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OUTDOOR TALES
Al Kalin, IVP
Thursday, November 20, 2003 3:02 PM PST
A pheasant hunter's thoughts
Last year my friend Steven developed a bad case of buck fever, missing numerous times as cackling roosters flushed from underfoot. He even considered going into therapy but luckily, toward the end of the season, he connected on a pheasant and redeemed himself.
This year I watched Steven blast away three times at a beautiful pheasant flushed by his dog, Tonka. I thought he had missed but the pheasant collapsed in mid-air and crashed to the ground at the end of the field. Tonka made a beautiful 250-yard retrieve and the pressure was off for this season.
During the stormy weather last week Steven tried his luck again and told me the following story:
"I'd been chasing birds all day for nothing. I figured I would spend the last 30 minutes of light hunting around a sugar cane field. As I approached the field I see a bird fly out of a fallowed alfalfa field. Then I see another immediately after it ... then another, and another.
"I pulled over and watched through the glasses. They had landed in a cut grass field. As I watched, four heads popped up and they are all roosters! So here it is at 4:30 in the afternoon and I have four roosters in mowed grass field. Curt Gowdy move over, I am going to limit out in a last minute wild flurry of roosters.
"I pick the border where the majority landed, ever-ready for the barrage that is sure to come, but approaching the end of the field a sinking feeling starts somewhere deep inside. This can't be, can it? How did they elude me in this nothing of a field with grass only 4 inches high?
"My mind is racing and I decide they must have bailed into the drain ditch alongside the field. But as I head toward the drain, here comes a flock of six mallards trying to land in the ditch. Wow, this is great! I'll let the mallards land in the ditch, creep up on them and have a Wild West shootout at last light on both pheasant and mallards.
"Five more minutes of precious hunting time slips by before the ducks land, not in the ditch but instead in the muddy field next to the ditch. Oh well, I'll walk the ditch and get my limit of roosters in the wild shootout that must occur.
"I begin to walk the ditch toward the ducks. Nothing, not a single rooster, but I'm getting closer to the ducks, who are looking at me as if I am in their way. Now I'm almost to the end of the ditch. There are no pheasant but I am directly across from the mallards, who are still acting annoyed by my presence.
"Almost out of spite I rise up and take aim at the flock, which simply continues to stare. They are very tightly clustered and I'm thinking a single shot will get them all. But I don't want to needlessly wound and cripple. Instead I shoot at a single drake off to the side. BOOM! And I have a drake mallard. It is a mere formality to have Tonka, my highly trained black Lab (I trained him) cross the ditch and pick up my bounty.
"All goes well until Tonka approaches the bird, but it's only stunned and jumps and flies 80 yards deeper into the muddy field. My highly trained dog doesn't see it land. Now I have a wounded mallard in a muddy field, a confused dog, four roosters in the grass field behind me and daylight is fading fast.
"I give Tonka hand signals and he slogs his way through chest deep mud and finally sees the bird and begins his assault only to be thwarted when the mallard jumps up again and this time flies cleanly out of sight.
"Now I have no mallard, no rooster and almost no light. As I near the end of the ditch with no sign of the four roosters, that sinking comes again. How am I going to tell this to my family and not look stupid? Answer: you aren't because you DO look stupid. In fact you ARE stupid.
"With fading light I decide I must have missed something. I pick a border, two over, and begin to walk and even jog as the light continues to slip away. At the end of the land, with no results, the voices in my head are really getting loud. IDIOT! STUPID! How could you lose four roosters in a field with no cover?
"I begin walking back down another border almost in a panic. Twenty yards from the end of the field with no roosters, no mallards and no light, the unthinkable happens. From under my feet Tonka sniffs out a scent and POOF, a cackling rooster gets up and heads for the sugar cane. I drop him with a load of steel shot. Tonka faithfully retrieves the bird and seems as happy as I am, if not more so. It's one of the most exciting evenings of hunting I have ever had.
Al Kalin, IVP
Thursday, November 20, 2003 3:02 PM PST
A pheasant hunter's thoughts
Last year my friend Steven developed a bad case of buck fever, missing numerous times as cackling roosters flushed from underfoot. He even considered going into therapy but luckily, toward the end of the season, he connected on a pheasant and redeemed himself.
This year I watched Steven blast away three times at a beautiful pheasant flushed by his dog, Tonka. I thought he had missed but the pheasant collapsed in mid-air and crashed to the ground at the end of the field. Tonka made a beautiful 250-yard retrieve and the pressure was off for this season.
During the stormy weather last week Steven tried his luck again and told me the following story:
"I'd been chasing birds all day for nothing. I figured I would spend the last 30 minutes of light hunting around a sugar cane field. As I approached the field I see a bird fly out of a fallowed alfalfa field. Then I see another immediately after it ... then another, and another.
"I pulled over and watched through the glasses. They had landed in a cut grass field. As I watched, four heads popped up and they are all roosters! So here it is at 4:30 in the afternoon and I have four roosters in mowed grass field. Curt Gowdy move over, I am going to limit out in a last minute wild flurry of roosters.
"I pick the border where the majority landed, ever-ready for the barrage that is sure to come, but approaching the end of the field a sinking feeling starts somewhere deep inside. This can't be, can it? How did they elude me in this nothing of a field with grass only 4 inches high?
"My mind is racing and I decide they must have bailed into the drain ditch alongside the field. But as I head toward the drain, here comes a flock of six mallards trying to land in the ditch. Wow, this is great! I'll let the mallards land in the ditch, creep up on them and have a Wild West shootout at last light on both pheasant and mallards.
"Five more minutes of precious hunting time slips by before the ducks land, not in the ditch but instead in the muddy field next to the ditch. Oh well, I'll walk the ditch and get my limit of roosters in the wild shootout that must occur.
"I begin to walk the ditch toward the ducks. Nothing, not a single rooster, but I'm getting closer to the ducks, who are looking at me as if I am in their way. Now I'm almost to the end of the ditch. There are no pheasant but I am directly across from the mallards, who are still acting annoyed by my presence.
"Almost out of spite I rise up and take aim at the flock, which simply continues to stare. They are very tightly clustered and I'm thinking a single shot will get them all. But I don't want to needlessly wound and cripple. Instead I shoot at a single drake off to the side. BOOM! And I have a drake mallard. It is a mere formality to have Tonka, my highly trained black Lab (I trained him) cross the ditch and pick up my bounty.
"All goes well until Tonka approaches the bird, but it's only stunned and jumps and flies 80 yards deeper into the muddy field. My highly trained dog doesn't see it land. Now I have a wounded mallard in a muddy field, a confused dog, four roosters in the grass field behind me and daylight is fading fast.
"I give Tonka hand signals and he slogs his way through chest deep mud and finally sees the bird and begins his assault only to be thwarted when the mallard jumps up again and this time flies cleanly out of sight.
"Now I have no mallard, no rooster and almost no light. As I near the end of the ditch with no sign of the four roosters, that sinking comes again. How am I going to tell this to my family and not look stupid? Answer: you aren't because you DO look stupid. In fact you ARE stupid.
"With fading light I decide I must have missed something. I pick a border, two over, and begin to walk and even jog as the light continues to slip away. At the end of the land, with no results, the voices in my head are really getting loud. IDIOT! STUPID! How could you lose four roosters in a field with no cover?
"I begin walking back down another border almost in a panic. Twenty yards from the end of the field with no roosters, no mallards and no light, the unthinkable happens. From under my feet Tonka sniffs out a scent and POOF, a cackling rooster gets up and heads for the sugar cane. I drop him with a load of steel shot. Tonka faithfully retrieves the bird and seems as happy as I am, if not more so. It's one of the most exciting evenings of hunting I have ever had.
