Dakota Pheasants

I'll admit it.  The last time I went hunting was two days of forest grouse hunting three years ago in Utah.  Before that it had been two years.  I tell people that I love to hunt and fish, which is true, but for the past five years flyfishing has dominated my activities nearly completely.  Much of this is due to location and circumstance, and I have been itching to go on a good upland bird hunt.  Over the past few years my uncle and Dad have made become good friends with a farmer in the Dakotas.  They have been invited to hunt with him on his land and have had great hunting and an all around great time the past couple of years.  Dad invited me the past few years, but I haven't been able to make it.  This year, he really wanted to make it happen, and so did I.  Dad and my uncle wanted to try hunting a little later this year, and after juggling our schedules, we decided to get to the Dakotas the first weekend of November.  It was on.

Day 1 - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - Memphis to the Dakotas

I was able to find a flight that allowed me to work a complete day. My flight left on time at 6:30pm and after a short layover, Dad was picking me up a the airport at 10:30pm.  From there it was a two and a half hour drive to the old farm house that our host put us up in.  My uncle, who had driven out from Minnesota, didn't even budge in his room as we quickly unpacked our things and got to sleep.

Day 2 - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - Hunting - real hunting.

We woke earlier in the morning than I was expecting, and went into the local town and got some breakfast.  From there it was back to the farm to get hunting.  Our host had to wrap up harvest, so we were on our own for the day.  We were going to hunt the land around the farm we were staying on.  It would be just the three of us:  Me, Dad, and my uncle. 

Our lodging for the weekend. 

My uncle has a 12 year old Chesapeake Bay retriever, Kodiak.  Kodiak is an animal, really more of a monster around the house.  He has some serious personality!  He does a great job as a pheasant dog, though.  He works slowly, systematically, and paces himself well.  He did a great job as a flusher, but really proved himself invaluable finding downed and running birds.

Dad brought their family puppy, a 13 month old golden retriever, Skeeter.  Skeeter had never really been trained to be a hunting dog, and he is definitely still a puppy.  He is goofy.  Cheryl and I like to use the work "Aloof" to describe him.  We had no expectations for him, but he actually did extremely well.  He stayed in range very well, which is 90 percent of the battle for a flushing dog in my book.  He never really figured out how to flush birds, or use his nose to locate them, but he had a great time, he never hurt us, and he helped us find a few birds we wouldn't have gotten without him.  Plus, he was my buddy the whole weekend!

On to the huting!  Our first push was a row of trees from the road to the farm house.  My dad and uncle said that for some reason the first year they didn't even push this tree row, and last year they didn't push it until the afternoon of the last day.  They flushed a couple hundred birds out of it!  So we gave it a shot.  I was to post on this push, blocking the birds from their escape to the large draw and thick cover behind me.  Before I could even get into position, I heard a gun shot, and my uncle yell, "Kodiak, FETCH!."  Success already.  Of course about thirty birds bailed out of the tree row on the gun shot. 

The farmstead tree row.  Our first push and first success!

As my dad and uncle continued to work towards me, birds continued to bail out of the trees.  There was nowhere near the 200 birds they saw last year, but at one point 9 roosters came out in a row.  That will get your blood pumping!  Finally, they had pushed close enough that I knew if anything jumped now, we would have a shot at it.  Then it happened, a rooster jumped in range and gave me a left to right passing shot.  Boom!  My first rooster in five years!  I was very happy that I had connected on my first opportunity.  We had the two birds that had given us legitimate chances in the bag.

The remainder of the morning proved to be tough hunting.  We flushed a lot of hens that we could have blasted, but the roosters were proving elusive.  After a couple hours we were hunting a couple abandoned corrals, and a rooster flushed directly ahead of me flying straight away, and I burried it.  Perfect.  I was two for two!  My uncle also shot one.  We then spent a couple hours pushing the large draw behind the house.  Disappointingly, although we moved plenty of birds, only hens got up in range.  We were in the farm house regrouping when our host came by and pointed lead us to a large CRP field on his property where he thought we may be able to find a couple birds.  My uncle had already showered, so he decided not to hunt, but Dad and I still had a trigger finger to itch.

My two roosters from the morning.

Dad and I pushed the edge of a large CRP field adjacent to some cut corn.  We left the dogs at home as they had hunted all day.  There was a consistent, moderate wind at this point in the afternoon.  We pushed quite a ways, seeing only a couple birds bail into the corn field.  Then one of the highlights of the trip occured.  Dad and I were pushing a small ditch when all of a sudden a beautiful 10 point whitetail took off running.  It was exhillerating being so close to such a beautiful buck.  The deer hunt opened the following day, and he was a buck that I wouldn't think twice about!

As we got into the field as long as we wanted to, we decided to push over the corn and push the edge of the CRP back to the road.  Just as we got to the corn a rooster flushed in front of Dad, and he popped him!  From dumb luck, this was Dad's first legitimate shot of the day, and he made good on it!  We continued pushing the CRP back to the road into a stiff headwind, and another rooster got up at Dad's feet.  Two in his bag!  About 100 yards from the road, it happened.  Dad and I were walking towards each other as we zig-zagged through the field.  A rooster got up right between both of us, and flew towards me and then caught the wind and flew behind us.  BOOM, BOOM, boom, BOOM.  I missed three times and Dad's out of range prayer missed too.  That bird should have been in my bag.  It should have been my limit.  Oh well.  That is what keeps you hunting!

My uncle had been on the road in his truck the entire time, and had seen a bunch of pheasants in the CRP field on the other side of the road.  Our host owned this land as well, so we gave it a go.  We saw plenty of birds.  Only two roosters got up in front of me.  The first one got up right into the sun and swung in front of my Dad.  By the time I could tell it was a rooster, my shot was unsafe, but Dad had a great opporunity.  He whiffed on his first shot, but the second and third drew some feathers and the bird went down, but certainly was still alive.  We ran to the spot and when we couldn't find it, we brought out Kodiak from the truck, but the bird was gone.  I hate losing birds, but that one was not hit hard enough.  The only shot I took that evening was at a bird that was probably out of range.  Stupid.  But I hadn't hunted in years and I was excited, so cut me some slack!

Another shot of my birds from the first hunting day.

Day 3 - Friday, November 4, 2011 - The Honey Hole

For our second hunting day we were going to hunt with the entire crew.  Our host, his best friend, and his cousin were to hunt with us.  On the way to town to eat we passed a tree loaded with birds - but they weren't pheasants, they were sharptail grouse!  I've only seen a handful of sharpies in my life, so I got excited. They were roosting in property that we didn't have permission to hunt, but I got a couple pictures from the road, and it was cool to see 50+ sharpies flush!

Yep, those are all sharpies in the air!

Another mile down the road we passed a lake that was full of ducks and geese every time we drove by it.  The picture doesn't show much, but seeing it in real life really made my trigger finger itch!

It's hard to see in this picture, but this lake was covered with waterfowl.

We got to town and met up with the crew.  Both our host and his friend had placed in mind that they thought we should try, but first they wanted to try a property that we had driven past multiple times.  Everytime we drove by it Dad would point to it and tell me, "That's the honey hole - that's the land you need to buy."  After hunting it that day I wish I could!

Just driving our trucks down the short dirt road to the parking area, we had already seen a bunch of birds.  When we parked and got out there were birds flying everywhere.  There was a pond on the property that a flock of ducks got off, and there were some small trees, with pheasants roosting throughout them.  Us out-of-staters just watched in awe as pheasants flew all over the CRP that we were going to hunt.  If waching a hundred birds fly around a field that you are about to hunt doesn't get you excited, well, you're certainly not me!  I was stoked!

We split up with three pushing the edge of the CRP where many of the birds had flown to, while Dad, our host and I made a more direct path to the lake where many of the birds had flown from.  Innevitably we had to pass by a lot of amazing CRP, and even though I knew there were lots of birds ahead of us, it was tough knowing that we were walking by a lot as well.  About half way to the lake I heard some gun shots from the other group, and we were still flushing a lot of birds in front of us, but they weren't flushing in front of our group.  Finally, right at the lake a rooster got up in front of our host and he put him on the ground, but after 10 minutes we never found it.  Frustrating.  The next hour we lost two more birds, which really bothers me, but there isn't anything we can do about it.

The honey hole.   Bird Mecca.  Call it what you will, this place was awesome!

Dad and I decided to work one side of the lake while our host went around the back.  Just then we saw some birds fly in front of the other group, we couldn't see them, but we could see the birds in the air.  I saw one rooster that got up and got rocked, but kept flying.  It veered toward my Dad and I and went down about 200 yards to my left.  I marked the spot, called Skeeter, and ran as quickly as I thought safe to the spot.  I searched for a solid 10 minutes where I thought the bird went down, but couldn't find it.  I was very frustrated because this was actually some of the thinnest CRP I had seen all trip.  Finally Skeeter and I decided to give up the search.  I had Dad call Skeeter, but as he was running away all of a sudden he turned around on a dime and put his nose in the brush.  Guess who just found his first dead bird!  I ran down there and praised Skeeter.  He was really excited.  I had a rooster in my game bag and hadn't fired a shot yet.  I also felt good because I had found a bird that I figured was a lost cause.

Sadly, my luck at finding downed birds went south for a little while.  As I made my way back to Dad over a small knoll a rooster flushed about 30 feet out.  I hit it with my first shot, but it flew about 100 yards before going down.  It was going to run.  Just as I started towards it another rooster jumped about 10 ft out moving to my left.  I dumped him solid on the first shot, and ran over to where he landed, but he was gone.  Despite looking with Skeeter for the next fifteen minutes, we never found either bird.  Frustrating.  It is hard knowing that both of those birds will probably die.  However, the cool thing about pheasants is that we only kill roosters.  Hunting has just a minimal effect on the year to year populations.  Every time a hen would jump three feet in front of me I would think, "That hen will be producing roosters for me for next year!"

I continued back over the knoll to Dad, and just as he came into view I watched a rooster flush right in front of him.  Boom - nothing, boom - nothing, boom - success!  The bird was hit hard, but after spending the past half hour looking for downed birds, We both ran as fast as we could to where it landed.  Not to worry though, it was completely dead about 10 ft out in the pond.  Skeeter, who had lost his collar sometime in the past half hour, saw the bird about the same time we did.  Remember, although he found a wounded bird, he never in his life had retrieved one.  Skeeter ran to the edge of the water and waded to his chest, and then he started whimpering.  He would wimper, then move 5 ft down shore and wade out again and start wimpering as the water got deeper.  Dad and I were both there encouraging him.  He was so cute, such a puppy.  He would wimper and jump around, but he wouldn't go get it.  Finally, after probably three full minutes of this, he just jumped in.  His mind was made up.  He got to the pheasant and looked back at us as if to say, "Okay, I'm here, now what do I do?"  He tried to grab the body of the bird, but that was too initmidating.  He swam back a foot, and then went in and grabbed a wing.  Once he had a good grip on the wing he came back to shore with it.  The retrieve wasn't exactly to hand, but it was close enough.  Dad, Skeeter, and I were all super excited.  We praised him and praised him, and he soaked it up.  I don't know if he needed it though, he was pretty proud of himself.  That may have been the highlight of the entire trip for me!

We finished the big chunk of CRP that we were in and met back up with the group.  I believe that we had six or seven birds at that point.  Most of the birds had flushed into a large draw about a half mile away.  We decided to push into each other, with the Morris men walking across a stubble field and walking back to the rest of the group.  We would then push the other main finger of the draw together. 

Dad, my uncle, and I walked to the edge of the field and entered the draw along a fence line.  At one point along the fenceline, Kodiak, my uncle's dog, kept going through the fence.  My uncle was getting mad at him until the rooster flushed.  My uncle popped him.  Now we know why Kodiak was pushing through the fence.  Just as Kodiak got to that bird, another rooster flushed even closer.  Both my uncle and I got a solid bead on that bird and he was dead.  Very dead.  Kodiak then tried to pull the heroic.  He already had the first rooster in his mouth, but he ran over to the second rooster and jumped on it too.  He couldn't figure out how he was going to get both birds in his mouth at the same time, but he wouldn't leave either one of them.  It was funny.  Finally, we gave up on him and just walked over there and picked up the birds ourselves. 

We pushed through the draw toward the rest of the group and meyhem ensued.  I don't remember who shot what or when, but we got a bunch of birds as we drew toward each other.  I think we still needed four birds for our limit, and we still had the big finger of the draw to push.  My uncle went to the far edge of the draw and I went just inside him.  Soon Kodiak flushed a rooster right at my uncle's feet and he whiffed three time.  He was pissed!  He shot very well the entire trip, but missed probably the easiest bird he had an opportunity at.  It was pretty funny.  Kodiak kept getting up hens right in front of my uncle, but finally a rooster got up at my feet.  I put a solid bead on him and rocked him, and he came bouncing to the ground.  Kodiak was after him immediately.  But he couldn't find him.  I was getting despearate.  This was my third bird that day that I knocked down and couldn't find.  We looked for about five minutes, but figured that if it was running it would probably be ahead of us.  Sure enough, about a minute later all of a sudden Kodiak takes off running straight in front of me.  He runs about 75 yards and comes back with my rooster in his mouth.  THAT is why a good bird dog is invaluable on a pheasant hunt. 

A while later someone else in the group knocked down another bird, and we watched as it bounced on the ground before landing in some thick cover.  Shockingly, they couldn't find it.  We searched for 10 minutes, but nothing.  Everyone but Skeeter and I had given up.  Everyone was telling me it was time to get a move on when the bird bolted.  It was right where we were looking but had held tight.  It was off to the races as skeeter and I took off after it.  Quickly Skeeter caught up to the bird and pinned it until I got there.  He loved it!  He was so excited!  He let me take the bird and then kept on jumping at my game bag trying to get it back.

Skeeter had one more chance to chase a bird that got knocked down in the stubble.  Again, he chased it down and pinned it, but he didn't bring it back.  Honestly, we couldn't have been happier with him though.  He had saved us a couple birds and he has had next to no training.  Best of all, he was staying in range and wasn't hurting us.  We ended up limiting out before we reached the end of the finger.  As we unloaded our guns everyone said, "We shouldn't have shot them all, because you know some more roosters are going to jump on our way back to the truck."   Sure enough, as we made our way back to the truck, a total of three roosters and a bunch of hens jumped right at our feet.

Skeeter and I with the day's take.  Sweetness!

Back at the trucks we lined up the birds for pictures and enjoyed our own preferred drinks.  We then headed back to the farmstead to clean the birds, relax, and try to shoot a raccoon that was living in the roof of one of the farm buildings, but that is another story for another day!  Sometime during the day the other group had also shot a couple sharpies, so while everyone else was cleaning the birds, I was pulling out all the tail feathers and I pretty much plucked one of the sharpies.  You never know when you are going to need a pile of fly tying materials.  I still us ruffed and blue grouse feathers from birds that I shot years ago.  If you would like some rooster tails for fly tying, let my know, I've got plenty!

Day 4 - Saturday, November 5, 2011 - The Honey Hole Revisited.

Saturday was easily my favorite day of the trip.  I had some birds under my belt, so the nerves were gone.  For me, the trip had already been a success.  Today would be gravy.  As we drove in to town to have breakfast we saw hundreds of birds in the fields surrounding the honey hole, so we knew they were back.  As much as I love exploring, I also enjoy revisiting areas that I feel comfortable in.  Our host had some house and farm work to take care of, so it would just be his good friend and his friend's 15 year old son.  We decided to start by pushing a tree row adjoining the honey hole.  We knew it would be full of birds. Dad and I started at one end, and the other three went to the other end and pushed towards us.  The 15 year old said it best after that fruitful push, "I love war zone hunting he said."  That's what it felt like.  I only had two roosters get up in range for me.  One got up right behind a tree and I never got a shot off.  It felt like ruffed grouse hunting.  The other Dad and whacked in unison.  The other guys had even more success, taking six roosters.  After 15 minutes we had seven roosters in the bag and had flushed over 300 birds between us.  Incredible.  Something you will only find in the Dakotas.

We then repeated our trip to the honey hole much the same as the day before.  Eerily similar to the day before actually.  I had another rooster that I knocked down and couldn't find, despite Kodiak, a retrieving machine, working over the area with us hard for ten minutes.  We made up for it later, though.  My uncle and I ended up walking through the stubble again to push the same draw as the day before.  Again, he had a bird get up right at his feet.  The first shot rocked the bird as he drew a pile of feathers from its rear end, and he connected on the next two shots as well, but the bird kept flying.  I followed it until it was about to go over the horizon when I saw it crash.  "That bird just completely caved about a quarter mile out there" I told my uncle. It was too far to go to immediately, so we just kept hunting.  We were going to push that was again anyway.  As we approached the other three working toward us, a bird got up in front of Dan and he dropped it, but it was a runner.  All three dogs converged on where it fell, but I stayed where I was looking for moving grass.  Then I saw it.  Russling grass about 50 feet from me.  I used my old 400m running skills and took off after that bird.  The two trained hunting dogs were still in the area it had gone down, but Skeeter saw somebody running and wanted to play!  Before he got to me, though, he realized what I was running after, and he completed the job for me.  Skeeter pinned another bird.  As we got back to the group I received many complements on my bird dog abilities.  I'd be a good dog, what can I say?

We then pushed the same finger as the day before.  As we were walking Dan says, "Hey, there's a dead rooster right here.  It's still warm!"  Sure enough, we had found the rooster that my uncle shot.  Now I was feeling pretty good about things.  We got a few more birds, and as we got to the road, we were almost to our limit.  Dan and his Dad volunteered to go get the truck and pick us up, as we pushed one last draw where everyone promised me there would be 500 birds.  Cool.  Dad really wanted me to have a couple more opportunities on my own, so he said he wasn't going to shoot anymore.  Which was fine.  I had actually been really happy with my shooting and taken my share of birds, but I'm always happy to take another! 

We pushed a soggy draw for about a quarter mile without seeing any birds.  Ahead of us was a huge group of extremely healthy 10 ft tall cattails.  We got up next to them, and Kodiak went in, and mayhem erupted again.  For the next 5 minutes probably 200 birds got out of the cattails.  The problem was, the roosters were all out of range.  Finally one got up in front of my Dad, but since he wasn't shooting, I took a whack at it.  It was probably out of range, but I was on it and drew quite a few feathers with my first shot.  It didn't go down immediately, but it looked bad as it tried to fly over the hill.  We figured we might find it in the field, so we should count it for our bag.  We only had one more bird left, and obligingly a rooster got up right between my uncle and I and he let me have first whack at it, and then he made sure that it was really dead!  Day done.  It left me with one big question.  We didn't finish walking that draw.  We still had 50 yards of cattails we hadn't pushed and another 200 yards of prime cover.  How many more birds were in there?  I don't know, but it was fun to think about!

As we walked back through the stubble field my uncle spotted the bird that I had knocked down, so we had our limit!  Awesome.  One thing that I really enjoyed about the last day was that we ended finding three birds that we easily could have lost.  As a sportsman, I feel that it is very important to collect everything that you injure, and overall things had worked out extremely well on this day!  We got the birds together to take some pictures and to pack some tasty pheasant meat!

What a pile of pheasants looks like before the picture.

And for the picture.  From the left:  Dad, uncle, me, and a pile of pheasants.
Note the tail feathers - this is before I collected fly tying materials!

 We spent the rest of the day hanging out with our host and friends.  They really were a great group of guys and made our trip even more enjoyable.  We got along great and had a wonderful time together.  We were in ruralville and it was interesting to talk to them and see how different life is.  I've always considered myself a bit of a country boy, but I spent the past four years in Los Angeles, CA, and now I live in a Memphis, TN suburb, so I really guess I'm just a city slicker.  Regardless, these were great guys.  One things they kept talking about was golfing, and how they would whoop us on their home course.  Now, they didn't know that I played on the golf team in high school or how good I was (note past tense!)  When my Dad and uncle talked my up, the said, "It doesn't matter, our course is the handycap."  I had to see the course.  So they gave me a tour, in a suburban, down the fairways!  They said that the greens were flat astroturf, they didn't mention that they were square!  It looked like it would be a frustrating riot to play.  Hopefully I'll make it out some time and we can play a round.

A green with most of the rest of the course behind it.  When can I get a tee time?

Day 5 - Sunday, November 6, 2011 - The long ride home.

Dad and I decided to get up at 5:30 am.  My flight didn't leave until 11:30, but he had to drive all the way back to Utah and I could handle a couple more hours in an airport.  He woke me up at 4:30.  "What the crap Dad?"  "Let's go, I'm up, I want to get home!"  We were on the road in the 5:00am dark.  At about 5:45 Dad was about ready to fall asleep at the wheel.  "Need me to drive Dad?"  "Would you?"  "Yep, but you're an idiot for getting up so early!"  "Just drive."  "No problem."  I drove the last two hours and after a nice breakfast at Perkins, I was to the airport plenty early.  A long day of waiting, flying, waiting, and flying, and I was home. 

It was a long trip.  Was all that time and money worth 8 imported chickens?  You bet it was!