A woman's view of hunting…with men
guns, dogs and birds
We just got home from pheasant hunting in Central Nebraska. There were ups and downs with the trip. We even made a few discoveries. We bagged eight birds. That was an up. The weather was way too hot, 75 degrees with 25 mile an hour winds. That was a down. We walked through prairie grass fields that were six feet tall plus in spots. And so dense I couldn’t see the dogs with their neon colored bandanas through the tall thin reeds right in front of me. When one of the dogs would flush a bird, it would hang suspended in the sky for just a split second before it caught the wind and take off making that whump, whump, whump, sound like a helicopter. They were very hard to hit in the high winds and when one was shot, the pheasant were hard to find in the dense grass.
Charlie was the star of the hunting trip. This was his best year ever. He didn’t range out too far, stayed in close and checked on us frequently to see where we were in the tall grass. He flushed two birds right off and retrieved both of them.
One of our discoveries was that not all hunting dog breeds are hunters. Mitch has had such high hopes for Orso, our chocolate lab. Orso, the water dog that doesn’t especially like water, doesn’t retrieve and doesn’t use his nose to hunt. He is four years old and has absolutely no interest in pheasant hunting. His idea of pheasant hunting is chasing after Charlie and AJ in the field to see what they are doing and then running back full bore into me to make sure I’m still there. Try walking on uneven terrain carrying a seven pound shotgun, wearing an ammo belt full of shotgun shells and a quart of water and have a ninety pound dog bash into you.
Mitch shot a pheasant and before picking it up called Orso over to find the bird, hoping he would show some interest in the dead bird. Orso walked up to the bird, put his paw on it and preceded to start pulling feathers off of the bird. A huge no-no. Then it even got worse. I shot a bird and called the dogs to find the bird. After not getting the retrieve as quickly as I thought they should, I ran down the hill to where the bird dropped and there was Orso and now AJ pulling the feathers out of the bird. Orso was teaching bad habits to our best hunting dog. That was definitely a down. Needless to say, Orso is not going on any future hunting trips with us.
We got Charlie as a puppy and with us has never known a day as an outside dog. His daddy was a great big chocolate lab and his mom was a little German shorthair. Needless to say he was an accident. Charlie is small by my standards. He weighs about 65 pounds (5 pounds too much) and favors his mother in appearance. Long shorthair ears, short hair and pointer shaped head. Charlie got his chocolate coloring from his dad. He was such a happy puppy that loved all things. He would run through the house with his ears flying back. He had this wide eyed look of wonder, until he was attacked twice by a neighbor’s dog. Since then he has hated that woman and all of her dogs. Her dog set him on a path of animal aggression so bad at one point, we considered euthanasia. We contracted a dog behavioralist who helped us learn to spot the signs of aggression and how correct them. But we still are very vigilant with Charlie around other dogs and people.
As a hunting dog, Charlie is an excellent hunter. He has a great nose, a beautiful point and fast as the wind. Plus he has the energy to boot. We have to continually call him back because he will range out too far and flush a bird almost in the next county. He makes me look good in the field by his intensity in searching out the bird. The dog never stops hunting. Even at home on walks, he is always on the hunt.
We have a hunting trip coming soon and have been working to get into “hunting form” again. This past summer was such a hot one, we let the refresher training slide. I think Charlie will be in fine form, with the cooler weather, his energy level has increased.
I started hunting as a means to an end. I had no longing or any real desire to carrying a gun and shooting at some wild animal or bird. That would probably entail having to go to the bathroom at some point and I don’t do outhouses or au “naturalle” in the woods. It’s flush toilets for me. I was once called the “Queen of hold it”. “Hunting” conjured up images of smelly men dressed in camouflage sitting in the woods waiting for a victim to come within scope range. My ex-husband had once told me that deer hunters would spray deer urine on them to mask their own scent. NOT ME! So after the divorce and when I started dating my future husband, who is an avid upland game bird hunter, I began to rethink my earlier opinion of hunting.
I showed an interest to learning to hunt for purely selfish reasons. I wanted to spend more time with Mitch. When we started dating, I was obsessed. I was insecure about our relationship, and figured that the more time I spent with him, the more he would see what a “fine catch” I was. Dumb, huh?
I think Mitch was skeptical, but never really said anything, he just threw himself totally into the task of teaching me to wing shoot with a shotgun, to walk in the field carrying my gun and be completely outfitted.
The high point after the first trip when I all carried was a camera was being there with Mitch from the first bird killed to the long drive home. I wasn’t hooked yet, but I was getting there. After ten years of going hunting with Mitch, I think that when we’re there together, we truly are a team.
Some of my favorite hunting memories with Mitch are when it’s just the two of us after everyone else has left and headed back home. It’s usually afternoon the dogs are getting tired and have slowed down. It’s almost like taking a long walk and reconnecting with each other. There’s no pressure to shoot better than the others in our group. No matter what anyone ever says, there is always some competition. Call it pride or machismo (even in women), being better at what you’re doing than the next guy is very important. Maybe even more for me. I’ve always been extremely competitive growing up, and now taking up hunting later in life, a male dominated sport, I feel like I have to prove that I can hold my own and out hunt the rest of the group.
But when it’s just Mitch, the dogs and me, I can relax and enjoy the day. We can laugh at each other’s missteps or in my case, when I trip over some invisible rut. I think that one of my favorite memory was just the two of us on the last day of one hunting trip in the late afternoon. We had just finished working a stubble field and were standing at the end discussing our lack of success. Mitch re-packed his pipe and had just lit it, when Charlie flushed a rooster up to our left. Mitch rushed to shoulder his gun to get off a shot and in the process, shattered his pipe. He normally has his pipe sticking out of the left side of his mouth, but in his haste to not miss a shot, he forgot to move the pipe over. Added insult, he missed the bird. Luckily, no teeth were broken. I laughed so hard, I thought he might shoot me just for general principles.
Buddy was probably the easiest dog for anybody to own. It only took about three days to housebreak him. Even at a year and a half, Buddy was very calm and didn’t jump up on people. I’m only 5’2″ so having an eighty five pound dog jumping up on me always ended with me on the losing end. I’m not saying that Buddy was perfect, but he was very close to it for me. He always had a happy expression on him face. Buddy loved to be around people. He wasn’t pushy or overtly “in your face” like some dogs, he would come up to people to greet them and get petted, then go lie down and just be near everyone. Just in case there might be food and just in case someone might drop something his way.
Buddy went everywhere with us. In the car, he would stick his head out the window into the wind as far as he could. Buddy would open his mouth to taste the air and the wind would force the skin on his muzzle covering his mouth to flap up and down. People would drive past us and be laughing at the sight of this huge yellow head hanging out of my Pontiac Grand Am and towering over the top of the car. He filled up the whole back seat.
Mitch decided it was time to start working with Buddy and his hunting skills. We got a pheasant wing (yes, a real dead pheasant wing) from his brother. Why anyone would keep a dead pheasant wing with the feathers still on it in their freezer is beyond me, but his brother had one. Mitch wanted to see if Buddy would be attracted to the scent and bring out his hunting instincts. Mitch would let Buddy smell the pheasant wing then go and hide the wing for Buddy to find and then hopefully retrieve bird wing back to us. Buddy liked the smell of dead pheasant, what self respecting dog wouldn’t like the smell of something dead? Personally I can’t think of anything worse than putting a fresh or rotted dead animal in my mouth. But evidently these are things that dogs live for.
The hiding and the finding worked great, but the retrieving, not so good. Buddy wasn’t real keen on coming when called. He would come only after he was good and ready. So I came up with a “brilliant idea”. Let’s tie a lightweight rope to his collar which I’ll let play out as he runs to go fetch the bird wing, then when he grabs the wing we’ll call “come” and bring him back pulling up the rope that he is tethered to. Great idea in theory, not such a great idea in practice. I tied the rope to Buddy’s collar and while I was trying to get the rope untangled, Buddy was grabbing the rope and pulling at it. I was pleading with him to stop, “No Buddy no.” Well all Mitch heard was “Go”. So he hid the wing, Buddy went charging out in the yard to find it and I went along for the ride with the rope wrapped around my hand. I was certain that the ring finger on my left hand had been amputated. I cried like a little girl.
Mitch hated me the first time I met him. I was positive of that. I returned a scuba diving video the owner of the dive shop had loaned me back to the dive shop that Mitch managed. When I handed it to him, Mitch went into a tirade about videos going out without any documentation. I thought all of the anger was targeted at me, but no it was at the owner of the shop. Mitch intrigued me. He came off as aloof and solicitous at the same time. He acted like he really cared what the customer wanted or needed and at the same time held himself detached from the situation. I made it my mission in life to make him like me and in the process I fell in love with him.
As our relationship developed, I listened and watched and memorized everything about him. One of his passions was pheasant hunting. Once a year he would go to western Kansas and spend a week hunting upland game birds (pheasants). I was jealous of the time that he spent with family and friends that week while I stayed home waiting for him to come back and hear all of the stories of the past week. In an effort to spend more time with him I decided that I wanted to learn to pheasant hunt, even though I’d never been hunting for anything in my life and had no idea what that entailed. The very thought of sitting in a deer stand or a duck blind for hours waiting on a passing victim bored the hell out of me. I’d rather clean the bathroom and I hate cleaning the bathroom.
Mitch was amused when I asked that he teach me to hunt. But he dove head long into teaching me. put together the gear I would need. Mitch gave me hand-me-down shirts, ammo belt and bought an army surplus field coat for the cold. He showed me how the hunters carry the gun in the field and how to wing shoot.
My first trip I carried a camera and watched and learned how the hunters would line up in a vee shape and work a field hunting for the very elusive pheasant. When I came back, I was hooked. He even bought me a shotgun and modified to fit me.
In a way, I guess missing the bird was a good thing, because after that everybody settled down, relaxed a little and slowed down. Buddy and AJ had their jobs cut out for them trying to work the field with all of these bodies tromping all over. AJ was following a scent when he came up on the pheasant. He went on point and froze waiting for help, holding the bird tight. Mitch got in and helped AJ and shot the bird when it flew. John was there and saw AJ on point. He couldn’t believe it. He told his dad about AJ pointing, but Buck didn’t believe it.
Buck said, “No, you’re wrong, labs don’t point. It must have looked that way.”
When we broke for lunch, we had shot a total of eight birds among us. I was surprised that were any birds left around with all of the guns blazing. Buck and his son were still talking about AJ pointing.
Mitch said, “AJ is a pointing lab. He was trained to point. He actually is a registered pointing lab.”
Buck couldn’t believe it. He was surprised to say the least.
After lunch we headed back to the preserve for more fun in the sun. We started off again in one big group. Once again order was abandoned and chaos reigned. Somehow we lost Judd and Steve; they headed off over the hill. That left Hank, Buck and Joe heading toward the woods. Mitch, John and I started walking along with the dogs, by the way, the dogs stayed with us, close to the cow pasture. Right in front of us was a chukar just sitting on a cow pie with no cover. A chukar is a littler smaller than a pheasant and a soft gray color.
Mitch was on the left, John was in the middle and I was on the right as we approached the bird. The dogs were not paying attention to us, sniffing for something to catch their interest. When chukars fly, they fly very erratically. They may fly straight at you before veering off. This can be very disconcerting and a challenge to have a bird fly right at you while you are trying to get a shot off. We were about five feet from the bird, and he showed no signs of flying, he just sat there trying to be invisible. Since John spotted him first, I wanted him to get the bird. I just stood there and waited for the bird to fly so John could shoot it. Well the bird finally did fly and it flew straight at John before veering off in the opposite direction. John unloaded his gun at the bird and didn’t come close. The bird flew down the hill into a plum thicket and landed.
We laughed so hard at the injustice or maybe justice of the whole affair, I almost peed my pants. Off we went down toward the plum thicket to see if we could locate that bird again. On the way there, a pheasant broke from cover and I shot and downed it with one shot.
John turned to Mitch and said, “She doesn’t fool around does she?”
Mitch said, “I wouldn’t want her shooting at me.”
I have to admit, for some unusual reason I was shooting great that day. It seemed like every time I pulled the trigger a bird fell out of the sky. I was just as surprised as everyone else, but I hid it well. I didn’t want anybody to know that this was just a fluke. I think I shot six birds by myself. Inside I knew this probably would never happen again, outside I acted like this was nothing new. If they only knew!
We trudged down into the plum thicket and with Buddy and AJ’s help; we got two more birds up and shot them. After we cleared that side of the preserve, we decided to head over to the general vicinity where we left the others. When we finally caught up to Buck and Hank, Buck was sitting down in the grass resting. Resting? Come on, we hadn’t been out there that long. The day was beautiful, not too cold, not too warm and the sun was shining, and there were BIRDS! What more could you ask for? But I didn’t say what I was thinking, I just stood there. Buck said he was an old man and he was done for the day. We headed back to the cabin to eat some cookies (this has become a tradition I started and everyone loves it) and drink some coffee. Todd was waiting for us when we got back. He took the birds we shot and laid them with the others to clean. He asked how we did, because it sounded like someone was waging a war with all of the gunfire he heard. He looked at the birds and at us and cocked his head.
“I would have thought that you’d have more birds with all of the guns going off.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Well you know how it is, if it wasn’t for me there wouldn’t be hardly any birds there.”
Buck said that he wanted to get the birds that he and his sons shot because they were going to head home in the morning.
“Why are you going to leave so soon?” Hank asked.
Buck said, “Well we limited out today and we might as well head back to work in the morning.”
“Limited out?” asked Mitch “What do you mean limited out? We’re on a hunting preserve; there is no limiting out. We can shoot as many birds as we want.”
This was a whole new concept for Buck. His sons had had a great time and got to shoot lots of birds and didn’t want to leave yet. So he agreed to stay another half day and get in some more hunting. Another day of chaos looms ahead.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the story half as much as I enjoyed living it and re-living it on paper.
This is the first excerpt of a story of one of our first hunting trips to Nebraska. Since hunting season is very close and we’ve started getting the dogs in shape again, I thought it was time to get my act in gear again and start writing again. I took the summer off and now it’s time to focus again on my dream.
We rounded up everyone and set out for Todd’s preserve. We had quite a crew with us this trip: the Booth’s, Judd, Hank and Steve, then Mitch and me, and this time another father and sons’ group, the McKay’s, Buck, John and Joe. Eight total, plus Buddy and AJ. Buck’s sons have hunted deer, turkey and quail, but have never hunted pheasant. None of the rest of us could be considered master hunters, so this would prove entertaining.
At Todd’s we made the necessary introductions and completed the preliminary paperwork, hunting licenses, and conservation stamps. Because of the large number of hunters, we asked for more birds to be released. We mistakenly thought with all of the bodies tromping around we would scare up more birds.
Todd pointed our merry band in the right direction and Mitch tried to get everyone in some semblance of order and not just a bunch of lunatics carrying guns scaring all of the birds off. That was a lost cause from the start. People were scattered all over the hillside and the cedar break. I decided it would be safer for me to stay on the outside edge of the invading horde. I didn’t want to be anywhere near where the guns would be going off. I looked over at Mitch and could see the frustration all over his face. Poor man, he was so used to an orderly routine when hunting with his father. Everybody had a position in the line (that invisible line that hunters form when working a field) and by God; they better stay in that position. Now Mitch was faced with total “hunter anarchy”.
There was no rhyme or reason to the hunters’ placement in the field. Judd was wandering off down the hill; Buck was almost on top of Hank, if Hank swung his gun up to take a shot, he would probably whack Buck. One of Buck’s sons was too far in front of everybody, probably running the birds into the next county. Mitch and I finished the cedar break at the top of the hill; we started working our way back towards the rest of our group. A pheasant flew up in the middle of the merry band and it sounded like a fourth of July celebration. They were spread out in a rough backwards semi-circle, facing away from the draw. The bird flew up behind them; everyone started shooting at that poor bird. Six men unloaded their guns at that bird and all of them missed, not even a feather was ruffled. I don’t think that bird quit flying until he hit Omaha. Mitch and I stood there and watched in amazement.
I looked over at Mitch and said, “They suck! We are never going to shoot anywhere close to all the birds Todd set out.”
Mitch shook his head and said, “This is going to be a long week.”
(Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent.) Come back for more of the story.
This is the final excerpt of my story, I hope you enjoy it.
For the morning hunt, Todd brought out a German shorthair named Uno. Uno was a shy sweet dog that adored Todd. Now I had to worry about NOT shooting someone else’s dog. Maybe I wouldn’t even load my gun today.
This time after getting all of our gear on and load the guns, Mitch loaded mine for me, how thoughtful, we headed out and we actually went in the direction Todd sent us. The morning was 100 percent nicer than the day before. The sun was shining, the winds were calm and the temperature was about 45°, a little chilly but doable. We walked up the hill to the top cedar break. With just five of us, we sort of spread out in a crooked line sideways on the hillside.
Buddy and Uno were ranging in and out of the cedar trees and down the slope trying to catch a whiff of a scent. Harley walked next to me making sure one of us protected the other. Oh well, at least he wasn’t gun shy. A rooster flew up and three of us shot at it at the same time. Steve got the credit, Uno retrieved the bird and everyone’s step seemed a little lighter, knowing that we were going to be successful.
We crossed over to work the other side of a hill with a cedar break across the top ridge. A row of cedar trees was planted to slow the wind down and help slow down erosion. It also made great cover for the birds. Mitch was on one side of the trees, Steve was working his way in the middle of the trees and I was halfway down the hill walking the slope. The dogs were ranging back and forth in front of us. The dogs’ heads are down close to the ground, their noses twitching, sucking up all the scents in the grasses and somehow their olfactory glands separate each scent and categorize it. It never ceases to amaze me how they know the difference in all the smells out there. They trot along; tails up and wagging back and forth, until the right scent hits their noses and then they make this abrupt turn and move more deliberately. You can hear them breathing in and out, sucking in all of the smell, like a pig snorting.
They scare up a pheasant and I heard it before I saw it. There was the very distinctive sound of the “whump, whump, whump,” of the wings flapping. Mitch fired at it and missed as it flew across the trees. I turned toward the sound; at the same time I raised the gun to my shoulder. As I looked down the barrel to the sight I found the bird. I wanted the bird just off to the left and a little lower than the end of the barrel; I lead the shot to where I was hoping he would fly. My thumb pushed the safety button to off and as I got set I squeezed the trigger. If the bird didn’t drop then I would fire again. The gun recoiled back into my shoulder with a mild kick. There would be more of a kick if Mitch hadn’t put on a recoil pad, but it absorbed most of it. The whole process took place in mili-seconds.
As soon as the bird dropped to the ground, I put the gun on safe and charged off after the dogs to where the bird dropped. If you don’t kill the bird, just knock it down and wound it, it can run off before you can get there. Pheasants are hard to kill and are notorious for disappearing in the underbrush after being shot. One of the dogs chased it down and grabbed the bird in his mouth. The dogs are trained to hold the bird firmly in their mouths, but not to crush the birds by bearing down too hard. Buddy, got to it first and brought him back to me, dropping it at my feet. All the others complain that it doesn’t matter who shoots the bird, Buddy brings the kills back to me. If the bird is not dead then we have to wring its neck, usually by holding the bird by its head and swinging it in a tight circle. I picked up the bird by the neck and looked at it. It was just hanging limply, its’ eyes were closed and there was blood coming from its’ beak.
Mitch yelled down at me, “Did you get it?”
“Yeah I got it.” I yelled back up the hill.
I laced the bird by the neck on the stringer on my shell belt. As I let it hang by its own weight, he started flapping furiously on my leg, splattering blood all over me.
I started screaming, “Aah, aah, aah!”
Mitch yelled down from the other side of the cedar break, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s not dead!”
“Well kill it!”
“I can’t! It’s hooked to my leg!”
He started laughing and I know he was bent over slapping his knees, even though I couldn’t see him. “Well take it off and kill it.”
“I can’t get it off!” thoroughly frustrated I yelled at the bird, “Stop that! Stop that right now or I’ll shoot you again!” Like he really cared.
So Steve, another member of our merry group, came down the hill to help me unstring the bird and kill it. We restrung the pheasant back on my belt and I stomped up the hill to find Mitch exactly as I knew I would, doubled over hee hawing at my expense. There was the overwhelming temptation to shoot him in the butt, but I controlled it. Instead, I just threatened him with his life, even though deep down I felt a great deal of satisfaction. I had just shot, ran down and killed my first bird. At least now I look like a seasoned hunter, with blood splatters all over my new field pants.
A woman's view of hunting...with men 