Jesse leads Jerry Cole into a  walk-in area Thursday in Stanley County.

By KW

It’s done.

It’ll be a springer.

Husker, Ellie and Jesse settled it for me  onThursday with their cheeful demeanor and relentless skill in cattail sloughs and blustery bluegrass hills.

My next dog will be a springer spaniel.

My last couple were, too. And I loved the way they hunted pheasants. I also loved their friendly personalities when they weren’t hot on the trail of upland birds.

After going dogless for most of a decade, it’s welll past time for another pooch. It’s also well past time to return to the South Dakota ringneck march in a meaningful way.

You really can’t do that without a dog. A good dog.

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions. There are things I’ll miss out on by not trying a pointer. And I make no argument that a Labrador wouldn’t have been the best all-around hunting-retrieving combination.

But the hunting heart will go where the hunting heart will go.  And mine goes naturally toward springers.

I  was close to 100 percent sure before my day afield in Stanley County with Jerry Cole and his three springers. It was a done deal after that.

Riding home in Cole’s SUV, with a trio of tired dogs in back and four heavy bodied roosters (we should have had six) riding atop the portable kennels, we were deeply engaged in breeder specifics.

And all those hours of puppy talk eventually had Cole taking some of his own leads.

“You know, I think I’ll take a look at that litter out in Colorado myself,” he said. “I could fit one more kennel in the back.”

Why in the world, you might ask, would a guy want four springer spaniels?

It’s pretty simple: He doesn’t have the kennel space  for five.

Jerry Cole - the one in the orange cap - lines up the springer gang for a team picture: From left: Jesse, Husker and Ellie.

Rob Skjonsberg and a beauty of a mule deer buck.

By KW

OK, this is getting ridiculous.

Remember the bull elk? As if that southern Utah brute with the big rack and arrow in its head wasn’t trophy enough for the 2009 hunting season, Rob Skjonsberg just couldn’t resist adding a mighty impressive muley to the mix.

“It’s been a good year,” he writes, engaging in understatement.

And the mule deer?

“Eight-inch base and strong all the way through,” he says of the rack. “I’ve never killed a muley that heavy before.”

Of course, the TIO investigative reporter sought  specifics on location.

“I was out in God’s country - undisclosed Stanley County location - last Saturday. Geez, I miss West River.”

OK, it wasn’t quite as specific as I was looking for.

But there’s nothing undisclosed or unspecific about that buck.

It’s a beauty.

By KW

It’s Verma Stehly Day here at Take It Outside, so decreed by the official keeper of the blog.

Thirty five years ago today, Verma started working for the state Game, Fish & Parks Department. It wasn’t all that long after that when a much younger reporter with much less gray hair made his first phone call to GF&P and talked to Verma.

I couldn’t count the times I’ve talked to her since. And as the years passed and my hair grayed, or just fell out, Verma helped me reach one GF&P staffer after another who could answer my questions for stories that have ranged from deer seasons to elk depredation to mountain lion research and trout management.

Sometimes, she knew the answers herself, and saved the other staffers their time.

Knowledgeable, efficient and pleasant: that’s a pretty good combination.

GF&P Regional Supervisor Mike Kintigh had this to say about Verma: “Thirty Five years ago today a delightful young gal began working for SDGF&P. After 35 years of experience dealing with sportsmen’s questions, irate public, mothering a whole cadre of new employees and anchoring the department wherever she was working, Verma Stehly is still a delightful YOUNG woman.”

Verma is getting calls and e-mails and personal well wishes today from staffers in the region and across the state. But it won’t stop her from doing her job - including putting up with pesky reporters.

Maybe I’ll call with a dumb question, for old time’s sake.

By KW

Up on Mount Blogmore, we’ve taken to having something called a live chat.

I guess it’s kind of what goes on in those chat rooms, but in a more structure way, with no porn.

We’ve had Dusty Johnson, Matt McGovern, Larry Mann, Jennifer Stalley and Doneen Hollingsworth.

Tomorrow it’s GF&P Secretary Jeff Vonk.

We’ll be talking about poached moose and euthanized lions, kitten rescues and elk seasons, CRP and the future of the state pheasant crop. We might even get around to hunter-landowner-GF&P relations.

And we’ll be on by noon or so mountain time. Take a break and check it out.

And ask a question, too.

Speaking of which, got any you think I should ask?

By KW

I’m just asking, ’cause I don’t know.

Probably not, huh?

But it is against the law for hunters to use baits - including apples and grain - to attract big game. Salt licks are illegal, too.

That makes sense to me, I guess. I’ve always been a little uncomfortable at the baiting allowed for some big-game species in some states. Take the assortment of stuff that’s used to bait bear.

Doesn’t that seem kinda like cheating? Sitting in a tree near a pile of donuts and apples and honey-soaked whatchamacallits until the bear shows and you can plug it while it fills its face?

Sure, I know, I use duck decoys. And a duck call. Although I don’t have any of those electronic ducks that flap their wings or paddle around on the surface (is that crossing a line, or nearing it?)

And by next year, I hope to be hunting behind a dog once again, which some might argue gives me an unfair advantage.

And maybe as long as people are properly licensed and only shoot what the law allows, we shouldn’t worry so much about the baiting thing.

But I do. And most of the laws on baiting seem to make sense.

By KW

I tend to see bowhunters as noble outdoors folk.

They seem more committed to the hunt, to time afield, to the time and preparation it takes to do things right, and to getting close and making shots count.

It always seems to be about the sport, the process and the experience with bowhunters.

Most bowhunters. Not all, obviously.

Troy Reinke of White Rock, Minn., is apparently one of the “not all” bowhunters.

If what wildlife authorities say about him is true.

Once again, people with information and a willingness to share it seemed to be the key to making this case.

Hunters and anglers are the eyes of the outdoors. We share a responsibility to fight poaching and other wildlife lawbreaking.

Sometimes good information on bad guys is the best weapon we have.

Custer native Dale Newberg, now a Minneapolis retiree, bagged a nice 5-by-5 hunting with his long-time pal and TIO regular Bruce Plate on opening day of the Black Hills rifle deer season.

By KW

Full circle.

There’s where it’s come for Bruce Plate and Dale Newberg.

Not long ago, it sometimes seems, they were sharing a dorm room back at USD. Actually, it was 1971. They were roomies with a passion for the outdoors, and they made an agreement.

“I would take him hunting back home at Alpena,” Bruce says. “And he would return the favor by taking me on a deer-hunting trip over Thanksgiving vacation in the Custer area.”

Sounds like a fair trade to me.  And for a while it worked great. But jobs and families change things. And Dale ended up working in Minneapolis. So the trips to Custer or Alpena became less regular, if no less important.

Now both Bruce and Dale are retired. And Bruce and his wife have a place near Pringle.

Now they have some time, along with the outdoor inclination.

“So we can now hunt each year on opening day,” Bruce says.

It isn’t just the Black Hills opener, either. Dale joins Bruce in his annual Custer State Park muzzleloader hunts. But being a non-resident, he can’t get a license or pop away himself.

“So for the past three years he has been my comrade, coffee drinking partner and main deer spotter during the muzzleloader hunts in the park,” Bruce says.

Which brings us to his moral of the story: “Hunting is more about friendships made and experiences kept than the trophies taken.”

If it isn’t, you’ve got your priorities messed up. Which doesn’t seem to be a problem with Bruce and Dale.

Bruce Plate, who proved in a thread below that does can be trophies, too, with the 4-by-5 he took in the BH rifle season.

Look, up in the air! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s SuperSetter!

By KW

South Dakota native Steve Kinsella is about as crazy over upland bird hunting with English setters as he is nuts over fly fishing.

As editor of Trout Unlimited magazine up in the Twin Cities, Kinsella lives what he loves in a professional sense. And as the owner and passionate follower of a setter named Parker (which is as close as Kinsella comes - at least for now - to owning the the classically expensive double-barreled shotgun), he  extends his outdoor love to the switchgrass swales and bluegrass slopes of the Great Plains.

He also makes a pitch for pointers in convincing style, as follows:

“I love English setters and my two recent trips back to South Dakota to pheasant hunt reconfirmed that fact.

” I’m hunting with my second setter – Parker – a Havelock from western North Dakota.  While he is not quite three, he was spectacular in the field.  Multiple points on roosters, including one he held for about four minutes while my hunting partner was tying his boot, a couple of retrieves (even though I never  trained him to do so) and lots of eager hard work until sunset every day.

” In addition to being a good hunter, what I like best about English setters is their gait across a field as they air scent, trying to find the bird.  He’ll run out about 20 yards or so and then with nose in the air, he’ll work back and forth across the line of hunters.  When he picks up a hot scent it’s instantly recognizable – the head is lowered and he begins to quickly quarter toward the source of the scent, abruptly stopping and going on point once he is near the bird.

‘ If it is a bird that stops and runs repeatedly, Parker will begin a “cat walk” as her nears it – slowly creeping nearer and nearer to his target, every muscle in his body taut. We’re home now and after three days of sleep, food snuck to him by my three year old daughter (they are truly partners in crime – food in exchange for her being allowed to drape necklaces on him…) he is ready to hunt once again.

“On Friday, my son and I will head to Wisconsin to our cabin in search of the ruffed grouse we see and hear but I am seldom able to hit!”

– Steve Kinsella

Parker up close, a handsome pooch.

By KW

With the detection of chronic wasting disease in a couple of new areas in Wyoming, the fatal brain disorder seems to be continuing its relentless spread througout the states.

Or has it always been here and we’re simply that we’re doing a better job of finding it?

Either way, it’s an ongoing issue that certainly must concern deer, elk and moose hunters, and others who care about the animals.

Right now, there’s no evidence that CWD can cross the line into humans. But hunters are still advised - and would be wise  - to make sure any elk, deer or moose they shoot and eat is healthy.

And stay away from those that aren’t.

Do you guys worry about this?

Hunt participants are, front row from left: Demo the Donkey, Jack  “Lauck” Golden Retriever; back row, from left: Ben Ready, Keith Wintersteen, Lee Schoenbeck, Tom Clemens, Nick Nemec, Lynn Jurrens, Sam Hurst, Eric Abrahamson and Jon Lauck. Not pictured, KW and the founder of Mount Blogmore, Bill Harlan.

By KW

Good times. Had by all.

The blogger count was somewhat below expectations. The other invitees more than made up for it.

There was Lynn Jurrens, a pro walleye angler from Watertown who rode over with Lee Schoenbeck and his thundering herd of Labradors.

And Tom Clemens, one of my two best friends from a childhood spent in Missouri River country.

And Eric Abrahamson, a former lieutenant governor candidate on his first pheasant hunt.

And Wintersteen, of course, on a break from trout business at McNenny Hatchery to prove that steel Triple B will kill pheasants at 75 yards.

Thune staffers Jon Lauck - himself a former blogger - and Ben Ready made the return trip.  (And the senator called to check in on our success…)

And Sam Hurst, whose The Dakota Day is the most thoughtfully composed blog in the state, showed a steady eye on rising ringnecks.

And, of course, the heart of the hunt: Nick and Mary Jo Nemec and, this year, Nick’s brother, Victor, whose hospitality makes the gathering what it is:

A success, that is,  every year - no matter the weather or the number of birds killed.

Speaking of which, we got 24 this year, split pretty darn evenly among 10 licensed hunters. Not quite a limit, but plenty to munch  on, and remember, until next year.

After identifying it as something other than a flying brown trout, Wintersteen dropped this rooster with BBB steel from a distance that would make Tom Roster do a double take.

Nick Nemec presents another hunt plan while Hurst, center, and Victor Nemec ponder the possibilities.  Meanwhile, Lauck reclines.

One is a donkey and the other? Just an …

The gang strolls from one productive hunting spot to the next.

And at the end of the hunt,  Schoenbeck’s dogs were happy as the hunters.