After a very busy fall I finally had an opportunity to join Peter & Andrea Bassan at their cabin in Trepassey for a day partridge hunting. Bassan and I left town after work Friday arriving in Trepassey after dark.

We enjoyed supper of Bassan's homemade moose sausage pasta while Peter caught up on his Italian soap operas!

Weather conditions Saturday morning were less than ideal. It was quite windy and foggy, we were actually later than normal getting to the barrens as the fog was even worse early this morning.

On our initial hunt, we left Peter and the setters back at the vehicles and made a quick walk up the old road. We flushed up one bird, Bassan connected a shot but the wind took it a long ways away across the road! We'll use the dogs later to retrieve the, for now, lost bird.

Next we drove in Cape Pine road and hunted an area towards the end of the road not far from the lighthouse.

We seen a fair number of birds but they were very wild in the high winds and always took flight long before we were in shooting range.

Mid morning conditions improved, winds dropped just slightly but fog cleared away just enough to grant us decent visibility.

Throughout the day the trend of birds taking off prematurely continued and not many shots were fired.

Our final hunt took us back to the same country we parked next to first thing this morning. Visibility was notably better!

We covered a lot of ground making a long gradual circle across the barrens then back towards the highway.

On the last stage of our hike, the dogs performed perfectly and we found the bird Bassan shot first thing!

Despite non ideal conditions, we still managed to squeak in a great hunt. Normally we would stay again overnight, but the weather forecast for Sunday is absolutely terrible. With that in mind, we loaded up the truck and headed for home.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith