We had a pheasant hunt scheduled for Sunday as an early birthday present for Freighter.  This would be his first time to hunt pheasant.

There are different ways to hunt pheasant.  I was interested to read Sand Spring Chesapeakes account of attending an English Driven Pheasant Shoot while she was in England.  It was very different from what we did on Sunday.

In the United States, some people are able to hunt wild pheasants.  It usually involves walking a field either with or without a dog and flushing and shooting the birds.

While we have a place to hunt wild grouse, we do not have a place to hunt wild pheasant.  We booked our hunt at a place called the Rooster Ranch (or RR as I am typing it).  The way it works, RR raises the birds on premises and you buy as many as you want.  Once you arrive, the birds are placed in a field, or maybe a couple of fields.  Then you and your dogs walk through the field and your dogs try to find them.  It is not as easy as it sounds.

Chessies are flushing rather than pointing dogs, so when they find a bird, their job is to flush it.  The hunter shoots the bird the dog finds it and brings it back to the hunter.

The day of our hunt it was extremely foggy.  The kind of foggy where you can only see about 50 feet in front of the car.  The RR is about a 2 hour drive for us and since we had a morning hunt, that meant driving in the dense fog in the dark.  It was stressful.

We took it slow and got there in one piece.  Once the sun came up the fog started to slowly burn off.  It was still foggy when we went out to the fields, (we were hunting two adjoining fields), but it was OK to hunt.

We brought both Freighter and Storm with us.  Since this was Freighter’s first time, we were not sure how he would do.  We wanted backup.  Storm is an excellent upland dog.  She can find the birds if the birds are in the field.  Sometimes once the birds are released they leave the field you are hunting.  There is nothing to keep them there.  If they move, it is too bad.  But by the same token, sometimes birds enter the field and you can hunt them.  If the dogs had found Chuckars we could have taken them.  It is all part of hunting this way.

We took Freighter out first, (it was his birthday present after all).  We left Storm wailing because we dared to leave her in the truck.  We went to the smaller field first and turned Freighter loose.  He quarters nice and close and moves at a decent speed so it was easy for me to keep up with him.

At first I think he thought it was just a nice field and he should mark it in frequent places.  But soon he got down to business and started to use his nose to hunt.  The field had fairly  high cover.  There was grass, some corn and sorghum.  Due to all the fog, the cover was pretty wet.  I had to hold my camera up high because I did not want it to get wet.

We walked down the field and then moved over a bit and then turned and walked back up the field.  We repeated this and eventually Freighter flushed his first bird.  Unfortunately the hunter missed the shot.  Darn.  It was a perfect flush and a nice bird.

We continued on and Freighter did not find another bird.  We decided to put him up and run Storm through that field before going to the adjoining field.  We walked a slightly different pattern with Storm and eventually she flushed another bird.  Dang another miss by the hunter.  Storm stood there looking.

Usually my husband doesn’t miss.  I think he was still a bit nerved up from the drive.  It would have helped to have a second hunter, but I was only shooting with my camera.

We put Storm up and took Freighter out to hunt the larger adjoining field.  He was really working nicely.  He was determined to find something and eventually he found a dead bird that the hawks must have killed.  We had to hide it before he would continue.  It was his bird.

I stayed back and hid the bird and we continued on.  Another flush.  This time the shot was true.

This bird did get out a ways and fell behind a big pine bush.  But Freighter marked it perfectly and went out and retrieved it.  The bird was still flapping and we were happy to see that Freighter had no issues picking it up.  Some young dogs are hesitant to pick up a pheasant that is still moving because they can be mean.  Not Freighter.  He was a pro.

We finished out about a third of that larger field and put Freighter up and got Storm out.  It wasn’t long before she found a bird.  That bird was running.  We could see it.  She had to chase it a bit to get it to flush.  Eventually it flushed and again the shot was true.

Storm’s bird landed in heavy cover, but she dug it out and retrieved it to hand.  Good girl.

We continued on and Storm drifted a bit far away.  She totally blew off a recall.  We think she was on another running bird because she flushed it.  Unfortunately that one was too far to hit.  Darn.  It was a nice big rooster.  Storm finally came back and was chastised for hunting so far from her partners.

We took Freighter out for a bit more. He wasn’t coming up with any birds.  It may have been because Storm found the bird in the area we were running Freighter through.

Then we decided to try the two dogs together.  We have hunted Thunder and Storm together.  They work nicely together.  Big mistake with Freighter and Storm.  All Freighter wanted to was play with Storm.  All Storm wanted to do was hunt.  Freighter settled down to hunt, but he was going the opposite direction from Storm.  As we were calling him and rounding him up, Storm flushed another bird.  Again that one was too far away for a shot.

Can’t fault Storm too much on that one.  She was doing her thing and I am sure that bird was running too before it flushed.

We put Freighter up and tried a bit more with Storm, but she couldn’t come up with any more birds.

The RR includes lunch and we were getting hungry from tamping around in the fog all morning.  Plus, we only booked a half day hunt.

Aside from Storm getting too far out with that one bird, we were happy with her work.  She can find anything. After she was corrected for quartering too far, she did much better.  We will work on her staying closer.  She hasn’t been pheasant hunting for over a year and may be a bit rusty.  Once she got a bird she was pretty geeked.

We were very pleased with Freighter for his first time out.  I think with more of this type of hunting and some maturity he will become a great upland dog.  We hope to get back there when it is a bit colder and the snow has knocked some of the cover down.  I would love to get some pictures in the snow.  Plus the pheasants will be less likely to run with colder temperatures.