I Can't believe what I just saw....
Play by Play
I'm out hunting today on a large (15,000 acre) public wildlife area. I'm skirting the edge of a milo field along a tree line. Sadie bumps a single quail. I'm dissapointed because she didnt' point and don't shoot. I move on ahead and see that she is locked up. I move in and flush a good sized covey of quail. Of course I miss
but they flew ahead only about 80 yards and all sit down together. I move in, Sadie makes a nice point but as I'm coming up she creeps in and flushes the covey. 
I let them go and they fly over my head, most of the covey lands very near where I had just walked 
, a few went North (towards the road) and 1 goes south through the tree line and into a flooded cattail slough. I walk back they way I just came and Sadie points a single (they put lookouts in front of the main covey I swear it 
) I flush it and the barrel must have straightened out because I actually hit it 
. Sadie makes a nice retrieve, I give her a little love and send her on hunting.This is where it starts to go bad............... She catches some scent and off she goes. Into the tree line to the south towards the single that flew that way. Swims a small creek, works over to the flooded cattails, skirts along the side of them aways and then locks up on point. At this point I know that even if I swim the creek and flush the bird I wouldn't be able to shoot it without it coming down in the middle of the flooded cattails which would probably make for the hardest retrive of my dogs life. So I try to call my dog off point. A loud OK will release her usually, Not working. I call her name, try the whistle, doesn't work she's locked up tight. (never happens
) So I walk downstream aways and find a log that has fallen across a narrow part. I unload my gun and cross the log.( darn gracefull for me I might add 
) Now I'm across but I'm still 20 yards from the cattails to the south and my dog is locked up on the west edge 100 yards up stream and I'm standing in marsh grass thats comes up to my chest but can feal water up to my knees. So I slowly make my way towards my dog. I get up to her give her a tap on the back of the head. She's all excited, she prances a few yards back and forth, spins in a circle and locks up again. The bird must have been all wet and stinking to high heaven.. I send her hoping to flush it and get it over with but she only goes in about 5 yards before she's swimming and turns around and comes back out and goes back on point. I tap her on the head grab her by the collar and heal her away. Of course she just swims the creek and I've got to go the long way around. This is where it goes really bad......
...... Sadie waits on me at the edge of the woods. We come out into the milo field and I send her towards where the rest of the covey went. We make it about 40 yards and it starts raining lead. SIDEWAYS. The lead was coming down on us before I ever heard the shot. Then I saw a few quail fly over our heads (apparently the ones that broke north earlier were hanging out near the road). I look right and there's a guy standing at the edge of the field.I fire my shotgun in the air and holler something not suited for children. Hoping to get his attention and let him know we were there.This is where it gets ridiculous.......
...... Now IF I saw some quail from the road pulled over jumped out with dog in tow flushed them up and fired on another unsuspecting hunter. I would apologize profusely and take the 10 steps back to my truck. I would then wait for the guy to get up to the road make sure he was alright and apolgize some more. NOT THIS GUY . What does he do ? He starts hunting. TOWARDS ME . Tooting on his whistle every 5 friggin seconds trying to get his dog to quarter (I'm guessing) At this point I'm high stepping it along the wood line which bends back North on the West edge working North towards the road as fast as I can. His dog works over to the tree line in front of me and locks up on point. This where the main part of they covey had flown to earlier. He's still walking south down the middle of the field tooting on the whistle and starts frying the dog. THE DOG IS LOCKED UP ON POINT AND YELPING . I can't believe the stupidity. I hurry out of the field and walk back to my truck. I thought about walking back into the field once I got out of the line of fire to give him a piece or two of my mind, but I was rather PO'd and decided to cool down first and wait till he was done walking the field. After he was done and I had a chat with him. I was probably nicer than I should have been. I just let him know that he had shot at us and he probably should be more carefull. I thought of charging him a bounty ( a quail for my raised blood pressure seemed fair to me) but he had missed the quail he was shooting at and didn't succeed in shooting any more. Luckfully he was shooting a .410 and I was aways from the road. Could have been worse. I thought about giving him some dog handling advice but figured it would be like talking to a brick wall.
I called it a day before it went further downhill. At least I get quail for dinner.
