Fast is fine but accuracy is final. You must learn to be slow in a hurry. ~ Wyatt Earp
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
I’m about to write about hunting wild pheasants and wingshooting. It’s longer than I normally write. If that doesn’t interest you or, worse, you are going to take this as an opportunity to be offended, would you please just go read something else?
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
I’m about to write about hunting wild pheasants and wingshooting. It’s longer than I normally write. If that doesn’t interest you or, worse, you are going to take this as an opportunity to be offended, would you please just go read something else?
As, I’ve related before, Rowdy and I have been training with farm raised pheasants that we buy at Coyland Creek. Even with those docile birds, we have never achieved 100% success with harvesting all we buy. Even the humble farm bird is wilier than your foolish correspondent.
I offer this really interesting article now that does a much better job than I could hope to do in describing how challenging an actual wild pheasant is, honed as they are by actual survival in harsh reality.
Don said almost exactly the same things about the cunning Phasianinae before our first hunt. I thought I knew what he meant, but as is common in human experience, the difference between intellectual and intuitional knowledge often sneaks up on you and hits you with a sledge.
What I’m working my way toward saying is that Rowdy and I did not manage to bag a single pheasant in four days of fairly intensive hunts. (For an old guy with a heart condition and a bad knee, they counted as intensive. Young fellows would snort at my actual effort.
So, I am reduced to attempting an analysis of why we failed and what to do about that next time.
First to discuss wingshooting again. Serendipity struck this morning as a friend I’ve never met in person posted this comic on line.
As I attempted to discuss earlier, the flush of a game bird happens much too quickly for it to be an exercise in thought and reason. You have to rely on muscle memory. Hunting farm birds has given me a bad habit pattern in one important way.
It is only legal to harvest the rooster. Hens are verboten. So, this adds rooster identification as another step in the “Is it safe to shoot?” process. Now, I know you are thinking. “Geoff, It ain’t real hard to tell the difference between and cock and a hen.”
There is, however, an important perceptional issue to discuss here. The Upland Journal article talks about how the tail of the Rooster offers protection against shot. I would add to that. The rooster’s, big, voluminous, glorious tail is an easy way to identify the rooster and it draws the eye like a magnet. So, if like me, you are trying to mount the gun and shoot, knowing the shot string will go where you are looking….and you are looking at the tail, you will probably ‘hit’ the bird but totally miss anything vital. You will stand there in the field, watching the bird fly away, laughing at you, flirting its ruffled feathers.
This has been my long-winded way of saying that as I practice in the future with farm pheasants, I am going to strive to identify and look at the rooster’s head and ring-neck as that is a much better visual target.
Moving on, wild pheasants pretty much behave as the article says they do. They sense you coming and run like the wind until they run out of cover. Then they take off and fly fast and low much too far away for a shotgun to be effective. I saw this happen far too often.
On Tuesday, Don took me out to an abandoned farm. It is surrounded by a vast field of corn stubble. Inside the roughly 400 by 200 yard farmstead proper there is extremely thick cover, much of it hemp. We parked nearby, and my attempt to quietly exit the truck, uncase my gun, load it and get Rowdy all heeled up was, as usual, comedic. Before we had walked 3 steps, a rooster flushed up out of the cover and I shot and missed. Don yelled, “Stop, this is the only cover in a mile or so. It’ll settle back down nearby.” Sure enough, the rooster appeared to fly about a hundred yards or so over to the center of the farmstead’s thick cover and disappeared.
The plan is to walk the perimeter of the farmstead and let the dogs work the cover. Another rooster jumps up and this one is flying across the road away from the cover so I mount, shoot and I hit the tail and maybe get a few pellets in the actual bird. It drops a bit in flight and appears to go to ground across the road in a pasture area with little cover. Rowdy takes off in hard pursuit. He beats around the probable area of the fall but never finds the bird, nor apparently even picks up the scent. Don reminds me that the tough old bird hit the ground running and was long gone.
About the time I get Rowdy back to me and heeled up, another rooster jumps up, flies roughly ten feet up in a right to left straight flight. It was about 30 yards away and the most makeable shot I got at a rooster all week. I emptied the gun and never touched the bird. Review the suggestion to look at the head and ring-neck, Geoff.
We walked roughly a mile around the perimeter of the farmstead and the circuit brought us back near where we saw the original rooster settle. Rowdy stopped and froze in the deep cover. This was the first time I really used Rowdy’s new pointing skills correctly. More precisely Don did. I was on the wrong side of the perimeter fence but Don calmly walked toward Rowdy and flushed the rooster. Rowdy broke and chased. (Note, find a way to emphasize sit-stay training from a point with Rowdy.) Because he was right behind the bird, I didn’t have a safe shot for the first few seconds and by the time I did shoot, the bird was too far and I missed. Don did not shoot either. So, we missed that bird. But it sure was exciting and made my day seeing Rowdy actually find and point a wild pheasant.
We hunted the couloirs around Culbertson faily extensively.
As a side note, "couloir" is a mountaineering term. The plains around Culbertson are not mountainous, yet the canyons that erosion carves out between the fields are called couloirs. I like the term and will continue to use it.
We hunted one that required a group effort due to its vastness. Young guys could easily walk the full circuit but I just flat couldn’t. It’s a big, wide couloir that runs diagonally across the NE corner of a huge cornfield. We drove my car down to the eastern boundary and parked it on the roadside in the wash. Then we returned up to the top of the hill in Don’s truck. Don walked the western edge to cap off any birds that would run out into the cornfield and Rowdy and I elected to beat down through the thick cover in the canyon itself. We’d seen a lot of birds there a day or so earlier.
I got one shot early in the walk. Don’s dog, Jake, flushed one up behind and to my right. It flew by me and I had a going away shot from right to left that I missed by looking at the tail again. Don says about that same time a few hens and another rooster ran out into the cornfield and escaped to the west.
About half way down the couloir, I saw another bird off in the distance going away.
The walk itself was interesting. It was roughly 2.5 miles down to the car. The water flow in the canyon had bent the cover downhill and downstream. Anybody walking up that couloir would be trudging uphill and beating the cover against the grain. I doubt I could make the walk. It was very pretty in a brown, autumnal way.
We loaded up in my car and returned to Don's truck. As we got there, to the north the north we saw a huge flock of Canada Geese floating down to feast on the bounty of a corn stubble field. We stood and watched that show for a bit.
Finally, I’ll tell the story of the bird I actually thought we’d bagged. I got a really lousy picture of the terrain involved.
This has been my long-winded way of saying that as I practice in the future with farm pheasants, I am going to strive to identify and look at the rooster’s head and ring-neck as that is a much better visual target.
Moving on, wild pheasants pretty much behave as the article says they do. They sense you coming and run like the wind until they run out of cover. Then they take off and fly fast and low much too far away for a shotgun to be effective. I saw this happen far too often.
On Tuesday, Don took me out to an abandoned farm. It is surrounded by a vast field of corn stubble. Inside the roughly 400 by 200 yard farmstead proper there is extremely thick cover, much of it hemp. We parked nearby, and my attempt to quietly exit the truck, uncase my gun, load it and get Rowdy all heeled up was, as usual, comedic. Before we had walked 3 steps, a rooster flushed up out of the cover and I shot and missed. Don yelled, “Stop, this is the only cover in a mile or so. It’ll settle back down nearby.” Sure enough, the rooster appeared to fly about a hundred yards or so over to the center of the farmstead’s thick cover and disappeared.
The plan is to walk the perimeter of the farmstead and let the dogs work the cover. Another rooster jumps up and this one is flying across the road away from the cover so I mount, shoot and I hit the tail and maybe get a few pellets in the actual bird. It drops a bit in flight and appears to go to ground across the road in a pasture area with little cover. Rowdy takes off in hard pursuit. He beats around the probable area of the fall but never finds the bird, nor apparently even picks up the scent. Don reminds me that the tough old bird hit the ground running and was long gone.
About the time I get Rowdy back to me and heeled up, another rooster jumps up, flies roughly ten feet up in a right to left straight flight. It was about 30 yards away and the most makeable shot I got at a rooster all week. I emptied the gun and never touched the bird. Review the suggestion to look at the head and ring-neck, Geoff.
We walked roughly a mile around the perimeter of the farmstead and the circuit brought us back near where we saw the original rooster settle. Rowdy stopped and froze in the deep cover. This was the first time I really used Rowdy’s new pointing skills correctly. More precisely Don did. I was on the wrong side of the perimeter fence but Don calmly walked toward Rowdy and flushed the rooster. Rowdy broke and chased. (Note, find a way to emphasize sit-stay training from a point with Rowdy.) Because he was right behind the bird, I didn’t have a safe shot for the first few seconds and by the time I did shoot, the bird was too far and I missed. Don did not shoot either. So, we missed that bird. But it sure was exciting and made my day seeing Rowdy actually find and point a wild pheasant.
We hunted the couloirs around Culbertson faily extensively.
As a side note, "couloir" is a mountaineering term. The plains around Culbertson are not mountainous, yet the canyons that erosion carves out between the fields are called couloirs. I like the term and will continue to use it.
We hunted one that required a group effort due to its vastness. Young guys could easily walk the full circuit but I just flat couldn’t. It’s a big, wide couloir that runs diagonally across the NE corner of a huge cornfield. We drove my car down to the eastern boundary and parked it on the roadside in the wash. Then we returned up to the top of the hill in Don’s truck. Don walked the western edge to cap off any birds that would run out into the cornfield and Rowdy and I elected to beat down through the thick cover in the canyon itself. We’d seen a lot of birds there a day or so earlier.
I got one shot early in the walk. Don’s dog, Jake, flushed one up behind and to my right. It flew by me and I had a going away shot from right to left that I missed by looking at the tail again. Don says about that same time a few hens and another rooster ran out into the cornfield and escaped to the west.
About half way down the couloir, I saw another bird off in the distance going away.
The walk itself was interesting. It was roughly 2.5 miles down to the car. The water flow in the canyon had bent the cover downhill and downstream. Anybody walking up that couloir would be trudging uphill and beating the cover against the grain. I doubt I could make the walk. It was very pretty in a brown, autumnal way.
We loaded up in my car and returned to Don's truck. As we got there, to the north the north we saw a huge flock of Canada Geese floating down to feast on the bounty of a corn stubble field. We stood and watched that show for a bit.
Finally, I’ll tell the story of the bird I actually thought we’d bagged. I got a really lousy picture of the terrain involved.
Two days earlier, we’d walked this little cover filled hollow and we’d seen a lot of birds run out the sides and escape. So, the plan was that I’d park about 500 yards away and walk quietly over see what came out. Don had other plans for his pointer and went to a nearby field. We’d meet up in an hour or so.
I walked the perimeter of the hollow and saw nothing. Rowdy acted interested once, could have been a rabbit or a bird, but nothing flushed. I started trudging back towards the truck. At the top of the rise, I stopped a moment to rest and took this picture. Don had not made it back to his truck yet, I had some time and it occurred to me that this was a chance to work with Rowdy a little. I heeled him up and sent him back down toward the choke-berry with a “Back!” Rowdy took off down the hill, ran about 25 yards and suddenly did a 270 degree turn and pointed at a spot we had just walked within 10 yards of, moments earlier.
Beep, "Sit!" and I started towards Rowdy with the gun semi-mounted. A rooster erupted, flying to the right. I tracked and shot as the bird passed over the barbed-wire fence. Feathers flew, the birds flight faltered and it hit the pasture on the far side in a running flurry of feathers, wings and feet. It never took off again and Rowdy burst through the fence on the run, mere feet behind the bird.
They disappeared down the draw, Rowdy hard on the bird’s heels and I was elated we’d bagged our first pheasant. I fully expected Rowdy to come trotting proudly back up, wounded bird in his mouth for me to dispatch. There was a rustle and commotion down in the choke-berry cover and then silence. I waited about 5 minutes and then called Rowdy in. He came back bird-less and I have no idea what happened. I just shake my head when I think how tough that bird was. I am saddened that I caused it to suffer.
There was never a day south of Culbertson that I didn’t see many pheasants. Never a day that I didn't take a shot at one. I think I learned some and I think Rowdy learned some. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But, I’m also disappointed that my shooting skills were not equal to the challenge that nature presented me.
On that happy note, I remain,
Dad/Geoff
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