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| The Hunt |
| by Steve Grooms |
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| Let's follow a pheasant hunt. Imagine we, like Superman, can see right through the weeds, allowing us to understand everything that will happen on this hunt. |
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A Typical Hunt |
| A station wagon rolls along a gravel road early in the morning and crunches to a stop near a marshy wildlife management area a few minutes before legal shooting hours |
| begin. The center of the area is too wet to walk in, but this area has a fringe of marshy weeds all around it. The four hunters, now clambering out of the car, figure they can conduct a drive around the edge of the marsh. It is the fifth day of the season, so the pheasants have not been subjected to their second weekend of gunning pressure. The hunters have no dogs, they do not know what you and I know. There are five roosters in the weeds, which the hunters plan to drive. The hunters stretch, load up, and check their watches. Okay, time to go!! |
| The last man to get his shotgun loaded bangs the tailgate of the wagon to shut it as he hurries to catch up with his three partners. Almost a hundred yards away from the road you and I can see an old rooster, a veteran of last year's season. He hears the slamming station wagon door. While the hunters are climbing off the elevated road and getting lined up, that rooster breaks into a dead run and never slows up once. By the time the hunters have covered a few yards, the old rooster is out of the management area and running hell bent for leather through a field of cut corn. They will never see him. |
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| The party has covered less than fifty yards when they get close to the second rooster. Hearing them approach, he sneaks nervously ahead and to the right of the coming line. He pauses from time to time, listening carefully; then he squirts through the weeds again, always drifting to the right of the drive. Finally he senses he has successfully outflanked the fellow on the far right side of the driving line. The line plows ahead, not guessing that two roosters have already slipped away to safety. |
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The third cock is a young of-the-year bird who has been lucky enough to be somewhere else this year when hunters stomped through the cover. The approaching danger alarms him. He ducks into a heavy clump of canary grass to hide. Finally he decides the hunters are too close for comfort so he |
takes to his wings. There is a shout and two guns boom. The younger rooster falls. Someone yells, "Looks like the opening day crowds didn't get 'em all!"
They move again. Soon the fourth rooster perceives the danger. This bird has come to associate safety with the wet part of the marsh; so that is where he heads, darting quickly through the undergrowth until he nears the water. The man on the far left side of the drive is unusually determined to let no pheasants escape the hunt on his flank, so he is sloshing along in water ankle deep. The cock is surprised to hear a predator coming to him in the water, but he responds quickly by swimming for several yards until he can clamber up on a little island of vegetation surrounded by water. The hunters never guess they have walked close to him. |
| The fifth rooster decides to play it cool. He sinks into a tight pocket of cattails and grass and freezes while he waits for danger to pass. The line does pass him, even though the nearest hunter comes within a few feet of stepping on the sulking bird. Right after that, however, the group stops because this same hunter is having problems with all the coffee he drank on the road. He lays his gun aside, unzips, and seeks relief. The rooster, having decided it has been spotted, takes two running steps out of the hiding spot, leaps, and emerges noisily from the cattails. The unzipped hunter is in no position to shoot, so the pheasant reaches the safety of a draw in an adjoining field. Everyone in the party laughs; then someone exlaims, "Shoot, I'll bet we've been walking by roosters all morning." |
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They haven't, actually, though you and I can see how they got that impression. Thanks to our special insight, we now understand that roosters have at least five different ways of avoiding hunters: they can flush, run wildly, sit tight, sneak, or even swim away from trouble. Five ways . . . . and from your point of view as a hunter, only one of them -- flushing -- suits your purposes.
So how can anyone hunt such a contrary bird? Basically, you have to keep in mind all the escape tactices available to roosters, and then conduct a hunt in such a way that you eliminate all the options except flushing at close range. All of which are easier said than done! |
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If you are one man alone with no canine assistance, the odds are stacked heavily against you. If you hunt with a gang, you will succeed more often in trapping the cocks in places they have to flush from; but the party we just watched had about as much luck as they could expect, seeing only two of five cocks and bagging one. If you hunt with dogs, you'll do far better. With two good dogs, the hunt we have just watched would probably have collected four of the five roosters in the cover, if the hunters had shot well. |
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| That is pheasant hunting, and it still beats me why some hunters claim it is so easy. One of the fascinating problems in pheasant hunting arises from the fact cocks can elude you in two entirely different ways, sitting tight or running. The more you try to cut off one of those options the more you leave yourself open to being beaten by the second. I always compare that situation with the problem of a batter facing a great pitcher. Most Hall of Fame quality pitchers have at least two completely dissimilar pitches: usually a fast ball that can be heard but not seen, and a slow curve that "drops off the table" when it breaks. That's just like the bag of tricks used by experienced roosters. No wonder hunters strike out so often. |
CHARACTERISTICS OF
SUCCESSFUL
PHEASANT HUNTERS |
- Made the effort to become birdy savvy
- Hunt with one or two good dogs
- Learn good shooting skills and practice them frequently
- Develop a good group(s) of hunting friends
- Drive a field slow enough to allow the dogs to do their job and stopping frequently
- Plan ahead
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Book your pheasant hunt with Merwin Pheasant Hunting
from October 10, 2009 through December 8, 2009. |
- 2008 possession limit was three roosters per day and
12 in possession.
- A license can be purchased on-line from the
ND Department of Game & Fish gf.nd.gov/hunting
- Shotgun magazine plus barrel limit is 3 shells.
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or . . .
just kick back and enjoy the peacefulness of the prairie. |
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We also offer solitude, bird watching,
regional tours and rock hunting getaways
April through September! |
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