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REPORT ALERT! This is NOT a fishing report…
That said, it was a cool weekend for myself as my wife and I visited our son and DIL in Great Falls, Montana. My pontoon was left there in the spring and Matt and I had planned to float the Missouri in the fall, however, the forecast of cold, wind, and rain was more than I could handle. So what should we do instead? How about some pheasant hunting?!?!?
Matt has been getting more and more interested in hunting, and he recently got a shotgun. And had gone out a few times and shot his first pheasant. I’m always up for new adventures, so a trip to the Great Falls sporting goods store, Sheels, was in order. I walked in an angler and walked out a budding hunter. My recent “Cast and Blast” trip with Shelby Ross of Ross Outdoor Adventures on Potholes no doubt had an effect on my decision process. I had so much fun hunting ducks that I think I may have a new sport in my future.
Matt and I hunted Saturday and Sunday. We walked around 15 miles the two days. The scenery north of Great Falls is truly amazing, beautiful tall grass fields with buttes and mountains at every turn. The State of Mountain has various lands available for hunting, some public, some private that the State pays the owners to allow hunting. We hunted a variety of locations and learned a lot for future hunting adventures.
My anticipation was sky high as Matt and I started walking our first field. It was a harvested wheat field, with no cover, but along the borders were tall, grassy areas. We started walking slowly, 10-15 feet, stopping for 30 seconds, and resuming our walk. Matt explained that often pheasants will lay still, and not flush, but when they sense a predator has stopped close by them they will respond by flushing or running to new cover. It didn’t take long before our first pheasants flushed 20 yards to our right. Two hens rose and rapidly flew away from us. Now, two things came to my mind. First, they were fast! I had no idea how I could possibly have shot and hit them in the instant they flew off. Second, and compounding with issue number one, is that only roosters were open. So added to the speed of the birds was the understanding that I had to make a split second identification of hen or rooster.
We finished walking this hunting block location without seeing any more pheasants. By the time we got back to our car I was hot and stripping layers. I was wearing my new GHUnders base layers and I have to say I was toasty and warm even with the cold, wind, and rain.
Pheasants love cover, and because of that they are the perfect bird for flushing out of tall grassy areas. In many ways, I learned that hunting and fishing have a lot in common. Each requires an understanding of what your prey likes to hang out in. Knowing proper habitat and cover increases ones odds at success. As our weekend of hunting progressed I was struck by the similarity of “reading the landscape” when hunting and “reading the water” when fishing. Soon I was looking at the land with my beginners hunting eyes, figuring out where and when a pheasant may jump out in front of me.
We moved on to our second location, which looked much more likely to hold our quarry. Tall grass, an irrigation ditch, fields of cut wheat – all signs of perfect peasant habit.
I was walking ahead of Matt when I heard the loud boom of his shotgun and his call out of “I got him!” “You’ve got to be kidding me”, I thought. It’s not that I didn’t think we’d get something; it was just a bit surreal and out of my experience. I walked over to Matt and he proudly displayed his bird to me. The pheasant was much bigger than the duck we had shot the previous week. The roosters have long tails and a colorful head. With our first bird in hand (and no longer in the bush) I turned again to my area, slowly working along, walking, pause, walk pause, when suddenly to my left I heard the brush explode with the sound of wings flapping. I turned and saw the pheasant rising out of the bush. Fortunately, there is no difficulty in IDing the roosters and their distinctive, long tails. I raised my gun and fired. Boom! The bird kept flying. Boom! Boom! The bird flew off as my shots were wide of the target. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell Matt afterward if I closed my eye while aiming or had both open. What I can say is, what an adrenaline rush! From the moment the bird broke cover to firing off my rounds the memory is seared into my mind.
We finished hunting this field and were back at our car, about to eat lunch, when a truck drove up. “Any luck, guys”? The two hunters asked us. We reviewed our action with them. Matt told me later he thought they were a little surprised that we had no dogs with us. Well, they had four with them, and asked if we would like to hunt the field again with them? Are you kidding?! Matt and I jumped at the chance to work the large field over with dogs trained to flush out birds. We couldn’t believe our good fortune.
It was quite a show watching the dogs work in teams, ranging ahead of us, moving in and out of the tall scrub brush and grass, jumping high, then out of sight. When they found a bird they would freeze and point. As we walked along in a spread out line the dogs flushed out several birds, and one fell to the Montana hunters. As we got to the end of the field they commented that we had done a pretty good job flushing out two birds without the benefit of dogs to help. Matt already has plans to add a dog to our adventures next year.
Sunday was a shorter hunting day due to the Seahawks game. We drove to several different locations and explored for future hunts. We managed to scare up one rooster but both missed. Even so, it was an amazing weekend of hunting with my son Matt. And now I have a new sport to get me into the great outdoors, and even more reason to visit my son and DIL in the fall every year.
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