Schooled in the Field

We arrived in ND with just enough time to relax for a few minutes and than out to the fields for the first day of hunting. This would be my first time every hunting birds and would set the stage for my enjoyment for my continued enjoyment of the sporting event. Due to a family member illness one of the hunting party was unable to join (he was also the landowner), which left us with no set place to hunt. We were able to get permission on a couple of pieces of land that my brother-in-law hunted on previously. At the first place we hunted I learned a valued lesson, getting out of the truck will cause all birds in a 200 yard radius to take flight. The entire area seemed to explode with birds before we even had the guns out of the cases.

The lessons didn’t stop there; the next lesson was stepping on a hen in the tall reeds results in another explosion but this time right at my feet. I have kicked up pheasants when deer hunting so the sound of them leaving their hiding place was not a huge surprise at all. The next lesson was ALWAYS check the safety. We were working a decent size patch of tall grass and I could see them running around about 200 yards out and the deer hunter in me kicked in. I tried keeping track of them while working my way down the field and trying to keep a watchful eye for other fliers. Most of them were flying towards my B-in-L so I wasn’t at all ready for what would happen next. I had lost sight of the runners but I was still working toward were I had seen them last when all of the sudden he jumped and flew right at me. The whole times I was thinking, ROOSTER! Yeah, through gloved hands and a hard to operate safety even with his pass seven feet away the little bugger was able to fly away unharmed. This of course brought a bout of laughter from the B-in-L with a nice “You forgot the safety, huh!”

By now I figured I had most of it figured out and there couldn’t be that many more lessons to learn, after all how hard is it to hit a moving target with a shotgun? After several more rounds through the fields I found myself walking behind Red (the dog of the day), when I learned another valuable lesson. ALWAYS trust the dog. Red hasn’t had much hunting time so he was a bit rusty about his duties with a bird dog, a tidbit that caused me to second guess him. Red was circling a small patch of grass and kept darting back to the same spot which I should have know he was on to something, but I kept right on truckin. Red must have either gotten fed up with me or just irritated at the bird because he lunged into the patch and up flew a hen, yeap once again directed right at me. So all along, he had a bird pinned down but I failed to realize he had really found one. The sudden flight of the Hen caused a rooster to take flight a little further away and once again, a shot and a miss for me.

We had a quick stop over at some friends of my B-in-L’s for coffee and to reformulate a game plan. The guy is from Chile, so conversation required a little concentration but it was a much needed break from expending shells. What started out to be coffee turned into a feast of t-bone steaks and some great visiting. We hunted the shelter belts behind his house where he said the pheasants liked to take cover on the windy days. Using all the lessons I had learned I knew for sure this was it, my turn to finally drop a rooster. It didn’t take much time before the call came from the outside of the shelter belt and the gunshot that sent one spiraling out of the sky like a shot up WWII bomber. And there it was not even 50 yards in front of me walking towards me, a rooster unawares. Could I be so lucky to get one running right towards me up a lane in the shelter belt? A bout the same time I heard some more take flight, and they were making a short pass over my position. Up came the shotgun and BLAM! As he passed over head and started losing altitude I heard ROOSTER! from the B-in-L. I watched the one I had just shot fall to the ground behind me with a thump and directed my concentration at the two hens and a rooster flying towards me. Had I finally gotten the hang of hunting pheasants? Up came the shotgun, rooster was in alignment, a nice squeeze of the trigger followed by a click! Yeap, I hadn’t been counting my shells and there was no deafening roar that would have sent another rooster to the game bag. The miss still wasn’t so bad because I had my first rooster on the ground behind me. As I fed more shells into my shotgun I walked to where I had last seen my first rooster. A quick look around told me, I still had another lesson to learn. While there were feathers visible on the ground there was no rooster. Now I have learned the valuable lesson, don’t count your downed rooster until you have his talons in your hand. We searched and searched and could only find tracks leading away from the place I should have found my first pheasant.

The first day of hunting left me with an empty game bag, compared to my B-in-L who managed to limit out for the day. The day was over and I was feeling the 36 hours without sleep and just looking forward to getting home and a bowl of hot soup. The learning curve was steep and I was climbing the curve but I am sure there is still more schooling available.

Monday will start out with a well rested more educated me taking to the field still in search of my first rooster. If nothing else the trip will be filled with good eating, B-in-L really knows his way around the breakfast stove. A vacation of great food, awesome company and copious amounts of fresh air can never be a bad thing.