The day hadn't actually dawned, but it had lightened a little. High overhead, the weak winter sun attempted illumination, backlighting the fog and giving the day a dreamlike quality. My friend T.J. Brooks and I slipped the leads from our dogs, his German wirehaired pointer Colbie and my German shorthaired pointer Jamie.

The dogs have known each other since they were pups and got right down to the business, and fun, of looking for birds. For Christmas, T.J. and his wife Lindsay had treated me to a half-day hunt at Clover Hollow, Lime Kiln Road, Slatington. Somewhere in the sprawling fields, six chukar partridges would attempt to elude us (and one of them would).The fog laid so thick and low that we only knew Colbie was on point because the bell he wears on his collar ceased ringing. Jamie also knew what that meant, and he slowed, looking, while galloping across a winter wheat field toward us. He saw Colbie on point, and stopped as he's been trained, to honor the point and watch the situation.T.J. and I both shot and the bird dropped. Colbie soon returned to us, and we grinned. By then, a steady drizzle had added insult to the fog. Despite the wet conditions, we had excellent dog work which is the primary goal for both of us. Both dogs had multiple points and honors of each other's points.Clover Hollow, on about 400 acres near Slatington, is just one hunting preserve among dozens in Pennsylvania alone. Hunting preserves have existed for 100 years, and presently exist in all 50 states, where they are regulated and licensed by each state's conservation department. In addition to providing a place for upland bird hunting, many preserves also offer sporting clay ranges, 3-D archery courses, youth hunts, hunter safety classes, Wounded Warrior hunts and more.More than the "traditional" farm which raises corn, soybeans and hay, hunting preserves provide an oasis of habitat not only for upland birds, but for other species. Clover Hollow's lands are carefully managed with a fix of switchgrass, sorghum and other grass and grain mixes. Songbirds, rabbits, squirrels, deer and other species also benefit from those plantings, which are not harvested but left in place until the preserve season ends March 31. Clover Hollow, currently run by Wil, Michelle and Lucas Dise, has operated for 31 years.I belong to Freeland Kennel Club in Weatherly, and enjoy talking with some of the club's founders, who remember the "good ol' days." They remember coming home from school, grabbing the family dog and a shotgun, and finding plenty of wild pheasants, day after day.Hunting preserves are definitely a local industry that's worth supporting, and for most of us, it's as close as we'll ever come to experiencing what it was like in the good ol' days. Those days are gone - the American Farmland Trust estimates that a million acres of agricultural lands are lost to development each year.While a hunting preserve isn't truly an agricultural land in the sense that crops are harvested, on our half-day hunt there was a harvest after all. Of course there was our bag of birds - we managed to get five out of six tasty chukars. But we also reaped a bushel of happy memories.