Tuesday, August 29, 2017

A Bird in the Hand


My son Alex has a friend who, when they were in high school, had never hunted pheasants despite living in the "Mount Rushmore State" his entire life. So we decided in the fall of 2006, it was time for Joe to shoot his first rooster. So, on a crisp Saturday afternoon in October, we took Joe with us in pursuit of the South Dakota ringneck pheasant.

After an hour-long trip to our hunting property, we met our hunting partners, did the obligatory hunting safety session, loaded our weapons and spread out across the first field of the afternoon.

In a scene familiar to any pheasant hunter, we were making our way through a field on a line with those on the ends slightly ahead of the rest to give them a chance to shoot at a pheasant that might try to make its way out the side.

Joe was strategically positioned at the far right end of the line in hopes that he might have a better chance to get a shot there. It seemed that all the birds were getting up and flying straight away from us into the wind.

Finally a rooster pheasant got up in front of the left side of the line and veered to the right giving everyone a chance to shoot at it. Everyone did shoot at it and as it flew across the line of 10-12 hunters from left to right, shooters unloaded their guns at the bird.