Dad finally said I could go along on the annual pheasant hunt in northern Indiana, I think I was 14 years old. I guess he thought I had graduated from squirrels and rabbits. Boy was I excited and cleaned my trusty .410 Mossberg bolt action, over and over.
Dad bought me a box of Remington 3 inch shells with number 5 shot; he said pheasants were tough to bring down. We got up at 5a.m. to make the drive to Kentland, dad knew some farmers there that would let us hunt. In those days you could drive in and ask permission and if you shared some of your pheasants they would let you hunt. Now you have to pay to lease hunting and most of it is already leased ahead of time.My uncle Jack was with us and our English sitter. When we got north of Lafayette, we begin to see a few birds along the roads, for some reason pheasants will only stay in the north part of Indiana. It’s the same in Illinois and Ohio but they are in the entire state of Iowa and Pennsylvania.
Dad stopped at a farm house, the farmer was out by the barn, they talked a little while, and then dad pulled out a brown paper bag from his pocket and gave it to the farmer. Several years later I found out it was a bottle of whiskey. Out behind the barn was a large corn field and half of it was already picked. Dad said to line up about 30 yards apart in the standing corn and stay in a line. No shooting on the ground or to the side, only firing straight ahead. We all were wearing orange hats and vests for safety and to keep track of each other. About 50 yards into the standing corn, birds started coming up way ahead of us and were out of range. I found out real quick that pheasants are runners and don’t hold like quail do.
Our dog was a pointing breed, but was only trailing the scent. I saw a big cock pheasant running down the corn row ahead of me and I was tempted to shoot but remembered dad saying that was a no. Suddenly a huge cock pheasant came up right in front of me, his wing beats sounded like mom shaking out a throw rug and he cackled loudly. I was so startled that I didn’t even get the safety off and he sailed out of range. My uncle Jack said, “Why didn’t you shoot?” I made up some excuse about; I thought it was a hen. Dad hit one on his side and the dog chased it down because it had a broken wing. That’s when I realized why we brought the dog.
When we got to the end of the standing corn, there was about 10 feet of heavy grass and weeds. Dad said to stand still and don’t move. Pheasants get nervous when they don’t know where you are. After about 5 minutes, two hens got up and Dad yelled “Hen don‘t shoot.” Then two cocks took flight and dad dropped the first one. This set off a chain reaction with several cocks and hens taking off. We all shot twice but Uncle Jack was the only one to connect, I was a poor wing shot in those days, my rabbits and squirrels didn’t fly.
We continued walking the standing corn for several more hours and dad and Jack killed 2 more birds, I was still missing every bird I shot at and was getting very discouraged. We finally took a break for lunch of sandwiches that mom sent and soft drinks. Dad said to stay ready and I would get my chance.
As the afternoon wore down we only needed one more bird for our limit and I thought I was not going to get anything. When we got to another one of those grass and weed patches, the dog suddenly went on point. Dad said, “Okay this is your bird, take off your safety and kick it out, don’t forget to lead it“. Well, up went the ring-neck cackling his head off and I missed it clean. Dad and Uncle Jack didn’t say a word, they knew how I felt. The sun was starting to set and Dad said to head back to the car. I felt terrible, my first pheasant hunt and I was a complete failure, and they wouldn’t ask me to go ever again.
I didn’t see the dog tracking ahead of me but she jumped a big cock bird and it was coming straight at me. Dad and Jack were too far away to shoot, so I pulled up and fired just as it went over my head and it dropped like a rock. Uncle Jack came over and had the head in his hand. That bird was so close; my full choke barrel just decapitated it. Uncle Jack said he had hunted pheasants for many years but had never seen a shot like that. Dad said Mom will be proud of that bird, not one pellet in the body. I put that bird in my vest and walked on cloud nine all the way back to the car.
Over the next few years we hunted in northern Indiana many times until finally the farmers would not let us hunt anymore. They put up signs that said NO HUNTING and DON’T ASK. That was about the time we heard about Iowa’s great pheasant hunting. A friend of mine came back from a hunt and said the birds were plentiful and the farmers were friendly. My friend had stayed in a motel in Centerville, Iowa. The motel welcomed hunters and had a cleaning room and freezer to use. We booked two rooms, Dad and I in one and Jack and his friend Jerry in the other.
Jerry had a pointer dog. We arrived the day before the opener, and went to the local hardware to buy our non-resident license. Next morning we got up at 6 a.m. and went to the local café which was full of hunters. In Iowa you cannot hunt until 8a.m., this gives the birds time to get off the roost and out feeding. After breakfast we drove 20 miles west and then 5 miles south, stopping at a big farm house. Dad and I walked up and knocked on the door. The farmer came to the door with a big smile and shook our hand. We said we were friends with Bill and Mickey who had hunted here last year. He said we were welcome to hunt the 600 acres in the west creek bottom. Dad thanked him and asks if we could bring him a gift tomorrow. The farmer said yes, “I like to keep some whiskey around in case of snake bite you know, Crown Royal works the best.”
It was getting near 8a.m. so we drove down to the creek bottom, when we come over the hill we saw a big dead tree by the creek and in that tree was at least 30 pheasants. We just sit there and watched them and at 10 minutes until 8 a.m. they all flew into a standing corn field. Dad said, “Three of us will line up and Russ, you circle around on the west side and stand as a blocker while we walk toward you.” He said I had 20 minutes to get in place, so I took off at a trot.
Things were a little different now than my first hunt at 14 years old. I was 25 with a son and another one on the way. I was carrying an expensive over and under shotgun and shot skeet and trap weekly. I got into place on the south side at the edge of the standing corn. The birds were running ahead of the three drivers but would see my orange hat and turn around and try to sneak back thru. Dad would do the stop and freeze trick and some would flush giving them a shot. Several flew passed me and I dropped two beautiful cock birds. By the time we finished that corn field we had two birds each. The limit was three each so we could only take 4 more and it was only 9:30 a.m. The dog had caught two that had broken wings and were running.
We continued to the next corn field which had been half picked leaving a strip of standing corn about 100 yards wide with thick grass about knee deep. Dad said, “This is a paradise for pheasants, perfect cover”. We decided to just line up about 25 yards apart and walk slowly, letting the dog find any that were holding in the grass. Ten minutes later the dog went on point and Dad and I walked in, Dad said, “You take it on the left and I’ll take the right. I kicked the grass in front of the dog and up went two big cock birds. It sounded like one shot and both birds went down. This scared all the birds up ahead of us and we looked up to see at least 30 pheasants flying out of range. We continued thru the field and the dog pointed two more that were holding in the grass, Jack and Jerry got both of them and we were tagged out at 11a.m. with 12 birds.
This was the beginning of 10 years of annual pheasant hunting in Iowa and when my boys were old enough we took them on their first hunts. They had about the same luck as I did on my first few hunts but we got them shooting rabbits and kept their confidence up. Each year they got better and would kill a few birds flying. Then in 1986 I got transferred to Pennsylvania and bought a house and 20 acres in the hill country near Dillsburg. That was the first time I had been around pheasants in the spring mating season. The male would come to the edge of the cover and call with a loud “Ah-cock, ah-cock”. I hunted two seasons in PA with limited success; most of the birds had been released by the DNR.
In 1990 I got transferred to Texas and my Uncle Chuck lived in San Antonio, he was an avid pheasant hunter. Most of the good population of birds was in the northern pan handle north of Lubbock. Uncle Chuck made reservations with a guide from Olton, TX, who sold irrigation equipment and knew every farmer for miles around. We met him the next morning at his mother café in Olton and had a big breakfast. Chuck had brought 2 of his army buddies along so the four of us followed the guide’s truck to the first field. The irrigation pivots went in a circle over the corn and cotton fields. This was the first of December and all crops had been picked leaving weed patches in between the circles. We spread out in a line with the guide and his two dogs. Pretty soon one of the dogs went on point and the other one backed him up. Uncle Chuck was the closes so he walked over and kicked the grass, nothing, so he walked forward and kicked again, nothing. Now the dog was looking behind him, and then up came a nice cock bird behind Chuck. Uncle couldn’t get turned around and the ring neck flew my way on the end of the line. I lead it about two feet and pulled the trigger, down went my first pheasant in TX. The guide took us to about 4 places, I don’t think we saw a tree anywhere and that December wind was cold. We all got our limit of 3 birds each and also bagged 8 quail. We hunted with this same guide for 4 years, until the population declined and he started stocking pen raised pheasants. The last year we hunted, we had to kick the birds to get them to fly and the dogs were catching some on the ground.
This is when Uncle Chuck said we are going to South Dakota next year. Chuck found a farmer in South Dakota that had a 2000 acre grain and cattle farm near Kimball. He booked 8 hunters and we stayed in a large farm house but we had to cook our own meals. It was over 1000 miles to South Dakota and we stayed one night in a motel on the way up. Uncle Chuck is a retired Brigadier General and plans everything ahead of time, even the daily menu for 4 days. We stopped in Mitchell on interstate 90 to get our non-resident license and some more shotgun shells.
The first morning, our farmer guide took us to a strip of standing corn that had short green winter wheat planted on all sides of it. The field was only about 40 yards wide but the wind had knocked down a lot of corn stocks and it was rough walking, so the farmer picked us three younger men to walk with him. The other 5 hunters were placed at the end and half way up on each side. We had just started walking when 5 birds got up; I was on the end of the left side and dropped two cock birds. They fell out in the green wheat so the farmer said we’ll get them on the way back. A few more yards about 10 pheasants flushed and it sounded like a war, birds were dropping everywhere. When we got near the end the birds were trapped and I got two more, now the blockers were shooting. I would guess that strip of corn had over 100 birds, including the hens. The farmer said to bring all your birds over and pile up for a count. The limit was 3 cock birds per day and there were 8 hunters. The count was 26 birds, two over our limit, so the farmer said he would take 2.
I had always heard of the fantastic pheasant hunting in South Dakota but I never imagined it was this good. 8 man limit of 24 by 9:30 a.m. We hunted for 3 days, got 24 each day, never hunted after lunch and returned to Texas with 72 birds. The last couple of years, South Dakota had deep snow and zero weather, followed by heavy rains in the spring and the pheasant population has declined about 50%. If we get a couple of mild winters and normal rain in the spring, they will bounce back and when they do I will be there hunting again.
Pictured above are author Russ Porter and his son on his first pheasant hunt in Iowa.
