My boy really turned out to be great at Upland Hunting, and I wish we coulda stayed longer for him to figger it out even more. And there was no hesitation with his first pheasant. Luckily that first pheasant didn’t get away
But he sure did find that first pheasant a very interesting and sweet smelling bird.
Drake did get his first two man limit of pheasants. Good thing that we were shooting well because there just weren’t near the number of pheasants that we expected in some of the areas we were hunting in. It was a little baffling, but he did get his limit.
It was sad without Mike being there to find us birds. But it was fun to bring Drake to places that we hunted with Mike and let him start trying to fill Mike’s large shoes.
Drake with his first two man limit
This was a very common scene where we were hunting. And Drake turned out to REALLY love the smell of turkeys. One of the first things he started trailing with a vengeance was a flock of turkeys. We didn’t know what he was trailing but he was on fire. He moved through that grass with a purpose. He hit that barbed wire fence and was trembling just aching with the desire to get through that fence. (Drake had learned once about barbed wire fences and was very good about waiting when he needed to get through the fence for him to be released through the fence) Steve didn’t see any birds go out of the fence but when it was clear that Drake really wanted to go, he lifted the barbed wire and off he went….a few seconds later there was a monstrous flush of turkeys. He was so pleased with himself and we were so pleased to see him have lots of interest in birds he’d never had any exposure to.
But since the pheasants were not down where we thought they’d be, we started hunting higher and higher, until we found them. And find them we did, just really late in the trip.
Most of the little canyons we walked looked kinda like this
Steve had a great shot on a pheasant that ended up going waaay up the hill
We finally got to the top and had to take a short rest….we turned around and were like….ummmmm dude. Where’s the truck?
We made our way down the hill and were able to finish out a great day
Pretty as he is, Drake was getting tired of showing off his good looks towards the end of the trip….he just wanted to go find more birds
We also had some good days with grouse and quail but those will come a little later
Danibeth
