some days I can't hit the broadside of a barn...

For all the times I’ve walked or ran after pheasants in this state, I can generally say in all actuality they are pretty safe from me. I don’t know if it’s because I learned how to shoot open-site rifle first or need some weird geometry that goes off inside my head when pass shooting ducks and I see my target for a long ways (although I miss plenty of ducks as well) or what but I really only have 2 effective shots on pretty pheasant boys. The first is a quick close shot when they’re flushing straight up in front of me and the other is from a blocking or flanking position where they pass over the top of me or out in front but I know they’re coming past. If it’s a flush out a ways and then a quartering shot to my left, then they’re just about guaranteed a safe passage down range. A quartering shot to my right can be done but it would take a full pivot of my right leg to even turn effectively. Now, I’ve nailed breaking birds moving fast to the left but that perhaps that makes my swing pick up and not try to think about doing it. Anyway…

I was out at the bro’s Sunday evening prepping traps. I had drove my car around the end of his tree belt to be closer to what I was doing. About the last few minutes of legal shooting time, a flock of honkers breaks over the rocky pasture ridge to the north and they appear to be making towards my direction. I drop what I was doing and run the 50 yards into his house looking for his 12 gauge. He still had it in a case because he had gone bird hunting with some friends the day before away from the place. We get the 12 out of the case and he hands me 3 rounds and I run out to see where the geese are. I’m a pump scattergun guy so I don’t work a semi-auto one all that much.

That first flock had passed south and were too far east anyway but a second group was coming so I crouched down behind my car. They too passed about 200 yards east (but probably at shootable height) so I laid bro’s gun on the hood of the car. I get the goose noise out of my head and start to go back to work when I realize that there is a pheasant in bro’s 2 acres of grassy stuff that now covers the former horse paddock that was there when they bought the place. And this boy is close.

So I grabbed the 12 and briskly moved about 20 yards into the grass. The bird shut ups so I stop. Sometimes they’ll flush when they can’t hear any more noise, sometimes they keep running. No response for half a minute so I ran forward expecting the bird, if he wasn’t way in front by now, to flush in front of me. After less than 10 yards, the sucker flushes about that far away from me directly to my left!

So I blow probably the best shot I had when he was flushing up and then the second round went off without me hardly thinking about it (yeah, semi-autos are a bit touchier than a pump!!). Now I’m down to the last round in the gun and the last shot still in range and try swinging on the slight quartering away shot and it was…close but no cigar :-l!! The bird sails into more grassy cover about 100 yards away and the last legal light slips away. I guess that’s why it’s called “hunting” instead of “getting” but maybe that’s just rationalizing how much of a lousy pheasant shooter I’m even after all these years. Anyway, it still felt pretty good chasing and shooting after a game bird on my (ok bro’s) land. The season isn’t over yet. Hope springs eternal!!