old homestead was palpable. It spoke clearly - dog people live here.


And yet the dog people for whom the old place silently waited to return found instead new visitors. All the items left behind bespoke of the prior tenant and yet felt familial to the new, save the whistle dangling from the old rocker. For some reason, this item seemed personal. It could not belong to me. It has memories of the link between a man and his dogs. It likely traveled many miles around this camp. I wondered…


Did it cast a Pointer quivering with anticipation at one of the nearby trials at Timber Lake or McLaughlin or Grand River? Perhaps it aided a turn or a cast on a run of a dog at the U.S. Chicken Championship a bit south on the Lower Brule at the Madsen Ranch? It could be it was just a day to day workhorse never thought about, just a tool to be used and forgotten. Some inconspicuous daily items occasionally come to hold special significance in their ability to bring back fond memories of good times. This might be one of those things.


Today I boxed up this worn old worthless whistle to send it back to its rightful place. It just doesn’t seem fitting to keep or use another man’s whistle unless expressly desired by its owner. I hope this pressed piece of plastic, cork and string finds its way - linking a man to a dog once more.

South Dakota - Finale

yes, I know - I already typed this up though, so I'll post it then go back to adding more pictures and video's of the puppies, which takes some time...  thanks for hanging in there!

Friday, October 22, 2010


Today was a great day. It was, to me, the epitome of why we came here. Our young string of dogs has had hundreds of bird contacts and gradually, they are putting the pieces together. It was a day of singular hunting. Rod and I have very much enjoyed each other’s company – today I yearned to just spend time alone with my dogs, and Rod felt the same. To come to this place, be alone with your thoughts and your dog is an enormously fulfilling and satisfying experience.

Hank and I went to a several hundreds of acres open prarie field that had old coal diggings at the back of it. He launched with exuberance having had Thursday off and swallowed the dry grassland with each powerful bound. Not long, he passed over a rise and I could only see him on the Garmin Astro receiver I carried. He swung left to right and passed over the coal dig tailings at the rear of the property. Here movement slowed, then the Garmin chirped that he was on point. I could not see him, he was beyond my sight and nearly 400 yards out. I began resolutely to walk towards him, mostly expecting another bump or wild flush. The yards ticked down slowly on the Garmin and between us now was a large pond, which I had to detour, backtrack and resume my long trek to the standing dog. Climbing up the rise I reach the top after at least a five minute hike and the Garmin indicates he’s about 34 yards away – I see his flash collar through the brush, still unmoving. As I approach, two pheasant give wing. The first breaks from cover to my right – a hen. The second pitches up and straight away downslope and my shot finds it’s target, tumbling the bird among the broken sage and grass slope. These are the moments one hopes for when hunting. At that moment, all things came together. The dog suddenly understood fully the aspect of hunting together and for the remaining hour and a half he stayed in contact with me as he never had before. We were becoming a team. Finally.

Scarlet also has the fire of our breeding. Though not as independent a dog as Hank, she definitely has her own mind. Of particular interest to me, twice this week, unbeknownst to me, I dropped my tri-tronics electric collar transmitter through my vest rather than in the front pouch where I keep it. Scarlet twice smelled and pointed the transmitter, saving me several hundreds of dollars and the aggravation of replacing it!

How she found them, whether it was the scent of my hands or from some bird smell from it’s riding in my hunting vest, I will never know. What I DO know is that she was very happily rewarded and told what a fantastically wonderful dog she was when she located them!

The week has found her overly excited with hundreds of bird contacts, many being multiple bird rises, whether coveys of sharptail or bands of pheasant, not many of her contacts were solitary birds. Her first introduction was on a treeline the first day that she and her cohort in Crime Bailey bumped and chased probably around 40-50 birds with several coming up together at nearly every stride. That’s enough to unglue even a seasoned dog, let alone a couple of first season youngsters. But, eventually she began to respond a bit better and work more “with” me than to pursue her own dreams and aspirations. When I began to drop birds and she discovered her natural retrieve to hand, we – like Hank and I earlier in the day – began to gel as a team.

We paired up on sharptail and pheasant alike and my shooting was improving along with that of the dogs. The end of the day found Scarlet and my efforts rewarded with a nice brace of Sharptail Grouse, a rooster pheasant that gave her the slip and fine memories of time spent together in simple yet breathtaking landscapes.

I look back with happiness that I was able to share this with great dogs and a great friend.  I already miss being out on the Prairie, and the dogs are looking at me at home wondering the same thing - when can we go back...

I hope next year brings a couple more friends with us - who knows, it could be you! 

South Dakota Part III

Wednesday October 20th, 2010

This morning I did some errand running. Rod stayed at the house (working on his blog no doubt - http://www.redbirddog.blogspot.com/)

Rod working on his blog http://www.redbirddog.blogspot.com/

I went into Isabel, which is a town about 9 miles away. I had to pick up a few items from the Hardware store get an extra key made and settle up my account from repair work that I’ve had done on the place. It’s interesting in small towns – everyone knows about others and Tammy at the hardware store was very nice and greeted me warmly. It felt good. I can’t put into words the feeling I get when I’m here, but I’ve immediately come to appreciate the genuine people in this area and am already starting to feel sorrow in leaving in a few days.

a clip from the internet of Isabel Hardware

Rod and I decided to branch out and try some new areas to hunt today. We’ve had limited success in bird counts, but great fun and the young dogs are getting better at handling these wild birds. We’ve found that running “two tracks” which are much less used county roads has worked pretty well. As my feet are trashed, I let Rod and Bailey out, drive ahead about 400 yards and get out with one of my dogs and start walking back towards the Michaelson team. This “pinches” the running birds between us and offers more opportunities with less energy expended (can you tell we’re tiring!)

Hunting the two track

While driving some of these smaller back roads, we came by a neat old place on a hill that piqued our interest.  Over the next few days, we dubbed it "Rod's Place".

Rod's Place

Thursday October 21st, 2010

Today Rod and I decided to take a trip into Mobridge, which is about 50 miles to the East. It is a larger town, with most of the amenities one would expect in a city. We stopped at Runnings Farm & Fleet which has nearly anything a guy could want from Hunting gear to tools to dog supplies. It was a nice morning trip and reminds me of how little of the area we’ve really seen yet. I’d like to do more exploring, but time and energy wanes…

The Railroad bridge on the Missouri River at Mobridge, SD.
Picture clipped from the internet

We took the dogs to a favorite area of ours today and had a good hunt. It’s difficult here to keep track of how many birds one encounters. By our estimation, in three hours of hunting with Bailey and Nellie we probably had around 20. Of those we had at least half a dozen shots and if we were shooting better could have reached near our limits. My shooting is sporadic, I definitely need more practice with shooting left handed, but it is gradually coming more comfortably.

A "honey hole" where we nearly always found birds

The conditions are very dry now. We dropped three birds today. Two of which we never recovered. Nellie worked hard with Bailey - The marks were good, the dogs were on top of where the birds fell within seconds and the search fruitless. It’s amazing how hardy the birds are – as dry as it is they don’t seem to be leaving trails to track wounded birds. Frustrating yes, even more so the thought of game going to the coyotes.

After our hunt we stopped by the Boysen Farm and visited with the family that helps take care of our place here. They are wonderful people and have made us feel very much at home here. New found friends that seem as though we’ve known each other much longer than the time we have. They have friends coming next month for deer season and Bernie commented that they weren’t sure where they were going to fit them. I’m honored to be able to offer them the use of this place. I know it is in good hands.

The lodge at Firsteel Creek

After that we drove on to Firesteel Creek Lodge about 5 miles away. It’s an absolutely beautiful place that high rollers come to pheasant and sharptail hunt. They use four wheel drive hunting buggies to cover the vast lands that we are working on foot. Guess that’s where paying the fees pays off! They are also great folks and it was nice to see them again. Tomorrow is the last day of hunting and a quick pack up for an early departure Saturday morning.

Public Hunting grounds in South Dakota

clik on map to enlarge


One of the real attractions for us in buying a place in South Dakota obvious to any pheasant hunter, is that it is known as the mecca for Pheasant hunting in the United States.


The state has a program that offers landowners a stipend for opening private lands to the public for hunting. It's known as the public hunting walk in areas. Every year the South Dakota Dept. of Fish and Game puts out an atlas that indicates the different hunting areas. This is one section around our house in Firesteel.

From Firesteel to Isabel is about 10 miles. By my rough calculations, within a ten minute drive from our house in Firesteel we have public walk in access to around 50 square miles of hunting ground! And that's not counting buying a license to hunt the reservations...

Yearning for South Dakota

We were fortunate enough to cross paths with a lovely woman named Barbara Teare. Barbara and her husband Ron have summer dog camped in the Firesteel, South Dakota area for 30 years. Unfortunately, Ron's health the last few years has deteriorated to the point they weren't using their summer camp and decided to offer it up for sale. Long story short, we became good friends and ended up buying their place in Firesteel. It's interesting how many new "hunting buddies" I'm getting all of a sudden. :-) (Truth is, I'm practically giddy about the thought of sharing it with friends and family)

We're sure it needs some fixes, but it's furnished and has new roof and exterior doors in 2007. There's not much we can't fix, we've renovated hundred year old farmhouses and built the house we currently live in ourselves. Plus we'll probably only be able to spend a week or two a year there until we retire - and even after that probably two to three months a year running dogs on wild birds in the praries. We're pretty stoked!

And then there's the new powdercoated steel kennels!


We don't have enough dogs to fill these ourselves! Glad we've got friends to help!!! Whatya think Rodney? Late October pheasant hunting for a week in South Dakota with Bailey?

Wish we were heading out now loaded up with dogs & horses. Sigh... but alas retirement is still a ways off - but we're gearing up for it!