The weather last Friday was horrible.  It rained most of the day and was cold and windy.  We headed up to our cabin early afternoon because we had a pheasant hunt booked for Saturday morning at a pheasant preserve near there.

We ran into rain mixed with snow on the way up and it was slow going.  We passed through the town closest to our cabin a bit after 5 pm on Halloween and saw several Trick or Treaters out with their parents.  The rain/snow had let up, but the wind was howling and boy they looked cold!

Despite the terrible weather on Friday, Saturday it was beautiful.  Just about perfect for a pheasant hunt.  Temperatures were in the high 20’s, there was some wind (that could have been a bit less, but it actually helped the dogs) and perfectly clear skies.

We got there as the sun was rising.

We were assigned a 75 acre rectangular field to hunt.

It was a great field because it had a few hills, but was fairly level and even had a beaver pond at one corner.

The way it works when you are hunting a pheasant preserve is that you buy a certain number of birds which are planted in the field you are assigned to hunt.  It is a really good way to get out and work the dogs on birds.  The DNR has been trying to reintroduce pheasant in Michigan for some years, but there are not a lot of places with wild pheasant and we don’t have access to those areas, so we hunt preserves.

We particularly wanted to get Freighter on some birds.  We had a crummy grouse season with so few flushes that Freighter did not get much experience.  We hoped that hunting a preserve would give him some experience finding birds, flushing them and then retrieving them.

We put out 10 birds which was a 50/50 mix of roosters and hens.  Remember these are pen raised and not wild birds.  You can ask for all roosters, but it costs more per bird.

OK Freighter show us your stuff…

We weren’t too far in the field when Freighter flushed the first rooster.  Of course I was not ready with my camera so missed a picture.  Too bad it was a perfect flush and shot.

The first one is always the easiest, but once you start shooting in the field, the rest of the birds scatter and burrow into the deep grass and the dogs really have to work to find and flush them.

We walked farther in the field.

Freighter flushed a hen.

Freighter was really getting the hang of it.  Flush, shoot, retrieve.  He hunts (or quarters) nice and close and you rarely have to call him back because he is too far away.  It is important that the dog not get too far out because the hunter can only shoot so far and if the dog flushes a bird too far away, that is a lost bird.

OK Freighter lets hunt some more.

Since Freighter got three of the 10 birds we had the preserve put out in the field, we turned back toward the truck and hunted along the way.

Soon Freighter was on another bird.  It was burrowed so deep in the grass that he could not get it to flush, so he retrieved it.

Freighter had a great time and did a wonderful job.  Hubby likes to upland hunt and it is the main reason we got Thunder so it is nice to see that Freighter will be able to carry-on for Grandpa Thunder who is definitely slowing down a bit.

Of course upland hunting isn’t the best way to reinforce steadiness so I guess that will set us back a bit for Freighter’s hunt testing.  But it is a great way to get the dog to focus on you as a hunter and Freighter needs some of that too.

I was able to take a lot of nice pictures, so come back tomorrow for Storm’s hunt.

Also, don’t forget that we still have the Howling Good Give-Away going on.  Details here.