My belief has always been that a fence usually signals a property owner’s strong interest in keeping something in or someone out. Either way, it’s best to ask before crossing into fenced territory. For the hunter, if the land is posted, there is no question about asking; it simply must be done. Even if the answer is "no," ultimate benefits will accrue: First, you will have obeyed the law and demonstrated respect for the property rights of others. Second, you will have shown that you are an ethical hunter and hopefully foster trust between the property owner and all hunters. A recent hunting trip with my usual hunting partner began with a polite "no" from a landowner and ended thirty minutes later with an enthusiastic "YES" from two grateful hunters.

For the past two years my primary hunting partner, Clint Shaffer, and I had talked about traveling to California’s neighbor, Arizona, to hunt Mearns quail. Being dedicated, constant quail hunters, magazine articles and stories of the colorful, tight holding birds had created intense interest and curiosity within us. In the course of several discussions we had gone so far as to make tentative plans for a Mearns hunt but for one reason or another it never materialized. However, when unusually heavy rains in southwestern Idaho happened to coincide with our scheduled joint vacation it washed out our only opportunity to hunt pheasant there as we had done for the past two years. So we decided instead to finally fulfill our ambition to hunt the mystic Mearns. The Mearns hunt ameliorated our disappointment in missing another great pheasant hunt in Idaho. In addition the opportunity meant for us a new challenge, a chance to see new country, and it was a hunt that was closer to our southern California homes.

The Arizona Mearns season was scheduled to open Friday, November 20^th. We decided to leave Thursday, cross the border into Arizona near Yuma, and spend the night in the border town of Nogales. Clint had to work Thursday morning so our getaway would be no earlier than noon. He called me the night before and asked, assuming we departed early enough, if I wanted to stop in the Calexico, California, area to hunt pheasant. I was somewhat dubious at first, trying to weigh the chances of success against the need to make Nogales at a decent hour for a good night’s sleep for the Mearns opening. Onto the scale I also tossed the property factor: Most everything around Calexico is privately owned and heavily posted. Still, the opportunity to get a pheasant was enticing and that tipped the scale. "Okay, I’ll give it a try," I said.

Our canine companionship consisted of Clint’s German Shorthair Pointers, Hunter and Abbey, and my German Shorthair, Tocchet (pronounced "Tocket"), also known as "Tocchet the Rocket," acquired as a puppy four years ago from Bob and Sandy Deitering of Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Clint knows the Calexico area far better than I so he navigated my driving. Arriving in the Calexico area, the two-lane highway we traveled dropped gently into a wide wash and upon coming up the south bank we saw a planted field on the right side of the road that looked promising. It also looked off limits as it was prominently posted "No Hunting." Well, just what I had feared. We talked briefly about our options, then decided to turn off the highway onto a dirt road in an attempt to locate the landowner to ask if we could hunt the field anyway. We soon picked out a small house and large barn within a grove of trees and headed there, a fine, choking dust boiling up behind my truck. Once there, I shut down the truck and we gratefully got out and stretched. It was a simple but welcome pleasure after a three hour drive. Once again I silently patted myself on the back for not making that career move into long haul trucking.

A man soon came out of the barn and greeted us. He turned out to be the foreman, not the owner. We explained why we were there and what we wanted to do. He listened politely and with a perfunctory but polite "wait here," disappeared back into the barn. A minute later he returned and said, "Sorry, the answer is no, but the boss said ‘thank you’ for asking."

"Well," we asked, "is there somewhere nearby that is okay to hunt and might hold some birds?"

He turned and pointed to a compact copse of trees about half a mile away and said the land north of it was open for hunting and that we would stand as good a chance of finding what we were looking for there as anyplace else. We asked a few more questions and he was gracious and patient in answering them. He also told us the best way to get there by continuing across his employer’s land and what roads to take once off his land. I am absolutely convinced that the courtesy we showed in first seeking permission to hunt the land encouraged him to be as helpful as he was and to give us consent to continue across the land.

We thanked him and returned to the truck. We drove west across the property as directed. After one or two hundred yards when we butted into another planted field and, as told, turned right. As soon as we did two distinctive, familiar shapes swept almost directly over our truck and continued west, landing in the field. We both jerked our heads around sharply to follow the flight of the birds as I slammed on the brakes. There was a loud pop and Clint said, " What was that?

"That was my neck. Were they roosters?" I asked, while wondering if I could find a chiropractor in Nogales.

"Couldn’t tell," Clint said. But from the tone of his voice and the look on his face I could tell one thing for sure. He was ready to get out of that truck and go find out. So was I.

Instead of stopping right there I drove a little farther, looking for a place to park the truck off the road and out of the way. About seventy-five yards north the dirt road turned ninety degrees left, bordering the north end of the field. Soon as I turned to follow the road we saw another bird. This one was a for-sure rooster, low crawling west through the field but moving just off the road, in the middle of a big hurry. We were of a single mind for piling out of the truck, loading up, letting the dogs out and getting to it. But we were unsure whether we were still on the land of the farmer who had just denied us permission to hunt. Playing it safe, I jockeyed the truck around and headed back for the same barn from which we had just come.

Arriving at the barn Clint flung the door open and hit the ground running almost before the truck came to a stop. As he went inside, I turned the truck around and left the engine running. Clint came out within a minute and told me the land belonged to another farmer who had a house to the south. We definitely knew where at least one rooster was located and it was oh so tempting to just start hunting. But again we decided to go look for the landowner to ask permission.

This time instead of turning north at the field where we saw the birds we went south and drove only a couple hundred yards when we spotted a man on a tractor working the lower third of the same field. Clint again got out and made contact. From thirty yards away I watched them as if they were negotiating a Middle East peace, trying to get an indication from their body language that would tell me how the conversation was going. Then Clint turned around and walked back, climbed into the truck and simply said, "Let’s go huntin’." The truck didn’t quite do a wheelie as I started north on the road but believe me it did move out smartly.

We went back to the northeast corner where we had seen the rooster running through the field. I stopped and Clint got out, threw a few 20 gauge shells into his vest and got Abbey out of her kennel as she is his most experienced dog and has a marvelous nose. I continued driving west to the opposite corner where, the plan was, I would park, release Tocchet and start back toward Clint in an attempt to pinch the rooster between us. Being the sportsman he is, Clint waited until he could see me coming at him with Tocchet before beginning himself to hunt.

The field had been harvested but of what neither of us knew. Whatever had been growing in it had been cut with long rows of stalky refuse, about five to ten yards apart, running east to west the entire width of the field, which was a distance of about two football fields. It reminded me of an alfalfa field that had been cut but not yet bailed.

I was getting closer to Clint and his dog Abbey but I was keeping most of my attention on Tocchet for she has an excellent nose herself and is a big running dog. I was looking toward the middle of the field when something caught my eye to the north. I turned to see a rooster pheasant, which had finally succumbed to the pressure applied by Clint and Abbey, launch out of cover and blast over the road bordering the north end of the field, its wings furiously digging into air. It had climbed twenty to thirty feet, emitting that wonderful throaty cackle that distinguishes it, leveled off and was building speed into its getaway. It was way out of my range and presented a challenging shot for Clint. But Clint is the best rough shooter I have ever seen and I purely envy his ability. You may recognize the envy I’m talking about: It’s the kind that borders on jealous hatred. In addition to his accuracy, he’s calm under pressure, almost nonchalant. So I was not that surprised when he shouldered his gun, swept it across the dirt road and fired. I was far enough away that I could see feathers fly from the bird, indicating a solid hit, before I heard the report of Clint’s 20 gauge an instant later. A wonderful shot. It’s amazing what a mere 7/8 ounce of lead will do when used by the right person. His ability is a visual poetry that I would not hesitate to plagiarize given the opportunity. Yep, you could almost hate the guy.

With the hit Abbey was off and made a nice retrieve. It was by then no more than fifteen minutes after we had turned off the highway to seek permission to hunt. If our hunt had ended there we both would have considered it a successful day. We weren’t done, however, for we had two more birds to investigate and there was just enough daylight left to satisfy our curiosity.

We were roughly in the middle of the field, still on the northern edge. We decided to maintain the middle of the field and move south, to see if the dogs could pick up the two birds we had seen set down in the field. There was not a breath of a breeze so Abbey and Tocchet were going to be tested.

Clint and I separated from each other by about thirty yards, walking abreast, guns at the ready. I watched Tocchet as she coursed back in forth in front of us. She runs as if her blood is somehow transformed into pure adrenaline. Up hill, down hill, cactus covered flats, it doesn’t make any difference to her. There is only one gear in her transmission and it is labeled "full out fast." If you want an idea of her range, think ZIP code.

It was probably a matter of a few minutes but it seemed like only seconds when she once again defied the laws of physics, going from full afterburner to point mode in the wing beat of a hummingbird. She showed us a classic point, body contorted, neck stretched and head low, absolutely frozen. How is it that she can be churning along like an overworked steam locomotive one second and an instant later stopped still, mouth closed, not moving a muscle, not even seeming to be breathing? I doubt I will ever understand completely but she is a sensational athlete and possessed of such a single-minded purpose of finding birds that I am constantly entertained and often amazed. She had her nose buried in this bird’s scent. From her contorted posture I thought she might have run right over the bird before scenting it, turning and stopping to point in one movement. It is a ballet I will never cease to enjoy.

The bird had to be very close. Was it a hen or rooster? Clint saw Tocchet’s point too and together we cautiously converged on her location. Abbey noticed us, then Tocchet, and moved closer, soon stopping to honor Tocchet’s point. Not for the first time, and like a lot of dog owners I suspect, I wondered why some guy with a movie camera was not here to record this. It was the classic one act play for which all dog owners live. The closer I came to Tocchet’s position the more nervous I became. California is not known for an abundant pheasant population and opportunities like this had to be fulfilled. Not that I was that serious about it: If it was a rooster and I missed with both barrels of my Browning Superposed I would simply ask Clint to shoot me.

As I closed to within a few yards of Tocchet I became amazed at what I saw or, more correctly, what I did not see. The "cover" was practically nonexistent. The low-lying row of plant material that held Tocchet’s intense interest was even more sparse here. But only three feet from Tocchet’s nose one of nature’s best camouflage artists bolted into the sky and headed south as fast as it could go. Sometimes everything seems to go right I thought to myself: It was another rooster. I fully expected the flush but my heart seemed to jump near as far as the pheasant. I fired once and he wobbled and dropped a leg but kept plowing through air, proving once again just how tough these birds can be. I fired again and brought it to ground. Where was that guy with the camera anyway?! A good retrieve by Tocchet and now both Clint and I had scored a rooster. Still only twenty minutes after turning off of paved highway. We were ecstatic. The dogs picked up on our excitement and seemed even more energized than usual. I removed my vest, tucked the bird carefully into it and put it on again. The weight of it on my back felt good. We started hunting again.

We walked in the same direction, middle of the field, straight south toward the Mexican border. No more than seven minutes later Tocchet was at it again: Another silent and instant stop, another awesome point, and another rooster. Again, this one was within a few feet of Tocchet’s nose and when flushed also made for the border. The pheasant was about to level off when Clint and I fired simultaneously. The rooster folded in mid-air and fell. Abbey beat Tocchet to the rooster and retrieved it. Usually sticklers for hunting dog etiquette, we ignored Abbey’s breach of protocol because we were by then near intoxicated with excitement. Anyone could have figured that out. We were giggling like a couple of ten-year-olds with new Christmas bicycles. Even in the course of our Idaho pheasant forays we had never brought down three birds at the beginning of a hunt so quickly or effectively. Clint dubbed the last pheasant a "community bird" since we fired at the same time. But comparing his shooting ability to mine, (actually, there is no real comparison) I let him keep it.

We hunted the rest of the northern half of the field, then headed back to the truck to clean the birds as we were beginning to lose daylight. On the way in we kept up a constant and excitement charged dialogue, trying to relive the last fifteen to twenty minutes. But my prior observation about this experience bears repeating: I am convinced our good fortune was the result of simple courtesy and sportsmanship. We were in a position to see those birds only because a man who appreciated our consideration of property rights directed us there. Even if we had not seen a single bird, much less bag three within fifteen minutes, it had been the right thing to do. And the Mearns? The next day in Arizona Clint and I each bagged a limit, but that is another story.