Ed Crozier glanced up from his coffee mug on a winter morning and noticed a man cross-country skiing on a lake behind his home. Ed and his wife, Caryl, waved the man inside to thaw out and chat.
That warm gesture paid off for Ed and Dick Duerre, friends and hunting partners since that day in 1971.
"We started hunting right away, didn't we, Dick?" Ed asks. Dick nods. "We didn't really expect to be around in 40 years," Dick says.
For the past 20 years, Dick, 86, of Bloomington, and Ed, 79, of Burnsville, have headed 444 miles northwest to Bismarck twice every autumn "in their search for the wily pheasants of North Dakota," says Dick's wife, Harriet.
First, a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs and potatoes in Clearwater. "We B.S. all the way," Ed says. "We don't usually get into private things."
Early on, the two fine shooters easily bagged their daily limit, assisted by a long line of beloved and, mostly, cooperative dogs — first, golden retrievers and, now, French Brittany spaniels.
Lack of habitat and severe weather have diminished the pheasant numbers, but the duo stay energized by their dogs' skill and the starkly beautiful terrain. "Through the years, we've become more appreciative of the landscape," Ed says, "as opposed to finding and killing the birds."
Caryl doesn't mind that. "Forty-plus years of preparing and eating wild game is enough," she says.
