Pheasant hunting story, long
Nov 14, 2012 13:19:30 GMT -7
Post by 72camaro on Nov 14, 2012 13:19:30 GMT -7
Pheasant Hunting Trip 2012
We left early Friday morning to go to Saint John, Washington, to go hunting for the soon to be decimated Eastern Washington Pheasant. We were going to be known as the "Kill Zone". Steve and his two hunting dogs could not make it this year so we had Larry's trusty stead Finnegan, the Labordoodle as point.
We got there and it was a nice cool 36 degrees. Larry had his lucky hunting pants on, Gordon his lucky Elmer Fudd hat, and my lucky thing, my black stealthy pheasant killing Weatherby cannon, also known as a 12ga shotgun. These guys had hunted this area before, like a zillion years ago and the land we wanted to go hunting on had signs all over, "With Written Permission Only." Who did they have to ask, the brother of the sister of the sorority sister of the this of the that and friend of Larry's daughter and on and on. After driving all this way Larry knocks on the door, nothing. He comes back toward the truck and we are looking at each other talking about where we are going to go and someone comes out. What do you know, Larry does his "don't you remember me" deal and what do you know, the silver tongued devil has got us permission to hunt hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of acres. He is the man. Only thing surprising is that we weren't asked in for dinner.
We walked an area and figured someone had just hunted it very recently and moved down. Larry took Finnegan down to the bottom of the hill while Gordon and I walked the top. While we are busy walking down and don't see anything Larry is shooting the first pheasant. One down, this is going to be good for the "Kill Zone" team.
We walked and walked and walked and never seen much the rest of the day, but heck, we just got there. This is going to be great, we walked mostly down hill, not that big of a deal. I could do this all day.
When we reached the motel the innkeepers told us the bar down the street had good food and to make sure to ask the lady there if the food was any good, she always answers, "it tastes like beep." Well, at first she stumbled on what she was suppose to say but by the time Larry and Gordon got in there to ask she had it down. Tammy was really cool and a great cook.
In the morning we go to a local restaurant in Saint John where the farmers hang out and discuss world issues and they are all highly Republican, I've found heaven. Larry and Gordon are my token liberals and as we are all talking I start hinting about them being liberals. Talk about a couple cats on a hot tin roof. Funny stuff.
The next day we climb this real big hill to the top, already tired by the time we get to the top and we just got there, but now the easy part, going down to the tall brush by the river to hunt the dickens out of it since we don't think anyone else would tackle it with the big climb back out. Not much on the way down but when we finally get there some quail start flying around and I got a good look at one but don't shoot. Gordon, "Why didn't you shoot?" Me, "I'm waiting for the big prize, pheasant, and I didn't want to scare them away." Later on I kicked myself for not taking a shot since I didn't have any more good shots for a long time that day. We walked and walked and didn't see much of anything. When we got near the end of the river line I had worked myself out into a bunch of 7' brush and the only way back to the hillside where Gordon was to start a climb out I had to bulldoze through it. While doing that Larry gets the warning from Gordon on the hill that a deer was heading straight toward him through the same brush I was going through. Larry dodged a bullet and the deer pulled to the side a bit instead of doing a head on collision.
We start climbing the huge rolling Eastern Washington hill back toward the top and Larry spots some pheasant that flew into this tall brush near the top on our way out. Yah baby, we got you now. Gordon is still low back on the river side and we cannot see him. A hen flushes, then a rooster flushes and I take a shot and miss. What was I thinking, a four foot lead, they are not that fast and I'm not that far away. Soon after that a whole mess of them start flying, about eight and they are so packed you can barely tell a hen from a rooster and I don't shoot. I don't even know if Larry shot and Gordon is down below looking at them from the bottom side as they are flying over him and he beads up on one hen, stops and the next bird and it's a hen too so as soon as he swings on the next rooster and then the next they are too far for a shot.
After all that mayhem and more pheasant than we see all of the last trip we got nothing. A couple more steps and I'm about five feet from a hen and she takes off out of the brush, a rooster takes off a couple seconds later and it is lights off, the black stealthy Weatherby cannon is unleashed and finds its' mark. Finnegan is looking for the bird, and I'm looking for the bird but he finds it first. I hear a little bird moan and Finnegan is pulling a mouth full of feathers off at a time, the bird is starting to go naked as he is pulling another mouth full off before I could reach him. Dead, I stick him in my hunting vest. Not dead, as I'm walking and I'm getting somebody kicking me with their feet. I reach in and do the "ring its' neck" deal and shove him back in. Not dead; again. What are you, the Snow goose's evil twin that won't die? He gets pulled out and this time the deed is done right and I'm ready for another bird but we hunt another area but nobody is close enough for a good shot. Our legs are tired, that was some goat climbing feats we did this day.
Gordon and I trudge around for a bird that got lightly tagged but he was still in good shape and flying. Finnegan and Larry are down at the bottom and now we are going up hill again to try and hunt this guy down. No dog, no find, the bird is gone. We finally meet up with Larry and Finnegan again and they work the ridge on the street side, I've got the mountain goat side and Gordy is there somewhere. Finnegan flushes a bird and it is a ways away, and gets the sent again and is off and the pheasants start peeling off way ahead of all the hunters, no good shots. Gordon and I start calling him Audubon, saving the birds. Larry does not seem so keen on it. I change his name to Sierra Club, Finnegan, that is. Larry still does not like it.
Back to the bar for some more 'beep'. Food good again tonight. Man, those were some good fries. Some young 20's are getting wasted in about 20 minutes taking shots and doing bravado things like that while a football game is on. One of the older locals has got one of the kids over and was getting him to talk to tell all his words of wisdom and he was a willing. That has to be some sort of bar sport as we were trying not to laugh at young Aristotle.
At the motel the innkeepers tell us that they get a call, they had put up a nights stay at the motel in a local raffle, that the winner was on the phone and wanted a little information, how many could the room hold. Strange question, they thought, “the room is a single room with one bed and it will sleep two.”
“Well, we have six people, how about if we rotate, it will only take my husband about three and a half minutes.”
“I don’t really think that is what we had in mind.”
A bunch of laughter, it was the other barmaid calling them to play a joke. She said her husband was at the bar when she made the call and was mad all the way home and cussing.
Gordy does another sleeping trick, falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. It took me about 30 seconds, I'm jealous.
The third day another bird is flying down the path that Larry and Finnegan flushed way up the road and it flies over Gordon who is taking a shot at it. Heck, I even took a too far away shot, you never know when the black stealth will unleash her heat. We do an abbreviated river canyon climb again and the pheasants are back at the top again and I'm doing my best goat climbing again and think I'm high enough but the pheasants get rushed again by the dog and fly and I'm still not high enough and they all escape, about three roosters and a handful of hens. They somehow, without being seen, go into a plowed field, up high and to the right and everywhere but where I thought they would be and too far for a shot. Stinking pheasant Ninjas.
Monica picks up Gordon around 2pm as Larry and I are on our way to Clyde to Larry's cabin, a house with power but no water, big deal, we are men and we can take it. Gordon knows that we are going to get to talk politics and I'll have a chance to let Larry see the light of Conservatism versus Socialism, and then Gordy starts talking about Broke Back Mountain. Shut your mouth. Not going to happen and not very funny, for me or for Larry.
Then the trick, Larry starts a card game I actually have to think about playing my hand after having a few beers, Rummy, and we are playing for money. It was something out of the movie the Hustler as I win a big first hand and then begin my slide downward to having to pay him money, and I'm too busy playing cards to let him into the wisdom of conservatism. I've seen this before but it was done opposite of the young kid at the bar, Larry got me too busy to talk politics. Tip of the hat to you Larry.
Monday morning, day four and it is forty degrees and raining. Larry talks about that this will keep the rif raf away from hunting. As the dog is too tired and sore to hunt much in the tall brush I'm doing what Gordon calls a Shawnigan, crashing through the brush trying to get some birds up. Canadian geese are flying in the area and I'm calling them but for some reason they didn't like our orange vests but would fly around trying to figure out who that awesome goose was. On the way down the hunting area the dog rushes and gets a bird up early and Larry and I take our customary Hail Mary shots that we all have become famous for on this trip. On the way back we witness the same thing as I watch Finnegan already fifty feet from Larry bolt another fifty feet and get the bird up while nobody is close. We don't even do a Hail Mary shot but go back totally soaked as there is not one inch on either one of us dry, and with the wind and forty degrees outside, it is cold. Finnegan/Audubon/Sierra Club has performed his mission and another bird life is saved. While on the way back to the cabin Larry nearly takes out a Ringneck pheasant with his truck. Closest we have come in two days of getting a bird.
Larry and I head home and we are kinda like Smokey and the Bandit, Larry is the Snowman, I'm the Bandit as I did get to drive a bit over the speed limit by a little bit and Finnegan is Fred. It just popped into my head since Larry drives trucks for a living.
A couple things that are self evident: Finnegan loves birds and will not wait for anyone and the shock collar is there for looks only; we need more dogs to work the areas because one is not enough; we love shooting birds but my most used phrase was, "too far away", even if not; we have to bring a coyote caller and some varmit rifles since Gordon was taking shots at them with his shotgun at 20yds; and I cannot wait to do it all again next year. It was fun.
Special thanks to Larry, Gordon and Finnegan, who really is a great dog and if I let my guard down I would get one like him, except he would be shocked and probably look like a zombie if he got that far ahead that many times.
