And you sure kill a lot of hens. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to shoot the brown ducks? You should put a dollar in the jar. Or six, actually.

Expensive - Shot my first bull canvasback and ringneck ducks. Both are destined for the taxidermist.

Miraculous: Pearl survived terminal brain cancer in perfect form and had a wonderful season. Her achievement was appreciatively recognized by Chad earlier in the year with a special blog. Thanks for that. She capped the year off by catching a nice rooster in the tulies the day before we left Montana to return home (ate that tough old bird the other night - should have put him in the pressure cooker!) She is still cancer free and no residual effects whatsoever. According to the specialist her full recovery is literally one in a million. My Brittany pup turned into a pointing machine by the end of the season in spite of learning the ropes from the two flushing labs. That's pretty extraordinary! She's still not retrieving, deferring to the labs for that, but I think she will come along if/when I start hunting her alone. And, of course, my precarious eyesight managed to make it through another season, although I now have specific instructions to change goose guns to something less punishing or risk further problems. I will be at Mayo Clinic next Friday ($$$$!) to have them assess some recent developments. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Opal was a bit hard on some pheasants too. If they fight or flap around, she often clamps down. If they're limp, it's usually okay. Got quite a chuckle on the last day out. It was colder than blue blazes and we were working a real hot spot in the back corner of a section where a small clump of willows backed onto a huge section of snowberries and ditch with russian olives. Lots of birds in there but it can be tough to get a shot. The dogs had put up a few but the roosters were too spooky and took off out of range the first time a hen got up next to us. The scent was still heavy in there and the dogs were working hard. If Pearl is tired she'll pull in behind me and I soon noticed she was in tow going through the thick snowberry stuff. But she kept banging into my legs and then finally nearly tackled me. Dang dog! Well, turns out it wasn't Pearl! It was Opal and she had a dead sharptail in her mouth. Thing was pretty much frozen stiff. Opal had been carrying it carefully for fifty yards through that awful junk waiting for me to take it from her. She finally decided to force the issue! The bird didn't have a mark on it. When I cleaned it later I determined it had been shot in the head and someone lost it. Oh, and as soon as I took the bird from her, Opal charged off like a shot. She was really perturbed at having wasted so much time with that dead sharpie.

only got the brittany out once this year to hunt pheasant in december. shes 9 now and approaching the end of her career, but still at that stage where she is making up her lack of physical stamina with intelligence. she performed very well, but the bag limit was poor due to some questionable shooting by other members of my family. ahem*brother*ahem lol

I also have a 3 year old Setter than had a great season and my 13 year old Granddaughter shot her first birds.

Surprising.

After a very hot, dry, fiery summer in Montana, miraculously, there were good numbers of birds in the fields in September. Could barely believe my eyes.

My young setter Daisey continues to improve and she made some heart-stopping points this year and was much less guilty of blowing through birds.

The older GSP, Belle, soldiered along despite joint and arthritis issues. She also made some good points and put birds in the bag on some days I'd have shot nothing without her. She's 9, and just today had surgery to remove a growth on one of her feet. I'm hoping she'll have less pain and a couple more seasons after she heals.

So, I'm surprised the freezer's well-stocked with game birds, including 4 pheasants. I went looking for pheasants only about three times this year, so getting four is a real bonus.

Cheers to all.

The long term prognosis from Mayo Clinic is not good. But could be worse too. The ongoing problems with retinas are a separate issue from problems with sclera (eyeballs). The latter will at the very least make future treatment of retina detachments difficult. Also learned that I have sustained two retina tears in the right eye (my good eye) that thankfully were repaired before developing into detachments. I'm only marking time it seems before something serious happens again. To complicate matters more, a cataract is fast developing in the good eye and because fixing those often leads to retina detachments in people prone to them (like me), they prefer to leave them go until nearly blind. So ... I'm going to just make hay while the sun shines. About to become a serious bird hunter I think. Doubt I'll hear any objections from the canine department. Whataya say girls? Should we get some birds? Oh crap, the pup just peed on the floor.