Late Greats: If Sam goes on point, the bird is there. In this case, it’s a single (Sam’s tail is drooped), and it may be a cripple. Boddington’s father is trying to kick it up. This was Sam’s last hunt.

Northern Oklahoma reminded me of the Kansas I grew up in. Brushy hedgerows bordered small grain fields, and the creek bottoms were wide and thick. Fingers of grass and buckbrush extended up out of the low ground, often ending in little islands of dark plum. It was some of the best bobwhite country I’d seen in decades. I was there for the Grand National Quail Hunt, but as I saw the country, I was mostly there for memories.

The second day, on the Meibergen farm, I had a pretty good morning. Minutes from the vehicles the dogs locked up in a grassy swale. We walked in and the birds went my way, streaking for the creek. I picked a quartering bird and swung, dropping it cleanly. Five yards farther, a second bird dropped to the same pattern. That was a lucky accident, but my old Model 12 felt good, smooth and comfortable.

We caught a second covey in a little plum thicket. The first birds flushed under my partner’s feet and I heard his gun, but a few came my way. I folded a hard right, then shifted onto a towering bird as the old gun shucked itself. That one came straight down as well, and I lowered the gun. No sense pushing my luck. A few minutes and two singles later, I was done with the “event” portion of the morning--only the first six count, so I finished with six quail for five shots. I knew I wouldn’t win anything--I’d fluffed a shot the previous day on Evans Chambers’ place--but I hadn’t embarrassed myself or my host, Joey Meibergen. Now we could walk a few more draws and plum thickets and enjoy the morning and Joey’s beautiful dogs. Absent pressure I missed a couple, but I suspect my mind was wandering.

It was the fall of 1962 when I shot my first bobwhite quail. Kennedy was President, and we didn’t yet know where Vietnam was. I was with my grandfather, working along a little draw lined with buckbrush and yellow grass. We were on the Ridgeway farm, west of Tonganoxie--good quail country then. Dad was off to the left, along the main creek. We were between bird dogs then, but I’ve never known people who could locate quail like my father or his father.

“Grandy,” as I called him, sensed the covey and told me to get ready. Easy to say, hard to do, especially for a boy who hasn’t yet hit a quail and wants one more than anything in the world. My heart stopped when they burst up under my feet, but this time, somehow, I actually picked a single bird out of the whirring mass of wings. I saw it go down cleanly. Grandy did not; his eyes were already a problem, and he no longer carried a shotgun. He was the bird dog, and although he hadn’t seen the fall, I asked him to hunt dead.

I learned the hard way that most important skill of marking a downed bird. Dad was great at it, and pathological about not losing birds. He was the fastest shot I have ever seen on upland birds, and I suppose that’s why he was a good fighter pilot. Dad always maintained that his father was the better shot, but I came along too late to see proof of that. I know I cannot recall seeing Dad miss. He picked his bird, killed it, and marked it--as I suspect he did Japanese airplanes. He shot so fast that he had plenty of time to empty his humpbacked Browning, but I also cannot recall him ever taking a double. He shot his bird, and only when it was in his old canvas coat would he shoot another.