On the migratory superhighway of the Pacific Flyway, Oregon is an avian apotheosis, or at least a scenic resting spot on the 5,000-mile route for more than one billion birds annually. Offering cover in riverside thickets, forest understory and marshland, the state also has one of the longest bird hunting seasons in the country, duck season begins the second weekend in October and runs through January. In the same way that patterns of flight are imprinted by evolution, hunting is part of canine DNA and that goes for humans, too. [Photo above: Donny Farrell with Duke near Summer Lake, Oregon]
Gillian Murkin was introduced to hunting 13 years ago by her husband Andrew and his dog, Mally, short for Mallard. She fell in love with the sport by watching dogs and how they worked.
“If you’ve ever seen a child with one toy at the top of their list, it’s like that for the dogs. They get that look on their faces when retrieving as if it’s Christmas, a birthday and New Year’s Eve all at once. It’s everything they love all in one moment,” she said.
“Quin’s goal is to be where Andrew is. She’d be in his skin if she could. It makes her happiest to give up what she retrieves since her whole world revolves around him.”
—Gillian Murkin
The Murkins, with their labs Quin and Widge (named for Harlequin and American widgeon ducks) have been to the wetlands near Summer Lake for opening day of duck hunting season for the past eight years, but it’s not just for sport.
“People may get a negative impression of hunting, but it’s an intentional use of time,” Gillian said. “I get to sit in nature with my dog. If we’re lucky, we’ll get something to eat, a bird or two, but the best part is the magic of being out there when nature doesn’t know you’re watching.”
Hunting allows instinct take the lead, naturally.
Roosters Are Her Life’s Work
An Essay by Gary Lewis
Pepper. I wrote her name on a piece of paper. Stuck it on my bulletin board. Looked at it a few times for the better part of a week. I knew the right pudelpointer was out there somewhere. The promise of this breed is to be a versatile dog with “birdiness,” desire, a strong field nose, endurance, pointing instinct and a family companion. I made a couple of phone calls and heard of a female puppy with no name and a purple collar, owned by the Daytons of Lost Valley Gundogs in Nampa, Idaho. We drove to Nampa, picked her up and brought her back home to Bend.
Then, at four months old, she knew it was a special day because I put a bandana on her. A red bandana meant a ride in the truck. This new fuzzy-faced pup was so young that she did not even know what she was made for. We drove north to Maupin and ended up at Sage Canyon Outfitters where I asked if I could take the puppy for a walk, let her smell the smells and hear the sounds of guns in the distance. We walked in and out of the marshes and once she jumped a pair of meadowlarks and then a snipe. She quartered back and forth, checking back to see that I followed.
Back at the clubhouse, I let her get a sniff of a rooster’s tail feathers. “This is your life’s work,” I told her. Lucky dog.
A Dog With Heart
Sometimes we hunt in asparagus fields, sometimes in furrows sown to wild rye and sorghum. We might walk along a railroad track with a quarter mile of Russian olive and cottonwoods, tall grass and tangles of blackberry with cattails in the creek bottoms. We want to start quietly with no slamming of car doors or whistles or shouts.
If the birds are before us, there will be a scent cone to find. A dog quarters back and forth to sort through the smells, discovering, cataloging and discarding tendrils of scent. While there may be rabbits and meadowlarks in the cover, dogs know these are not our game. As a dog works out the trail, a rooster is likely to move ahead at first and then buttonhook and go back the way it came.
The dog may lose the scent and reacquire it a dozen times, but if it is experienced, it will make smaller moves, adjusting to find the scent cone again. And when the scent is strong, the dog knows to stop, often with one front foot held off the ground, its body rigid, tail flagged, afraid to move, nose and eyes locked on the spot where the bird has stopped.
We communicate with whispers or hand signals, guns muzzle-up, trigger fingers along the actions. This is when a young rooster will flush, while an older bird might lock up tighter. The bird lifts its wings and—kuk-kuk-kuk—clears the cattails and tilts into the wind and for a moment it is in range of the guns.
There is no more glorious moment than when the dog has pointed the rooster and the approaching hunter puts it to air. There is a shot, and the dog sees the bird drop and dashes forward to catch its scent again, pin the rooster to the ground then turn to seek its master.
Pepper will be going into her first full hunting season with as good a start as we could hope for. She’s a dog that back home is eager to please, knows her place at heel and by the hearth, and has won our hearts. Because she gives all of hers.
