(bright music) (upbeat music) - Go find em, hunt em up!

- [Brett] On today's "Prairie Sportsman", it's all about the old dogs.

- Randomly saw a free puppy was like, "Yep.

Take 'em."

- [Hunter] What do you think, Miks?

- [Bret] We'll learn about some old veteran bird dogs and take 'em on what might be their final hunt.

- [Hunter] I love it.. (air whooshing) - [Bret] Then we learned about Wings North.

- [Member] You can do a little bit of everything out here.

- [Bret] A hunting club near Pine City that gives people the chance to learn more about the outdoors.

- An outdoor recreation facility.

- Yeah.

- Is what we want to be, right?

(air whooshing) - [Bret] Plus Nicole Zempel tracks down an old mushroom.

- [Nicole] People either really, really don't like it or they just think it's okay.

- Welcome to "Prairie Sportsman."

I'm Brett Amundson.

We got a great show for you starting right now.

(upbeat music) (soft music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by: the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, and by Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windham, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org (upbeat music) - [Bret] In the hunting world, dogs rule but they just don't live long enough.

After a lifetime of working hard in the field for us, today is all about them.

♪ Old dogs ♪ Are the best ♪ Flushers, pointers ♪ And all the rest ♪ They wait at the door ♪ On a crisp fall day - [Bret] There's a reason they're called man's best friend.

For those of us who live to hunt, having a four-legged partner in the field is priceless.

♪ They whine and whimper as the ducks drop in ♪ ♪ And wait for the signal to go for swim ♪ - Well, it's a blustery day here in December and we're about an hour north of the Twin Cities at Wings North.

Now this is a hunting preserve or a hunting club, but we're here today to chase some birds around.

We got some pheasants out here and we got a group of guys with some old veteran bird dogs, and this is a chance to give them one last hunt or one of their last hunts, but let them go out there and just be a bird dog with no pressure, have a little bit of fun and stay warm.

♪ If a dog could tell ya what it likes to do ♪ - [Bret] Somebody gave me this idea, they get a group of friends with dogs that are at least 10 years old and bring 'em to a game farm like this.

I thought it was a great idea and I was looking forward to seeing these old dogs in action.

♪ Old dogs are the best - The Boone-man!

He's definitely the first (soft music) wild man dog that I ever had.

He was our second dog as a family, He was our second dog as a family, and then just randomly saw a free dog, free puppy pop up on Facebook, a purebred lab.

I was like, "Yep, sure, take 'em.

Sounds good."

(laughing) So lined it up and then he got dropped off at Game Fair actually it was just a couple weeks later, got dropped off at Game Fair and oh, probably 12 weeks, 14 weeks old or something like that at the time.

(gun clicks) What is this hunting stuff?

Took a little seven year hiatus.

Now we're back at it.

(laughing) Mentally he's there.

1000% would be starting lineup every day, guaranteed if he had the health, so but.

(tongue clicks) - [Bret] What happened?

- Well, we were goose hunting and he was in an accident.

He was in the back of a Ranger and they were going way too fast.

I wasn't a part of that.

Hit something that was buried underneath the snow and he was in the back of the Ranger, his back, essentially his back broke.

(solemn music) Come on, buddy.

Come on buddy.

Come here.

Come here, buddy.

So he had huge surgery at the University of Minnesota to try and fix that.

And so there's a bone epoxy in there and screws and that didn't work.

And so we tried everything we possibly could to get 'em fixed up but didn't work out, so.

Go find 'em, hunt 'em up.

Get in there.

Go find 'em.

(wind rustling) - [Bret] He locked up on that bird right away today.

- Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, he hit scent and I don't think he realized that we were even hunting 'cause he hasn't hunted for so long.

So I don't think he even realized we were hunting for a little while, and then he's like, "Whoa, that smells like a bird.

I remember that."

And then he had a little bit of this pointing blood, so I thought, in him, and he kind of had this natural point for the most part.

And so I sent him down to a trainer in Southern Minnesota and said, "Here, see what you can do with him."

He specialized in some pointing dogs.

So he got him to point and got put a pointing title on him in like 45 days or something like that.

So it was all pretty natural and pretty cool.

(gun firing) Oh!

(laughing) Yeah, locked up and it was pretty flush and pretty well point.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] Most of the guys today were hunting with guns at only shoot two shells - Right.

Traditional, upland guys.

Waterfowl dude.

Three bangs at that one.

Yeah.

Got him, dead bird.

(Bret and Cory laughing) Oh, there goes Boone.

(group laughing) - I love it.

- That one.

I was like, "I'm not gonna put the collar on him.

There's no way he's gonna get far enough away."

(group laughing) Oops.

- He going.

Is he on point right there?

Nope, he's pooping.

Oh, it's come back here now.

There it is.

(gun firing) Hey!

Dead bird.

There you go.

Nice shot, Ben.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

- We all chuckled as the dogs hobbled out after this bird.

(hunter laughing) - Oh.

Man.

- [Bret] But then something about Annie's back leg caught my eye.

- So Annie is a 10-year-old Deutsch Drahthaar.

She was really one of my, first dog of my own, first gun dog.

And she is a warrior still at 10 years old.

- Good job, Annie.

- Still wants it.

- [Hunter] Good job.

Oh, good girl.

- Just a great puppy to have because the nice thing about drive is that can help you overcome a lot of mistakes you make as a trainer just 'cause they want it so bad.

So she was the perfect kind of like first dog to really dig in and train and really learn from, because you could make mistakes with her and she was just happy that she would come out the other side of it and just be gung-ho about doing whatever it was.

♪ This could be the best thing that'll I ever know ♪ ♪ This could be the best thing that'll I ever know ♪ ♪ Hm - Find them.

- Annie at six years old, so four years ago now, had a spinal stroke.

so four years ago now, had a spinal stroke.

It's called an FCE, where essentially she was paralyzed in her back two legs for probably two months.

And it was in the summer just as I had moved back home to Minnesota and the doctor's like, "Well", or the vet said essentially like she could come out perfectly fine out the back end or she could never walk again.

(solemn music) We did all, we had done a bunch of rehab and different things and, yeah, I remember the first time she walked again.

Yeah, it was super emotional because you could just tell even to this day how much she loves it.

♪ This could be the best thing that I'll ever know ♪ ♪ Mm - [Ben] There we go.

♪ They become family and they love ya ♪ ♪ They just don't live long enough ♪ (gun firing) ♪ Old dogs are the best ♪ Flushers, pointers ♪ And all the rest - She's just, (laughing) three legs going as fast she cn three legs going as fast she can and one just dragging behind her.

and one just dragging behind her.

And (laughing) you would never know, And (laughing) you would never know, like you would think that she has no idea that she's only got three legs so yeah, pretty special, a lot.

so yeah, pretty special, a lot.

Tremendous amount of heart for dogs, right?

Like, gosh if I lose a leg I'm probably sitting on the couch and doing nothing.

But she acts like she is just one of the other dogs, can do just as much as they can.

So it's pretty special.

♪ They'll go till they drop (soft music) ♪ There's no quit in 'em ♪ No matter how scratched up ♪ Or how much they're limping (soft music) - Oh, the old man?

Well, he's the only one that made it out of his litter.

Well, he's the only one that made it out of his litter.

All the other ones got ran over by tractors or mouse poison or the other things that take out farm dogs.

or mouse poison or the other things that take out farm dogs.

We actually bid on 'em at a Pheasants Forever auction, the old Hendricks chapter, and lo and behold we won.

the old Hendricks chapter, and lo and behold we won.

He's got a little in him still, which was cool.

It's hard, you know, like it's sad to watch, you know, he's been with the family.

Like we raised our kids with him, right.

You know?

He's 13 and that's tough, getting old.

(soft music continues) - Mika turns 14 in January and she doesn't do much hunting anymore.

Last season she actually retrieved the last bird of the season last year.

I had Tiny out too, she beat Tiny the bird, which I thought was pretty amazing and I've had her on a couple short walks this year, but she doesn't get around like she used to.

She can't hear anything so.

Good job.

Hey.

Not bad at all.

Gonna be 13 in a couple weeks.

She's an old dog.

She started hunting when she was about eight months old.

She's done a lot of pheasant hunting and she's reached that age where she kind of takes her time, goes at her own speed, does what she wants to do.

But you know what?

She's earned that.

She's got a lot of retrieves, spent a lot of time in the field, so.

(gun fires) What'd you think, Miks?

There you go.

There you go.

There you go.

♪ From the moment that we met ♪ You were worth the wait - Oh yeah, oh yeah.

What's that?

Good.

♪ Oh ♪ This could be the best thing that I'll ever know ♪ - Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

♪ Mm (Bret laughing) - Being able to do this with her, you know, in this type of situation or any type of situation, it's tough to beat.

It's pretty awesome.

(soft upbeat music) - The cool thing about old dogs - The cool thing about old dogs and something I have to remind myself, and something I have to remind myself, it's like it's always fun to go run the, you know, the young dogs and a lot of potential, a lot of fun, fire, whatever.

But you know, you get those old dogs out, But you know, you get those old dogs out, it was fun watching 'em today and just the demeanor shifts, right?

It's not "let's find birds, let's get as many as we can."

It's just like everyone was just watching the dogs like he, like nobody was yelling, there was no ego involved.

Right?

It's like, hey, you look at all those old dogs and it's like they don't owe you anything, right?

Like they have been there, done that.

So it was really cool just to see that ego completely go out the window.

- [Bret] They don't owe us anything but, and you don't ever want to hurt a dog of course, but we almost owe it to them to give 'em an opportunity like this, don't we?

- A dog might be a small part of your world, right?

- A dog might be a small part of your world, right?

We've got responsibilities, we've got jobs, we've got family, but to them we are everything, right?

we've got family, but to them we are everything, right?

we've got family, but to them we are everything, right?

So as they get older, they've given their everything to us.

So yeah, for opportunities like that, to be able to get out and find birds and do what they love.

to be able to get out and find birds and do what they love.

Yeah, like that is what they live for.

(soft upbeat music continues) - You know, they give you everything, everything.

- You know, they give you everything, everything.

And you just want to try and give them back a little bit of your time, and just watching that amount of drive and just watching that amount of drive and love and determination and you know, just kind of wither away and just be a little bit less able than they were last year or yesterday or last month, it really, (clearing throat) or yesterday or last month, it really, (clearing throat) it just kind of tears you up because you're so close to 'em for so long and they just give you so much.

(wind whooshing) - [Bret] Oh, right, here.

(gun firing) There you go.

Nice shot, Cory.

Nice job.

That away, Miks.

- That's really all there is.

You know?

Humans say it all the time, "Oh, I gave 100%."

It's like have you ever seen a bird dog hunt?

Like that's what 100% looks like.

Like not what you just did out there on the soccer field or on your math test.

That's not 100%.

Like this is a bird dog.

This is a 100%.

(upbeat music) - [Hunter] Good.

- Oh!

He got him.

- Good job.

Good.

- [Bret] Cory put a nice shot on that bird.

Annie pointed it, Cory shot it, Mika retrieved it.

- [Bret] As we put our dogs away- - Good job.

- I had to wonder if this would be the last time Mika would get to hunt.

♪ Old dog - [Bret] I do know that if she gets the chance- ♪ Are the best - [Brett] There's no way she'll let me leave her at home.

♪ Flushers, pointers ♪ And all the rest - [Staff] We do some oddball stuff.

We've got bean bag leagues that go out, we do ice skating on Wednesday nights.

- [Bret] Oh really?

- [Nicole] And they're kind of like scruffy, scrappy shaggy looking.

(upbeat music) - When it comes to the outdoors, we talk about barriers that prevent people from learning how to hunt and fish.

One big obstacle can be living in a big city.

Knowing where to go, what to do and what to use can be intimidating.

But there's one business just north of the Twin Cities that's hoping to make that process a little bit easier.

(upbeat music) How often do you think you introduce people to the outdoors here?

- I'd say daily, but I mean realistically, you know, eight months, nine months out of the year individuals are coming out, you know, shooting their first bird or seeing a pointing dog for the first time or seeing dog work for the first time, shooting sporting clays for the first time.

- Chad Hughes owns and operates Wings North, an outdoor recreation facility near Pine City about an hour north of the Twin Cities.

I noticed in the back here, we're not gonna use it today 'cause it's a little cold today, but it looks like a nice deck out there and maybe people can play bags.

I saw a football laying down out there.

- Yeah, absolutely.

No.

So we actually do a lot of stuff.

September and October are very active at the club.

Despite the warm weather and everything else, we do some oddball stuff.

We've got beanbag leagues that go out, we do Friday night hay rides, five, six and seven o'clock on Friday nights, September and October.

Right after Labor Day we tour around the facility, bring families out, everything else all together.

Wintertime, once the weather gets, when we get enough ice anyway, we do ice skating on Wednesday nights.

when we get enough ice anyway, - [Chad] Will do bonfires, hot cocoa, everything- - Little bit of everything, - For the kids.

Yeah.

- Little bit of everything, - For the kids.

Yeah.

Makes it fun.

- I mean, obviously it's like a hunting club but you are more of almost like a community center in a sense.

- Right.

An outdoor recreation facility is what you want to be, right?

I mean, the hunting is my passion, first and foremost, but there's a lot of kids that are involved with the trap and the sporting clays and everything else, that don't necessarily enjoy the bird hunting side of things but still want to get outside, still wanna get outdoors.

You know, we do some snowmobile runs for the local food shelf.

We do some side by side events in the summer for various organizations, pregnancy resource center and a lot of community based stuff.

Well, our emphasis, obviously my passion is the hunting club side of things, which is, you know, what we started out as in 1998, 26 years ago and has evolved into, you know, a family.

We've got 20 different hunting fields, three trap fields, two sporting clays courses, 200 yard rifle range and a pistol range.

and a pistol range.

- You know, it's probably nice being - You know, it's probably nice being close to the Twin Cities.

I'm sure there's a big customer base there, but you're also an hour away so you're just far enough away- - Far enough to unwind.

- That you're not in the cities but you're close enough to draw people from there.

- Yeah, we're about, well, 45 minutes from downtown.

So from guys coming up, it's enough time to unwind and wrap things up on the way up here.

And then with the showers and stuff like that, guys can head back to work if they want to, or our proximity right in between the Twin Cities and Duluth and St Cloud, we're about an hour from each so individuals can meet.

It makes it a great meeting spot for anyone that's got branches in the various areas.

- [Bret] Alright, well let's go take a tour.

- [Chad] Awesome.

We're running capacity.

We can have 120 to 140 shooters out shooting sporting plates as well as our hunting field's going simultaneously so we can have 97 people out in the hunting fields.

We can have 140 shooters in the clays course.

And then we had the high school trap team shooting, which they had 100 shooters that day for that.

So that was pretty much capacity It was about 400 people all out.

It was awesome.

- You can go out and run Clays, you can run skeet, you can do a little bit of everything out here and it opens a door for everybody to do everything.

- [Bret] Wings North provides outdoor opportunities for many with a wide variety of backgrounds.

- My dad used to own a bar in South St. Paul and so the one guy, his dad had a bar right next to my dad's bar, and I thought really?

(Bret laughing) It's like he was a disabled shooter that came up here.

They have a disabled group that we take out once in a while, so it's interesting.

Yep.

And people from all over come up here, and... - So we're very, very fortunate.

We work with a lot of various different groups.

We do a lot of fundraising events.

We do the Becoming an Outdoor Woman, Legendary Long Tails, a couple different Feathers Forever chapters that do women's hunts out here.

Capable partners do sporting clay fundraisers, Shoot for Hope.

A lot of fundraising events for those various organizations.

It's a segue for all of us that enjoy the outdoors and a great way to support their organizations and raise money for wonderful causes.

- [Bret] When discussion turns to introducing the next generation of the outdoors, there may be no better program than the Clay Target League.

- You know, the high school trap league has been absolutely phenomenal.

Pine City High School shoots out here.

They've got 108 kids that come out and shoot.

- Wow.

- On the high school trap team.

And from Sundays from noon to 5:00 PM, you know, they've got a phenomenal support from their instructors and local parents and teachers and stuff that come out and help with the kids shooting.

Rush City High School has started out the first year that they had their program with 12 kids, last year they had 26.

They're looking to have 35 this year.

So it's just been wonderful.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] So how does a guy get started in a business like this?

- Oh, I was born and raised in the industry.

- Oh, I was born and raised in the industry.

My parents, my dad still owns Wild Wings of Oneka in Hugo.

In '93, went to college, University of In '93, went to college, University of was there for four years and just outta college took a job in upstate New York running a hunting club.

I was at the Austerlitz hunting club in upstate New York.

The oldest shooting preserve or hunting club in the state of New York.

Was there for two years.

And then my dad had called me and said, "Hey, we're looking at buying some land in Pine City."

I was gonna do it no matter what, it just makes it a lot easier working for family rather than, you know, doing it for someone else.

Something you're gonna, you know, do.

But the hunting's always been my passion and the people.

(upbeat music) - Well my dog's 11, so nine years I've been a member.

Chad's fields are nice.

Especially, I'm older, I'm 72 years old now, so these fields are fairly flat.

I ain't climbing big hills up and down.

- Originally we had 10 hunting fields.

You know, 26 years into the game now, we've got, you know, 22 different hunting fields ranging in size and variety.

ranging in size and variety.

- [Bret] After you shoot birds, what's the next step in that process?

- We've got various options for individuals.

They can take their birds with them.

We have an exchange program.

They can exchange cleanly shot birds for cleanly shot frozen birds.

And then we have a list of products that we offer also from pheasant summer sausage, smoked pheasants, pheasant sticks, pheasant brats, pheasant pot pies, pheasant pizzas.

- When you get done shooting pheasants out there, you can bring some in and they'll cook some up for you.

So they fried up, oh, I didn't mean to grab that many of them.

- [Chad] We have guys that'll filet their birds out, bring them in and we'll do, you know, pheasant strips for 'em, fries.

So kind of a kill and grill it, if you will.

- Chad's really good about making sure everybody has a good time.

You're gonna go out, you're gonna see birds.

- Chad treats us right up here, treats the people right.

I believe, you know?

He runs a nice business.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] What's your favorite part about this?

- The people.

The people's probably the best part of it.

Just very fortunate to be able to share this with my family and our generation and generations to come.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - All right.

So we are sitting next to kind of an elusive mushroom.

Can you see it?

So it is a mycorrhizal mushroom, which means that it is helping everything around it, the grasses, the plants, the tre by exchanging nutrients back and forth.

So they're benefiting one another.

This little guy here, commonly called old man of the woods, and we'll go ahead and post the scientific name, but it is a member of the Boletaceae family.

That means there are no gills on the underside of this cap.

It will have pores, and it drops kind of a brownish blackish spore print, which is helpful when you're trying to ID a mushroom.

It's not super sought after, but it is edible.

People either really, really don't like it or they just think it's okay.

I've never heard anybody rant and rave about old man of the woods.

But you know what?

It's doing a good service here in the woods, and if you were in a pinch and needed to, it is something that is edible that would help sustain you.

These fun mushrooms can get pretty large.

We're gonna walk by here a week from now, it's gonna be much bigger.

Still darker in shading, but it's gonna look a little bit different.

And so getting to know the mushrooms in their different stages of growth is really helpful if you're planning to consume mushrooms.

(upbeat music) So this is a very young old man of the woods and you can see it has a porous surface.

There are no gills, and it's those pores that are gonna drop if you were to cut the cap off and put it on paper.

So again, that's one way you know that you have an old man of the woods, but also these are kind of unmistakable.

They're kind of like scruffy, scrappy shaggy looking up on top.

And then their stems are basically the same color as the cap.

And everything changes a little bit as they age and grow.

But again, get to know them at their different stages.

I think that these taste maybe bland to slightly nutty, if that makes sense.

And I always love how people describe mushrooms and their flavors 'cause sometimes there are just no words.

It's helpful to like mix it maybe with some other mushrooms.

There's not a whole lot of taste to it.

So it's gonna pick up whatever the flavors of whatever you're cooking.

This little guy, old man of the woods, fun mushroom to stumble on and give it a try.

(curious upbeat music) (soft music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by: the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, and by Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windham, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org (bright music)