Swanson Russell

You could say hunting and fishing are in our DNA – quite literally. Our founder, Gus Swanson, was an avid outdoorsman. It’s a passion he shared with his son, Mark, who currently serves as a Production Manager in our Lincoln Office. To this day, brands in the Outdoor Recreation field remain one of our key “areas of focus” as an agency.

In this four-part Orange Dot series, Mark will share stories of hunting and fishing from his youth. We hope that, collectively, they serve as an explanation of our roots in outdoor recreation and the proud tradition we carry on as part of the Swanson name.

My dad (Gus), my brother Kirk, and I were heading out to go bird hunting near Franklin, Nebraska for a weekend trip. Franklin was a little farther west than the areas we usually hunted, but a friend of Dad’s had a friend who said he had too many pheasant and quail. That was like waving a red flag at a bull. So we charged.

We loaded up the camper, herded our German Shorthairs (Dobie and King) into the dog trailer and headed west. We hadn’t been on the road very long when the sky began to get a heavy grey cast on the horizon. The snow started coming down at a pretty heavy pace, and we all began to wonder if we would even get out in the field.

When we got to our destination, the snow was still coming down heavily, with five or more inches already on the ground. Kirk and I thought we might be better off just playing cards and sitting in the warm camper, but Dad convinced us that we could still hunt for at least a couple hours before it got too dark.

Kirk and I were a little skeptical that we would even be able to see any birds, but we got our gear on and got the dogs out of the trailer. We hadn’t even gotten over the fence when Dobie went on point, with King backing him. Dobie had his nose almost buried in the snow when we got next to him, and we kicked up a large covey. We all got at least one bird to drop. I know Dad got two, as he didn’t miss often. I’m sure I got two as well. Kirk nabbed just one – though he tells it a little differently.

We busted up a couple more big coveys, and we had filled our limit with daylight to spare. Thus, the hunt that had started out with daunting conditions turned into one of the best days we ever had on quail, and one of my most vivid memories.