I headed off to Fairview with Remington and Jez. This would be our first OFA meet and iw as quite excited and i was headed to a part of Oklahoma i had never visited before.
We arrived late in the evening set the tent up as the temps where going to be in the low 40's and i quickly got Remington and jez out for a hunt. I was in a a field that had been planted and had some alfalfa. There was no cover at all in this field and so we walked along the perimeters of the field but saw nothing. The sun set so Remington and i curled up in the tent. Remington growled at something int he night and then later we smelt that awesome smell of a skunk. By 500am the temperature suddenly dropped to 25c the dog and i retreated to the car and headed for some hot coffee and something to eat. I checked on Jez and he seemed to be ok so we headed of the meeting point at 8am.
I decided i didn't want to hang out with the normal dirt hawkers and people i have met before but to visit with the Long Wingers and people i had heard great things about. With that i meet with Mitch Wishom and Rob Rainey and we went off with Oscar Pack, David Price and Lee Granter. Our first outing was a few miles outside of fairview on a country road. Lee had got permission on some property but was concerned because he couldn't find any ducks. At that moment 25 lifted from a nearby pond and landed in one near by. None of the 3 birds flown cooperated in any fashion they either didn't like the number of people of the number of pointers in the filed. Ducks would be flushed and land on another pond and then the same would happen again back and forth. We then Meet up with Daniel Murry and Eric Pribill
David Price seemed to have an interesting flight with his bird but again no ducks in the bag. I started joking with them then saying for trying to convert me to the dark side and fly longwings this wasnt working very well. The laughing response that came back was i was being mean and too hard.
We then moved on to fly Rob Raineys Aplomondo Falcon a really pretty thing. We hoped to find some quail but the drought in this area had really taken its toll. I was up next as we tried something different with trying to fly Jez on small ponds with ducks we had one good flush after driving and walking around alot but Jez only half hearted went for them. He was 15 grams under at this point. Then it was time to head back and go to the meet dinner. I was amazed at the number of none OFA members there with lots of people i had never recognised.
Eric and his brother had offered for me to stay with them which was awesome of them to do so. So the rest of the evening was talking about falcons and drooling over a fine Prairie and Tundra. In the morning i wanted to head for Drummond Flats i had heard there was pheasant there. The wind was picking up but i thought i would give it a try. Sadly no one wanted to go with me ( 30 minute drive) and they really did miss out.
I arrived at a bunch of maze fields parked up and let Remington run. He pointed some Meadow Larks and some Pheasants. We got a flush of a couple of pheasants and at that point i decided to get Jez out.
We moved to anther field and flushed 12 pheasants in a massive explosion jez chased and put in after one but for some reason didn't connect. We tried re flushing but never got another. We also chased quite a few rabbits but the cover was pretty dense and Jez couldn't break through it. By this point the wind had really picked up. Just trying to hold the T-Perch up was hard and the gusts would pull jez of the perch. At that point a game warden turned up wanting to know what i was doing and wanted to see my permits, Nice enough guy but that the wind i decided then to call it a day
So my plan for next year is to really get Jez and Remington and Bella working together. Drummond is only 2hrs away and would make a great day trip. There is plenty of game there and it would be well worth going again.
I got to say the meet was very well organised with maps that could be loaded into GPS devices, A2 scaled maps of locations. There was plenty of ducks, rabbits, jacks and pheasants to please every one just a dam shame no one caught anything. The glass mountins are amazing and an awsome place to hunt. I learnt alot and found out alot about flying long wings , Thanks to all for letting me tag along
One other thing was on the way back. I dint often see a union jack flying in the middle of Oklahoma so i was interested in what was going on. I discovered a young teenage had passed in 2005 only 18 years old. he played guitar and was well loved. They had a chalk wall with lots of messages. So i left a message from one fellow Brit to another.
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