Author: Ryan Busse

His hat lies on the floor of the old house. A narrow ray of sunlight crawls through a hole in the roof and illuminates the tattered carpet a few inches away. The hat once was sharp and bold; black with big gold letters and those striking wings on the bill that us kids called “scrambled eggs.” But my Grandpa Clarence died years ago and his old cap is now tired and gray from accumulating dust. A mouse emerges from beneath the crown and scurries away through the rubbish of the crumbling bedroom in the once-vibrant Kansas farmhouse.

As a boy, I spent countless days in this home with my grandparents. On special occasions, I would travel with Grandpa from the red and white house as he proudly wore that NRA cap to church potlucks and community barbecues. By the time I was in high school, I could spot him in the crowds of my ball games by those three big gold letters. 

Grandpa survived the dust bowl, the great depression, and WWII. Dignified but never ostentatious, he was a dedicated FDR Democrat who believed the shared sacrifice and self imposed decency of his generation had saved democracy. That NRA cap had a very specific meaning to him; it was an extension of his patriotism. 

His hat signified responsibility, solidarity, pride, and family; all things I experienced with him as a boy. After enough of my begging, he would agree to jump in an old pickup truck and bounce down a dirt road until we arrived at a ditch where he knew pheasants lived. We spent the better parts of fall days together, me with a borrowed gun from my dad and Grandpa with his prized Model 31 Remington 12 gauge. I remember the soft fall light pouring over us as we took aim at the birds and then laughed together about shots made and missed. 

Those old romantic days of Americana with my grandfather are now gone. Where there was once a lawn and a home and a family, there is now a head-high forest of kosha and thistle. There are pheasants scurrying through those weeds in the decaying homestead, and I take aim at roosters flying over the bedroom where the old NRA cap lies sad and forgotten. 

I make a good shot on a bright, long-tailed bird and it lands with a thud near the foundation of what is left of the house. My grandpa would have been proud of that shot, but I am glad he did not live to see the things that his once-proud hat now signifies. 

I am sad for him. So much has changed. Like his favorite hat, he was proud of me in his own quiet way. In his later years he beamed as he told friends that his grandson was a bigshot at a gun company. He kept a catalog from that company to show off what I did. It’s probably in the house now with the old hat and the dust and the mice. 

I was proud too. Back then neither of us had the perspective to see what was happening. As Grandpa neared the end of his life, about the time I was winning awards in the gun business, the memories, pride and idealism signified by his cap were already being twisted into a political machine that Grandpa would have wanted nothing to do with.

Eventually I would be a part of an industry that was doing things he would not have been proud of. For a while I was too close to see it, and as Grandpa faded, he was too far away. I suppose there are blessings in the blind ambition of youth and in the calm ignorance of old age. But there are dangers too, and I hope that our country is neither too close nor too far away now.

People like us bird hunting vagabonds, those of us who read and write on this assemblage of words and images, are almost all romantics. We want to believe things are true, we hope the country is not changing, we want to remember our old hats as crisp, proud and righteous.  

But not everything is as we wish it to be. The blind romance and passion of people like us is often the very fuel for the mechanized forces that eat away the old homesteads and favorite memories of our lives. I spent decades inside that powerful machine, I fed it, learned how it worked and tried to maneuver within it. Sadly, I came to understand it had used people like my grandpa and me. 

Coming to terms with this reality has not been easy. Writing my memoir has not been easy. Dealing with the truth of a deeply divided country has not been easy. Knowing that my grandpa’s hat is lying in that hold house has not been easy. Challenging what some of you believe will not be easy.

Shooting cackling pheasants over the old Kansas bedroom was, truth be told, pretty easy.  

The words I have offered to my Mouthful Of Feathers colleagues and readers have always been honest. I have always appreciated the depth of this audience. The words I write in my forthcoming book are also honest. The truth is that there is a gunfight in our national bird camp and I have written a book about it all. It’s going to be controversial. Some of you will be prone to dismiss it before you read. 

But just like everything else we write here, I ask that you give this story a fair shake. Because in the end, this book is about all of you too. This is about our country, about how we ended up in a place where half of America hates the other half. 

Just days ago I received notice that Gunfight has been named as a prestigious top ten most anticipated book for the fall of 2021, so someone thinks this is going to be important. But the audience of MOF means a lot to me and I hope that the book can live up to your expectations. 

Thank you for allowing me to share words about things we cherish. I invite you to preorder this book, to read it in October and to think about our old hats and the parts each of us play in our great American story. 

We are all characters in this one.

Learn about the book and preorder here:  www.ryanbusseauthor.com

In 1981 my dad ordered a Chevy truck from a small town dealer, stripped bare of any amenities to keep the cost down. Not even the truck bed was included. He welded up a simple flatbed for it so that it could easily haul hay and pull cattle trailers. Years later, when it was not engaged in those activities, it was my school truck.

On most days, reminders of the truck’s working-class roots were there beside me. A lariat rope or a pipe wrench on the seat as I parked by the school in the morning. Maybe a wad of twine on the floor if I had fed the horses before class. Not exactly the symbol of privilege or status I saw in the movies of the time, but on all days from November to February there was a shotgun behind the seat, that gun hinted at my incredible wealth.

After basketball practice, on weekends, sometimes on the way to school, that old truck was my ticket to chasing pheasants. Western Kansas was full of them.

My father was a devotee of Aldo Leopold who planted CRP grass wherever the government would allow; his way of bandaging the nation’s prairie wounds. Our ranch held birds in nearly every crook and corner because of it.

On many evenings as I drove the dirt road home, I parked in the ditch then darted into a ravine or fence row with gun in hand. Rarely did I emerge without a rooster or two. On weekends we would limit out by noon or complain about a tough day. I did not yet understand real dog work, but I would involve my dog Daisy where I could. A half lab half springer with just enough birdiness.

I hunted pheasants beginning when I was a young boy and I became an expert, dedicating almost all spare time to the pursuit. I knew where to go on hot days, how the birds would fly with a north wind, how they tried to escape in every scenario, knew every patch of grass, what time they finished in the grain fields.

We counted birds in the hundreds. I took it all for granted, got spoiled I suppose. For all I knew, all kids grew up with wild birds and pocket full of 20-gauge shells. Like a lot of rich kids, I was too dumb to know how rich I was.

Occasionally my father hauled my brother and me to what felt like another world. 30 miles or more to another ranch up north where there was a beautiful creek bottom covered with giant old cottonwoods. Enormous trees that were used as corral corners for the big Texas cattle drives of the last century.

These groves were on the edge of quail country. Chasing native covey birds in the trees and brush was mesmerizing. It challenged me in a new way. My dog acted differently. The birds held better. When I was lucky enough to harvest quail, I cradled them as if they were an exotic gem from a far-off land. Reverence that is still within me today.

In my sophomore year of high school I got another rich kid break. Mr. Leach, my high school football coach, needed some company on a trip to quail country many hours to the south and east. He had a fine Brittany and I said yes in an instant. That was my first experience in great quail country with a pointer.

It was 1985 and the big city rich kids were hooked on cocaine, forgettable fashion and bad music. I was addicted to hunting wild quail with a pointing dog.

By the time I was in college the habit was worsening. Living in a dorm room surrounded by great habitat and coveys galore, I knew I needed my own pointing dog. I noticed an ad in a local paper, cobbled together every bit of cash I had, drove 35 miles and bought a 10-month-old Brittany for $125.

The runt of the litter was tethered by a chain to an austere outdoor kennel. He needed rescuing and I needed a friend that could hold a point. Neither of us could afford to be picky. I named him Michener and was shooting quail over him later that afternoon. The first of hundreds of such days we shared together.

We lived in a small dorm room where canines were not welcome. Many evenings were spent evading the hall monitors not friendly enough to look the other way. Once safe, we would examine maps with the aim of discovering new quail haunts. The next day, after a classroom test or sometimes despite one, we would slip away from campus. Day after day we rolled in the quail country of central Kansas.

Like a kid with fresh $100 bill, I held the place up to the light then close to my nose. I breathed it in just to make sure it was real. That was a magic place and time, with its wild birds and farmers who granted easy permission. With coveys darting over hills in the soft fall light and stray singles holding tight for Michener to point.  

I was told that College was supposed to prepare a kid for the larger world. Lucky for me it did. Eventually I’d put my bird-chasing degree to work, but just out of school I struggled for footing in a world that required more than just hunting experience. Michener became a ranch dog and stayed back home with my parents as I bounced around looking for a place in the world. Within a year or two I found it when I moved to Montana. And just as I had when I landed in quail country, I soon located a birddog companion. I drove back to my rental house from Missoula with a new Britany puppy on my lap. Ruark and I would roam the west together for the next 16 years. 

This dog became my new wealth advisor. He pushed me to discover another part of my incredible inheritance. A 640-million-acre estate, too much of it already pot-marked and two-tracked, but some of it still wild and unspoiled. I owned this place, or at least a part of it. I was now exploring our public lands and discovering some of the finest wild bird hunting on the planet. Another lucky stroke for the spoiled rich kid.

By the 90s, the world was flooded with the cash of the internet boom. I was enjoying my own fortune. Living in Montana pulling in just barely enough to buy shotgun ammo. Taking my quail experience and multiplying it just a savvy rich kid should. 

This new land afforded me the opportunity to trek nearly 20 miles in a single day. In most places I granted my own permission. Even after many long days in a row I stood on high points and saw another month’s worth of vastness.

I came to love hunting sharptail, huns, sage grouse, chukar, quail and mountain grouse in the expanse of the west. Here I could unfold maps with public land measured in dozens of sections. I camped where I wanted. Walked for days on end. Learned where sharpies lived and what they ate. Watched them travel many miles on a single flight.  I’d chased hun coveys over high ridges and through skree fields. Occasionally I’d stumble into a creek bottom and find a stray pheasant or two, a reminder of my days as a youngster. It was country big enough for an army so Ruark and I recruited more dogs. Any random day might turn into an adventure suitable for the finest publications with scenery too beautiful to describe. And I owned it, right along with every other American.

I often mentioned my wealth to old bird hunting friends. One of them made a living selling fine shotguns. Through his work he had been lucky enough to hunt across the globe. He lived in the pheasant and quail country of Nebraska and gladly took me up on an offer hunt in Montana. On one cold evening after a strenuous day and lots of shooting, the dogs were curled up in our camper. He and I were out under the stars near a small campfire, bourbon in hand marveling at constellations. He grabbed my arm, looked me in the eye and earnestly proclaimed, “Don’t ever believe that it gets any better than this.” He already knew what I was figuring out. I was living the life of a king on the budget of a pauper.

Wild quail and pheasants in America’s heartland remain very special to me. I still consider bobwhite hunting to be among the finest sporting experiences available to mankind. But there is something spiritual about public lands bird hunting. 

I have been fortunate enough to spend hundreds of days on our vast public estate in the west. Exploring new haunts. Climbing new mountains. Seeing dogs point 9 or 10 different bird species in a single year. Hunting days or weeks without seeing another hunter. Shooting limits some days. Loving the tough days of exploration just about as much. Wearing out boots every year. Developing a synergy with big running bird dogs that is so magical it is impossible to describe.

A monetary system will never exist that can measure this sort of wealth.

In my formative days I was like a lot of spoiled kids, never realizing the fortunate accident of my birth. I flopped from one lucky bird hunting break to another without much consideration. But as time has gone on, and attacks on our public lands have increased I have grown to see my existence in a different light. 

Yeah, I’m rich. Spoiled goddamned rotten, but so are all other Americans. 

We all own the same places. We all have the same permission. As I realized what I owned I went to work fighting to protect what is mine, and yours. I assessed what was important in my life. I hunt it just as hard as I ever did but I now devote my life and politics to saving an inheritance.

It’s the great leveling field, maybe the last one left in the world. This is no exclusive club. You don’t need an aristocratic last name or an old-money trust fund. Fact is that new fancy boots and shiny cars don’t mean shit out here. No one cares what color you are or where you went to school. The implications are as beautiful as a Kansas covey drifting over the little bluestem at last light. Just like the kid in front of the school in the ranch truck, any old shotgun can be the symbol of your wealth too. Truth is, we were all born rich.  

“We are not that different you and I.” He caught me off guard with those words.  The dogs slipped by the little male Hun without catching his wind and he stuck his head out of the rabbit brush and started his speech. Strutting and proud at 10 yards in front of me.  I shouldered my old Fox, looked down the rib and then dropped it to my side in amazement as he continued.  He was puffed up now, showing the big brown bar on his chest like a badge of courage. Head up straight and wings tucked back on his hips as he spoke. He tried the big authoritative boom of a Prairie Chicken but he couldn’t help the occasional squeak, like a worn-out washing machine as it spun.

“Don’t look at me like I don’t belong. Maybe my type is not native here but neither is yours. You just act the part because you have a double barrel and some smokeless powder. I am more like you than you care to admit  My clan was bounced out of the old country too. We were forced into ship hulls and box cars and spit out in a strange land. Hell, come to find out this is a whole country of immigrants. Who knew? Them bombastic Chinese parrots that your kind loves so much and the red-legged middle easterners…they are all invaders. And then there is you.  None of us are exactly Sharptails and Sage Grouse if you know what I mean.”

He was right I thought, Busse might not be Hungarian but it sure as hell is not Blackfeet or Sioux.  I’d always felt a kinship with these little birds and now here I was being set straight by a particularly sharp-witted specimen.

He went on, “I’ve seen you out here day after day. You go back to that town when you are done but that place is not you. All of that civilizing has pushed you into the scablands too. I can see it in your eyes. You’re an outcast just like us.”

He was right, I loved the challenge of hunting huns in big country.  Didn’t much care for parking lots and traffic lights.  He must have been listening as I mumbled to myself in the hills. He went on, “These are the places we have left to live and we like it. Those city songbirds think us partridges are simple country fowl, but we like it out here on our own. They wouldn’t make it a second in this country. A sharp-shinned would gobble them up in a single bite.  We eat better too. Seeds and bugs like it ought to be. Not that industrial birdfeed crap they eat.  Yeh, this place steep, rocky and dry.  But this is real livin’.”

I had always said that my dogs are smarter than a lot of people but now I was confronted with a bird who might have us all beat. He hopped up on a sage brush branch, snuggled down in a squat. His version of kicking back in a lazyboy. He was ready to give me a talkin’ to.  I cracked open my gun and tossed it on my shoulder as he expounded.

“I been meaning to tell you. Ya might want to take a message back to all of them puffed up peacock-humans in the big fancy buildings back in your towns.  We are getting a little tired of being squeezed around the edges out here.  I mean, you guys take the flat spots, the river bottoms, the best grass and the any place that will grow a kernel of grain.  We like it out here, but damn!  You are going to have to stop the march of progress at some point.  I mean we love rocks, but we are not going to make it if you just keep pushing us into the last pile of skree.  If we go, then you’ll be stuck in that town morning noon and night.  Might want to think about that.”

Before I could think about it I heard the dogs coming back into range.  Since I first hunted these birds, I had developed a deep respect for their craftiness and style. They seemed to have an attitude.  The lecture from this little guy was only confirming everything I already thought. Just then, Teddy swung downwind and locked up tight. I turned from him and in and instant the professor-Hun was in flight.  Up to speed in a single flap just like they always do.  I thought I caught him smirk at me as he rose. He zeroed in on the bill of my cap and knocked it off with his tail as he passed.  Before I had my gun snapped shut he was out of range.  Just before he dipped over the ridge he looked over his wing and chirped back at me.  “Gotta be faster than that cupcake!  Oh, thanks for spreading that cheatgrass.  We love the stuff!”

“What do you know about pheasants?” That’s how it started.  A challenge I lobbed at a guy in a bar. My target had folded his 6’5” frame onto a barstool at the local watering hole. From there he was pontificating about bird hunting. James had a particular way of speaking. Not quite southern drawl. More like a stern traveling preacher minus any hint of piety. Voice slow and booming. Occasional Canadian twinges mixed with colloquialisms of his own making. A style bordering precariously between off-color, authoritative and hilarious.

Here he was holding court to a couple of fellow beer drinkers about a recent pheasant trip. He held peanuts in one hand and beer in the other. Waving both around as if in a pulpit. Booming again, he let fly a beauty; “They were flying around like goddamned bees. Everywhere!  We were shooting the hell out of things. The dogs were crazy as shithouse rats and the birds were piling up like cordwood.” Even above the hum in the bar it was like the guy had a megaphone. I did not know a soul in the place and had yet to make a friend in this new town. That left me to focus on a sermon about birds. Jim’s verse got my attention and I had nothing better to do. So, I butted in with my challenge not knowing what might come of it.

Standing now he wasted not a second and shot back, “Well, quite a bit and who the hell are you?” He looked down his nose, eyebrow cocked. If I did not know better, I would swear I was at home plate with Randy Johnson on the mound staring me down as he took a sign.  James bore a strong resemblance to the iconic Seattle pitcher and I felt like the Big Unit himself was about ready to throw hard and inside with a 98mph fastball.

I had grown up on a ranch. Pheasants galore. So, I was ready for the pitch with my retort, “You guys think you know what pheasant hunting is, well you ought to see where I grew up.”  Smack.  I hit it out of the park. That was all he needed. A hint of wild birds in big country. A few months later, James was strolling across the grasslands of our ranch in the biting cold. Never mind the 1200 miles or the uncertainty of an unknown place. He took me up on the challenge of real pheasant hunting. Just the sort of gamble I would have taken.

Our hunting styles were a match. I loved to cover miles and James was a born walker. Like a moose at a long distance he first seemed slow and gangly. But up close he moved across the bird country with stretched effortless strides. So long and flowing that almost no one could keep up. He’d swing and shoot and walk all in the same motion. He hunted with purpose. We could rack up impressive daily distance totals that others came to call death marches.

Our shared a passion for birds soon drove us to range over huge swaths of bird country together. In the ensuing decades we strode across untold acres from Montana to Kansas. Between hunting days finding small towns, dingy hotels and greasy spoons. We explored it all. Always on the lookout for a new territory to hunt.

During our hunts I came to know Jim as a master story teller and our adventures became parts of new tales. He picked out the interesting places and people then wove them in the loom of his mind. Spinning until the fine fabric poured out. I mostly just listened and then cajoled him to repeat. His stories would usually arrive at unexpected hilarious places. “Did I ever tell you about the time I took out an entire motel in a runaway grain truck?” Turns out he had done just that.  Nearly killing the last person in the place which was thankfully almost empty due to the late morning timing.  He too had barely made it out alive.

In classic Jim fashion a few years after the wreck he randomly met the survivor on the same barstool where he and I had first discussed pheasants. Of course, he started holding court and drinking beer with her too. They ended up laughing over another of Jim’s stories even though she was minus a few key internal organs from the accident. Like me, Jim was always focused on procuring more hunting spots. Even though he had almost killed the gal with a Peterbilt he did not fail to ask if she had any good hunting property.

Jim wove this and scores of other tales with the magnetic pull of the finest novels. He came to be in high demand by my friends and family. Inquiries about upcoming hunting trips from them now focused on whether Jim was coming along as if I was an afterthought. His attendance would make or break the trip. Random strangers he hunted with over the years still ask me about him today.

The truth is that James was the kind of guy who you just wanted to have along for the ride. At least partially because he prided himself on being silver tongued when it came to prying permission from even the prickliest ranchers. I have to admit he might be the best I have ever seen. After a hard “no” through the screen door he would begin a booming sermonette and find a way to remember a distant cousin that maybe went to school with a friend, or a last name that sounded about right and then he’d throw in a good story and a slight exaggeration. The door would open, and he was inside, drinking coffee and eating cookies, drawing maps on paper towels.  He’d swagger back to the truck with his wool hat tipped just so and then bellar out; “hope you got some goddamned ammo Busse, ‘cause we can hunt ‘er all!” Off we would go, marching across another swath of prairie.

You could always depend on Jim to be true and authentic. He became a corner post in the wobbly fence of life. Something steady and predictable, always to be relied upon. Following birds was the catalyst for it all.

Over time things got busier and I traveled more. Life happened. We hunted together less. On one of my work trips Sara called me to explain that our beloved Shorthair with whom I had hunted nearly 16 years was on her last leg. Our vet advised we put her down that same day. I could not return for nearly a week and in tears on the phone I blubbered, “I’ll call James.” And of course, he dropped everything and was at Sara’s side within the hour as we lost a bird dog.  A very hard day for any hunter. He cried in the waiting room just as I would have and thought nothing of doing it. By now It’s probably woven into another of his stories.

Nearly 25 years has passed since our first bullshitting session in that bar. We’ve walked a thousand miles together and apart. New dogs have come and gone. Birds have indeed been piled up like cordwood. Family has passed, and a son has been named in his honor. And yet despite the march of time it is as if nothing at all has changed. We are just a couple of bird hunting buddies looking for the next ridge to hunt and tale to weave. Kidding each other about missed shots and permissions gained. A friendship between men based on the most elementary components first brought together from a random encounter. All we have ever really done is follow our dogs and tell stories. Simple things that are enough for us.

As a young man I once stood on a mountain ridge so beautiful that I now find it impossible to describe. It was summer and a bird dog was at my side when I first discovered the place that would change my life. It came to be part of my very being.  Like a military boot camp it broke me and then built me back up. Wild, remote, harsh, and unspoiled by the hand of man. Owned equally by all citizens of the country. Many of my best days on the planet have been spent there.

Soon after I adopted this place as my spirit home it came into the sights of energy companies. Just another place for them to profit from one fossil fuel or another.  And of course those big companies had guys in very nice suits to infiltrate the highest halls of government.  And between those fellas with the Italian ties and the former energy bigwigs in the executive branch they cooked up schemes to roll dozers and derricks into my sacred spot.  I came to find out that my story was one of many.  The only things that changed from the other tales were the actors who played my role and the location of the wild land.  The rest of the script was the same.  The sequels are playing out in the sagebrush steppe and the canyon country still today.

I became a fighter, and student of the fine print. A purveyor of press conferences and pithy quotes in national newspapers. A lobbyist. A student of Ed Abbey. A political animal. I sharpened my existence and my tongue. I assessed what mattered pressed my shoulders into saving it. Of course politics were involved. I figured out how to engage in battles and win wars. I committed never to shy from either.

Those were the days that wiped the crust of naiveté from my eyes. From that time on, politics and policies have never left my consideration because their impacts never exit my days.  I’ve known people who say politics don’t matter or that they are overplayed or that people like me care too much.  I don’t buy a bit of that drivel. I say your politics is a window to your soul.  What you care about and how much you care about it can be seen through your political window like an old gas lamp on a pitch black night.

I care about wild places and losing myself within them. That’s probably why I love bird hunting so much. My politics and life are one in the same and nowhere is this more evident than during bird season. In other words if you wanted to do a political profile on me, just follow me around for a couple days in October.

On an average day you’ll find me hitting the road early in the morning before anyone else is up. And if I don’t ditch the tail you’ll follow me to a remote chunk of public land. I’ll drop the dogs and we’ll be gone for hours, maybe all day. I rack up ten miles or more and dogs will do thirty.  I like big tracts of wide open country.  Unspoiled. The less human intrusion the better. I feel alive in the vastness. I am an explorer on my own land. I like going where others won’t.  I imagine people in far off farm houses looking at me through binocs muttering at my stupidity before they go back to watching the news and drinking coffee.  I imagine some of them voting for people who want to sell these places and the anger at this drives me up the incline.

You might note that I stop to examine grasses or flowers. I watch deer and elk.  I hope to see a badger or a northern harrier falcon.  When I am not admiring the place I am laser focused on my dogs and the terrain. We hunt wild birds first and always and they require tenacity.  My dogs have never even smelled a bird from a pen. I hope to keep it that way.  I tell myself that if I depend on wild places I am more likely to fight for them.

I might stand and watch as a sharptail rises from a point. I pass on the shot and just watch him flap a time or two then hear him cluck as he starts to glide. I watch him in earnest as he gets up to speed. A marvel of aerodynamics. I’ll stand there until he is only a dot in the distance and then gone from my sight but still in flight. I think how far he flew on this one small journey and how much grassy country he requires to exist. Its fall, nearly election day, and I’ll dream of that sharptail voting his self-interests in the booth. I think I know which ovals he would blacken. If you could document my thoughts you’d note that I am thinking of gathering up the sharpies into a great caucus so that we might vote together en masse.

If I see a BLM, USFS or game warden truck I will stop and chat with them. Sometimes for an hour or more.  I always thank them for the work they are doing and note that I understand they have a tough and largely thankless job.  I want them to know I appreciate what they do. I know this place and opportunity did not happen by accident nor will it continue to exist if we are apathetic.

Somedays you might find me hunting in the CRP. If you were in my head, you’d see memories of my father planting thousands upon thousands of acres of native grass in Kansas during the heyday of CRP.  A disciple of Aldo Leopold on a 4230 John deer and a 12 foot grass drill trying to restore his corner of the Great Plains.  And you’d see the resulting pheasants I chased, seemingly everywhere as if mosquitoes in Alaska. Even a mediocre dog could find a limit in short order. A kid with a Model 42 Winchester could fill a vest in a couple hours. I was that kid. You might note that I count the acres that are being removed from this federal program now. I glaze over, staring at a newly tilled field as I remember where a covey once lived.  You might hear me gritting my teeth.

I like to stop by a local bar when the bird day is done. I figure those big national corporatized chains have figured out how to make plenty of profit without me providing too much aid. I want to eat and drink where the locals are. I like authenticity and dirt under fingernails.  I want to know how things are going for these folks and what beer they drink.  And if the waitress grew up on a big ranch up north that just happens to have a bunch of birds, all the better.  “What’s your dad’s name again and you think I could call him?” I might ask.  When she hollers her dad’s name in an affirmative tone, I’ll respond, “That’s awesome, I appreciate it, and Yeh, I’ll have another beer” And then I’ll mutter under my breath with a slight grin, “I sure hope he don’t care that I am a redneck hippie.”  As I take my first drink from the beer I’ll wonder if maybe he will vote with the sharptail caucus too.

 

If I could peer into the twists of double helixes deep inside the cells of my dogs I am confident there would be no Monsanto signature. No corporate trademarks. No sign of the tiniest of tweezers selecting one protein and replacing it with another. And if Teddy, Ruark or Aldo could probe me on a cellular level I am equally confident that there is no Monsanto chicanery to be found within the twists of my mitochondria. Yet here I am GMO and proud, and there are my dogs, modified to act in ways that would make a modern geneticist smile.

Fifteen thousand years ago before big ag was even a glimmer in banker’s eye, a few of our ancestors and few of our dog’s ancestors started toying with each other’s genes. Some brave wolf sauntered up to some open-minded hunter. Then few smart hunters began using wolves to help on the hunt. That’s where it started and before long the slow guys in the tribe had labs and the smart ones had pointing dogs. This all happened over generations but was no less effective than a scientist engineering corn DNA to resist the active ingredient in Roundup.

 
Bird hunters often marvel at the magical connection we have to our dogs. Some even claim divine intervention. I admit to being struck dumb as a stone at what I believe to be nearly unexplainable moments of beauty. Once on a windswept Montana ridge my first great birddog crept then locked then trailed and locked again over and over as he tried to hold a running covey of huns. He was two and I was trying to control him. To whoa and break him and teach him all he needed to know. As he locked on to one more point, he held but the birds had broken again, and he looked over his shoulder as if to ask for permission. I waved and muttered and he started a half mile loop which culminated in him cutting into the wind and locking the huns between us at about 500 yards. I ran up and dropped a couple birds. As he scurried to pounce on a wounded bird I remember standing there almost in tears at the wonder I had just witnessed. If the water in my Nalgene bottle had turned to wine I would not have been more amazed. I now know that it was not permission he was asking. Rather it was him telling me he was in on the same secret. We were both products of the same science. We were literally bred to do this.

I sometimes like to think us bird hunters have a corner on the canine connection. But the hunter’s genes are spread throughout our population just like those from the first few domesticated wolves. Granted it can be hard to identify in flushing dogs and semi auto shooters but it’s not hard to see glimmers of our shared genetics if we just observe.

 
Grandmothers proudly bend rules to allow Bichon Frises to ride on airplanes with them for made up mental health reasons. In those cases, the dogs clearly demonstrate their relative mastery of the gene modification process. Most kids, or at least those with any hope in life, are automatically drawn to a puppy. I’d bet a case of shotgun shells that they all have roots in the same hunter gather tribes that spawned Teddy, me and other bird hunters with their dogs.

 

Genetic science clearly demonstrates that distinguishing traits and behaviors can be bred into a population in just a few generations especially in small populations. Oh yes, both dog and human have long been GMOing ourselves the old-fashioned way. In small tribes and with trial and error. We picked the ones that held points and retrieved with a soft mouth. And the birddogs were modifying us too. Selecting out those who would feed them let them lounge on couches with us.

 
In bird dog circles I sometimes hear the chatter about god and magic and unexplained phenomena. But a wider perspective tells me that what I feel with my dogs is not magic or divine. It is even more powerful. Its bred into us. Our species have been honing this relationship for millennia and it is locked in our genetic instruction sheets. Maybe that’s why my excitement about a big runner with a staunch point on a sharpie comes as natural as my next breath. For me, both the breath and the excitement are of equal importance. Guess I am just gonna have to be OK with being a GMO.