a kid's smile (almost)...

Because we don't have Uncle Bens hanging out of our pockets and were residents here and can go out all season long, I never seem to get out pheasant hunting much anymore, its always lets wait until later. Well, later in the season is here (as in the end) and my youngest son who is gung-ho hunting hadn't got a pheasant, hasn't in a couple of years. So we went out this afternoon, first stopping at the bro's to pick up his 4x4 PU because I thought some of the township gravel roads might have drifting problems because of the snow we had last week and the wind the past couple of days (I'm sure no township road guys busted finger drifts on New Years!!).

Anyway, T decided to walk through the slough across the road from bro's because we always see birds in and out of there while I moved stuff from my car to the pick up. A couple to three dozen birds in that slough, mostly hens and mostly getting up out of range but late season hunting you always hope for the couple of roosters who may have made the mistake of hanging tight. One did and T dropped him with his second shot. One of the nicer looking birds I've seen in a while so I think I'm going to show him how to mount a flying rooster in a few weeks after I order some supplies (probably don't have the right size body and maybe the right eyes in my current stash that doesn't get used much anymore). I'll have to find a scalpel blade tonight to do the preliminary work of taking the pelt off with head, wings, feet, and tail attached. He doesn't like to smile for pixs but almost cracked one in the second photo...

Nice bird, I haven’t eaten Pheasant since I was a kid. My dad and I used to hunt them on our property we had a Fox Terrier that was good at flushing out birds. Then they became scarce over the use of DDT an insecticide used back in the 60's. It's good to see that the Pheasants are making a comeback.