One day it was summer and the next it was September, and ruffed grouse and mountain quail seasons were on. And I remembered what trainer Rod Rist told me about our 9-month-old pudelpointer.

“The best thing you can do for that wild pup is get her on wild birds.”

California quail and chukar seasons seemed like a long way away, so we headed west toward the sunset.

On a Sunday afternoon, Liesl leaped into her customary place in the back of our sport utility and stuck her nose out the window. She had to have smelled the old bird vest and seen the shotgun in its case.

Fifteen miles down the wet side of the Cascades, I turned off the highway, let the pup run around and get a drink, and then we started off again. Soon after we crossed the creek, the road turned to gravel, and we turned on a secondary road and parked in a grove of rhododendrons, mature pine trees and firs. Sometimes the forest yields ruffed grouse in such places, sometimes mountain quail, sometimes a dropped antler, but it doesn’t disappoint.

There, in the trail, I saw two quail. Liesl was on the lead, and I unclipped her. “Find the birds.” She didn’t see them, but she didn’t need to.

It might be the hardest conditions a dog will encounter. If we had had a thermometer, it would have read high 70s. There was very little humidity, no wind and no moisture to catch and hold the scent. The brush was higher than my head. The little brown dog disappeared into the leafy undergrowth and showed again as she crossed a skidder road high above me.

A skidder road. Left from some long-ago logging operation, it was my only chance. There, I guessed, some quail might hold up. If I could get there in time…

Up the hill I went, and as soon as I hit the grassed-in, forgotten track, a quail blew out into the open, and I swung and fired. It went down, but on its own terms — I missed it clean.

Aware that Liesl had turned at the sound of the shot and was coming down the ridge toward me, I turned and dashed into a thicket of alder and saw a bird, a whirr of wings as it went straight away from me. I’d guessed right, and the rare opening gave me the look I wanted and the bird gave me a going-away shot.

All around me, other birds whirred off to all points of the compass, but I didn’t see another.

“Dead bird,” I called to the pup, and she trotted in through the rhododendron. Together, we worked out where the bird had gone to ground. Liesl almost stepped on it before she found it. She picked it up and deposited it at my feet.

That was one. Nine more to get a limit.

They might as well put an asterisk beside the daily bag limit in the regulations book. Down at the bottom of the page it would read in fine print, “If you’re good enough.” Ten mountain quail. Who are they trying to kid? I’m lucky if I even see 10 mountain quail in a day.

We were lucky.

We flushed another covey, followed them into the trees and heard them buzz away. Maybe if there’d been some rain or some dew on the ground, there would have been scent to track them. We loaded back in the truck and followed the contours into the hills.

Way up the side of a mountain, we surprised a covey of what looked like 30 birds. Liesl scrambled up through the shale and grabbed toeholds in the boulders. Birds that had sought the camouflage of the rocks crossed in front of me and blasted up the hill and down. One was an easy right-to-left, but I missed it clean and then missed another. Maybe next time I’ll be good enough.

On the way home, the dog slept next to the shotgun and the bird vest. Next time she smells that combination of gun oil, tin cloth and leather, she’ll know a little better what I expect.

Rod said the best thing for the pup is wild birds. I think that’s the best thing for me, too.

— Gary Lewis is the host of “Frontier Unlimited TV” and author of “John Nosler — Going Ballistic,” “A Bear Hunter’s Guide to the Universe,” “Hunting Oregon” and other titles. Contact Lewis at www.GaryLewisOutdoors.com.