Today's Installment of Questionable Logic

"A toll's a toll, and a roll's a roll.
And if we don't get no tolls, then we don't eat no rolls. "

Translation: nothing worthwhile comes easy. Or, you reap what you sow. Or, you get what you pay for. There's probably a dozen adages that aim to teach what some refuse to accept as truth. I wonder what bird hunting would be like if shooting a limit was a foregone conclusion? Not very fun, I suspect.

Unlike most--who get their start with their fathers and grandfathers--I started hunting later in life. In-state tuition and an esteemed college of engineering pulled me to the middle-of-nowhere Kansas State University. I was a product of suburbia and, since there were no wild trout nearby, I spent the first few years chasing girls and drinking beer, usually in that order. Naturally, I met a lot of kids from rural Kansas (K-State is historically an aggie school) and was taken on a bird hunt or two.

Like all bird hunters I vividly remember the first bird I "earned." That inaugural season I borrowed shotguns here and there and hunted a lot by myself--and none of us had dogs. We didn't know to pick up a WIHA atlas, so we just hunted the same piece over and over again: a quarter section of CRP bordered by a grain field. We saw lots of roosts, but after many hunts we still hadn't seen a pheasant. We're talking many trying hours stumbling aimlessly through the CRP (sometimes slogging through snow or rain), looking down for sign, pausing to listen, doing anything we/I could to stack odds in our/my favor.

One blistery January evening I was alone walking the edge against the grain field with a borrowed Remington 870 Express. The sun was just dropping below the cloud cover on the horizon when I paused to listen. Just then a rooster exploded right in front of me and made a hard maneuver to the left. The trigger pull sent a bright flame out of the barrel and the dragon's fire anchored my bird in the grass. That evening I broke our house mom's rules by bringing the bird into the kitchen to pose for a picture, like it was some sort of trophy deer or gobbler. Well, it was a trophy to me, and a significant emotional experience. I've since killed many more pheasants, but none came after as much effort as that first bird, and no bird has given me a bigger smile (dogs are another matter). The successes after small failures stoke the fire to drive longer and walk further. If ever this thing I do becomes easy, and I don't think it ever will, I'll get bored and move on. After all, nothing worthwhile comes easy.