This essay recently appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of Pheasants Forever Journal. Thanks to Tom Carpenter, PFJ Editor, for featuring not only my words but my wife’s art in this great, national hunting and conservation magazine. Thanks, as well, to The Coach (Legendary Hibbing Baseball Coach and Activities Director) Tim Scott who, along with his beloved Ruby, is pictured in René’s most excellent watercolor. Tim has joined me over the past few Decembers for what we call our “Minnesota March” and, if God’s willing, we’ll be out there again with our pups crashing through cattails and snowdrifts in 2026.
The following is the original, unedited piece I wrote.
(C) Mark Munger, 2025.
Old Men, Winter, and Dogs
The Judge came late in life to the hunt. He was along for one Minnesota pheasant hunt as a kid. He was twelve years old and carried an empty Savage .22 just “To get a feel for things.” Dad, Uncle Paul (who lived in Benson, MN), Grandpa Jack, the family black Lab and Paul’s Springer made up the hunting party. The Judge remembers Dad shooting a hen pheasant, a “no-no”, the only bird downed and sadly left behind for coyotes. Later, the Judge, attending law school, newly married, a kid on the way, met up with Dad and Jim (the Judge’s godfather), west of the Cities where he, Dad, and Jim hunted roosters and spent a couple of nights in Benson’s only motel. Uncle Paul had lost his Springer, experienced a major heart attack, was battling cancer, and could no longer take the field. That late season, shuffling-through-prairie-snow-drifts and trudging-in-cattails adventure was another bust. Only a handful of roosters flushed, few shots were taken, and no birds were bagged.
Fast forward. The Judge was elected to the bench, fathered four sons, and Dad was up there in age. The Judge and Dad experienced a handful of game farm outings where they chased and shot tame pheasants. But that was it until, out of the blue, Dad asked, “You want to hunt pheasants with Bruce and I?”
Dad and his hunting/fishing partner had been making fall pilgrimages to Ashley, North Dakota. After saying “yes” to that invitation and taking in his first late-October trip to North Dakota, the Judge was hooked. It wasn’t that the crew shot a ton of birds. It was all about watching Dad’s black Lab Cleo work fields, cattails, trees, and grass on both private and PLOTS (Private Land Open To Sportsmen) land in the hopes of a flush.
Time eventually slows the cadence of hunting men (and I’m sure, women) who prefer walking behind a retriever or pointer to chasing whitetail or hunkering down in a duck blind when fall rolls around. But before the Ashley hunts fell victim to Father Time, circumstances changed. PLOTS land was withdrawn from public use and landowners began insisting hunters pay to hunt. Still, before things went south, the Judge was able to introduce his sons to the magic and majesty of hunting the Plains for roosters alongside their grandfather until Dad, whose beloved Cleo had passed over the rainbow bridge, chose to stay in Florida; enjoying his condo and the warmth of the Sunshine State rather than heading north to chase wild pheasants.
After one final, fruitless, wet-from-torrential-rain, October hunt near Ashley (no birds were taken and Leala, the Judge’s Brittany, “flushed” a skunk), the Judge, who had a son living in Williston, decided to try his luck further north. The plan was to stay with the son’s young family, explore the area, and hunt PLOTS and public land with Leala, who’d recovered from her run-in with a varmint. Despite a trip to the local vet to staple a gash across Leala’s thigh (an encounter with barbed wire), the hunt was everything the Judge wanted: roosters and sharp tail grouse flushing in numbers over great points by the little dog. A few birds found the game pouch: many more flew away unscathed. But, in addition to his success in the field, the Judge made some new friends in nearby Montana, folks who invited him to hunt their farm and stay with them without charge. The combination of the kindness of strangers, ample public and public access land to hunt, and good numbers of Hungarian partridge, rooster pheasants, and sharp tail grouse, drew the Judge to return year after year. His aim and his stamina haven’t gotten better. He and his partners, both human and canine, have endured driving rain, snow squalls, unseasonable warmth, bitter cold, and the overabundance or absence of water. But even after missing bird after bird after bird this past November, the Judge’s glasses useless in a howling snowstorm, the birds holding tight, the dogs working their collective magic to flush reluctant roosters, partridge, and grouse, he and his youngest son left the prairie with memories, plenty of birds in the bag, and satisfied pups.
Four years ago, at the suggestion of a friend, the Judge planned a Minnesota pheasant hunt. The late season trip would involve the Judge and the Coach (a retired teacher, school administrator, and coach) who’s a year younger than the gray-haired jurist: both men at or near seventy. Just two old men, two Labs, and a Britt off on an adventure. The Judge had no idea what to expect hunting public and walk-in access land in southwestern Minnesota. And yet, he and the Coach (who hunts pheasants in South Dakota and ducks in North Dakota with family) were determined to see what a winter walk-about in search of Minnesota roosters might be like. Yes, the Judge knew that early December would likely mean snow. And cold. And that Minnesota bird numbers, even after serious conservation efforts by the DNR, volunteers, and Pheasants Forever, wouldn’t be near what the men see further west. Didn’t matter. The die was cast. And so, a new tradition was born. Shooting his very first wild pheasant in the state he’s called home for over seventy years of life brought the biggest grin possible to the Judge’s craggy, bearded face.
Over the past four years, the two old men and their dogs have tromped over and through and around tree rows, cattails, snow, ice, bluestem, juniper, buckthorn, and grass in search of birds. The Judge believes the trips he and the Coach take, these last forays of the season, hunting over magnificent dogs who flush and point and retrieve (whenever the old men are lucky enough to connect) are a thing of great beauty and dampen, both physically and mentally, the impact of time.
The Judge remembers the men-all of whom are gone-who taught him to hunt; the dozens of hunting dogs he’s owned and hunted behind; and smiles when he thinks of his sons, his grandsons (and, perhaps someday, his granddaughters too!), and the Coach traipsing through pheasant country in quest of peace, beauty, and contentment.
