NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/440846
38 NEBRASKAland • JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2015 T wenty years ago, after reading about English cocker spaniels and their prowess as bird dogs in an outdoor magazine, David Williams was intrigued enough to pay a visit to a breeder. A springer man to that point, Williams didn't expect to leave with a puppy. But as luck would have it, that's exactly what happened . The decision would lead him down paths to new friends and Pearl, a dog that in 2013 became a national field trial champion. Springers to Cockers Williams got his first dog, a springer spaniel, in the early 1970s while he was living in Denver. He drove that dog and others back to his home town of Crete to hunt pheasants and quail on opening day and during the holidays, and chased them around fields in eastern Montana, Kansas and the Dakotas from October through January. He had parlayed his philosophy degree from Doane into a career as a spray plane pilot, and his work kept him in Nebraska for part of the year. But it was done by the time pheasant season opened and didn't start again until long after it ended, so he had plenty of time to hunt. "You get spoiled that way," he said with a grin. His last springer was too old to hunt in the [fall of] 1989. At the time, he figured he'd change things up and get a pointing dog. But he spent that fall hunting with friends who had setters and pointers and decided it wasn't the same as hunting with a flushing dog. With a pointer, he said, you are just going for a walk while the dog is off doing its own thing. When the dog finds a bird, you hope it's still there by the time you find the dog. "When you hunt with a flushing dog, you and the dog have to be connected all the time. It's just a much more intense experience, where you and the dog are working together and you're a team, and you're kind of guiding the dog where you want to go until the dog hits scent. And then the dog is in charge and away you go." He had decided he'd get another springer when he read articles Field and Stream and Outdoor Life had done about Walt Cline, a preacher from Morrill, who was breeding cocker spaniels from imported English field lines. Williams was one of hundreds who called Cline to learn more. When they first talked, Cline didn't have any puppies for sale, but Williams was intrigued enough to hop in his Piper Pacer on New Year's Day in 1990 and fly up to check them out. "He had dogs working and I was pretty taken with them," Williams said. "He had a little puppy there he thought he had sold and somebody backed out on it. So I'd gone up there with the idea I was going to just look at these things and I came home with a puppy. "That was my first one, Zeke. He was smarter than I was." That Lap Dog Can Hunt Story and photos by Eric Fowler Switch from springer spaniels to English cocker spaniels takes Crete man down different road in life. David Williams' English cocker spaniel, Pearl, brings a rooster pheasant to hand on a hunt last winter.