Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game First Pheasants of the Season

First pheasant hunt of the fall! My son and I took a couple of my dad's shotguns hunting, the Remington Model 32 and a 28 gauge CZ. We were on the Cooke Canyon Hunt Club, so these aren't wild birds. Not a lot of wild pheasant around here, so I hunt the raised birds here on the club.


Maverick the dog had a stellar day! Though it was warm and dry, his nose picked up on the birds just fine. His point was strong and steady. His retrieves were mostly excellent... Well except for one bird he wanted to keep for himself. LOL! He gave it to me easily when I asked again. He even got to go for a swim in the irrigation ditch! Mav's pretty pleased with himself.


Both shooters had a bit of a learning curve. We hadn't hunted with either of these shotguns before. The little 28 gauge double barrel CZ is so light and easy to carry! Deadly on pheasants too with Winchester's 2 3/4" 5/8 ounce #6 steel shot.


The 12 gauge Model 32 seems lighter than my Browning Citori over & under. I thought that I was going to need to remove a spacer from the buttstock, but am not so sure now. I hit well with it today. Missed the first bird, because I forgot how the safety on this shotgun worked! No shots fired, bird flew a long way. I did see a hawk very interested in something over where the pheasant landed, so I hope the hawk got a good pheasant meal. I was shooting Federal 2 3/4" Bismuth, 1 1/4 ounce #5 shot. It will absolutely whollop a pheasant! Hit one that I thought was on the ragged edge of "too far" and dropped it very quickly. I am impressed. This is the skeet barrel set.


All in all it was fun, and a good tuneup for future upland bird hunts this season.


















OH! Maverick's brother/littermate got DNA tested and it comes out to about 75% German Wirehaired Pointer & 25% German Shorthair Pointer. Not pureblood, but not a bad mix at all. Mav has turned out real well. I got him when he was about a year old, he was a "rescue" dog - meaning that his first family gave up on him, and on his brother. Well, he's become an excellent pet, companion, watch dog, hiking buddy, and pretty good at this hunting stuff as well. It was a joy to watch him work today.



Regards, Guy

Looks like fun! Nice shotguns and a beautiful day with your son. Doesn’t get much better than that. 👍

For some reason I can't get the pictures at the moment, they will probably show up at a later time. It has to do with my ancient iPad, it is an original without a camera and needs access to a modem to connect to the Internet.

Anyway, it sounds like a fun time was had by all (excepting the birds). That mix of blood in your dog isn't much of an issue as they are pretty similar in working and temperament. I was working with a GRP/English setter mix earlier this year, that one was not too sure of itself as I believe the setter bloodline was more of a bench dog than field. It's drive was adequate but it had some trouble pointing. That it hasn't seen much for birds didn't help either though the few weeks I had it the dog got put on a few dozen birds.

There ain't nothing wrong with preserve birds, a dog has to work them right too and if they are scratch birds, they may have seen more hunters so far than wild birds will see all year. I used to hunt scratch birds with a friend who had health issues limit their endurance. We hunted scratch birds every Monday morning. Those pen birds often did not want to fly and would regularly run out from points. The dogs soon became adept at handling running birds which carried over to wild birds.

I've been focusing on ruffed grouse and woodcock but a friend and I have picked up three roosters out of my back yard since the season opened on Saturday. I don't chase pheasants very seriously until the middle of November after deer season ends, most of the corn is harvested, and the marshes freeze - hopefully.

The pics popped up after I posted.

Good looking dog and he has a beard so he is a real dog! The country looks like it could hold desert quail, chukars, or maybe chachalaca.

There is decent chukar , hun and quail hunting not far from cooke canyon

Yes there is. We get out on public land for chukar & quail pretty often. Don't seem to run into huns often.

My left leg/ankle is still healing up from an injury, I'm not real keen on hiking the chukar ridges, but easier hunts for quail are just fine.

Regards, Guy

Excellent!!

Used to hunt farmed birds on a local ranch in SW MT. Never could get the time to seriously hunt in eastern MT due to family, work and about a million other things. The dog always loved it, never knew the difference. But the price rose to $275 for three birds and I had to give it up.

Best thing that ever happened to those dogs. Good to see it.