I once went bird hunting in the median strip on US Route 29. It was one of many amazing adventures in my career as an outdoorsman. Here’s how it happened.
It was the mid-1970’s. Elvis was still alive and there were lots of quail in Virginia. Since I was a kid, bird hunting was my passion. At the time I had a young setter named Hunter – the best dog I’ve ever had. Hunter never, ever busted a quail. Not once. He would hold a point for hours and would hunt until every fiber of his being was exhausted. This dog was intense to say the least. When I opened the door of my car to let him out of the back seat, I had to move quickly or I would be bowled over by a simulated buffalo stampede.
But every bird hunter needs a truck, not a car door to open, and I finally bought one. It was a ‘66 Chevy with a good bit of rust, but it was a truck and it was mine.
At the time, my neighbor, Donald Ramirez, was my regular bird hunting companion and was delighted that I bought a truck; that is until he had to ride with Hunter perched in his lap on the way to and from bird hunts. The “riding to” wasn’t nearly so bad as the “riding from” part, when Hunter was usually wet, dirty, full of briars and sometimes had the remains of rotten animal parts embedded in his fur. Hunter liked to roll on dead things, for some reason.
When that happened, Donald complained bitterly.
“Can’t you put the dog in the back?” Donald huffed.
Well, I could, but I didn’t have a camper shell or a dog box and Hunter, as intense as he was, would have bounded from the truck at the first opportunity.
One day I had an idea, which Donald always said was a dangerous thing. My plan was to tie a cord from one side of the truck bed to the other, then run the cord through Hunter’s collar.
Brilliant!
Now my dog would be unable to escape the back of the truck, but could move from side to side, and I allowed a little slack so he could lie down if he chose. Best of all, I wouldn’t have to listen to Donald bitching about the last dead possum Hunter rolled in.
On a chilly, December morning, we secured Hunter to the cord in the back of the truck and shoved off.
“Much better,” we both agreed, until we came to the main highway. Route 29 to be exact, a 4-lane highway with a 40,000 daily car count. At that time, I had to drive up to a crossover in order to head back south. At the crossover, we waited for traffic to pass, then eased out when it was clear and took off. I had just shifted into second gear when I glanced in my side mirror and saw Hunter running along beside the truck on his hind legs, with his neck still secured to the rope in the back of the truck. He was doing about 30 miles an hour. Not bad for two feet. Hunter had jumped out of the back of the truck at the crossover, thinking it was time to go hunting
“Holy #*&!,” I said and quickly pulled onto the grass median in an effort to get Hunter back in the vehicle. When I stopped, and with trucks and cars blowing their horns and barreling past, Hunter pulled free from his collar and began checking out the median strip looking for quail.
On my first two attempts, Hunter dodged my capturing efforts and was starting to cross the highway when I did a Flying Wallenda leap, pinned him down, picked him up by the scruff of his neck and tossed him in the front seat with Donald – just as a Greyhound Bus whizzed by at 60 miles per hour.
We had a good hunt in Nelson County that day – ten birds between us. But the ride home was unusually quiet, as we had all the windows down after Hunter had rolled on a dead cow he found in a sinkhole.
The next week I bought a used camper shell. Next to my .410 Remington 1100, it was the best purchase I’ve ever made.
In hindsight, Route 29 is a very scenic and historic highway, but not such a great place to bird hunt.