The Alaska Hunter – Winter 2008 - Safari Club International

Two Smoking BarrelS
by Vic Flint
Walking slowly along the edge of a grass filled
tree bank, the world exploded in front of me!
A blur of large dark objects erupted from the
tall brown grass – pheasants!! Two quick shots
from my SKB O/U shotgun left me with only
empty shotgun shells and nothing to show
for it. (“Bird Fever” – is that kind of like “Buck
Fever”?) Fortunately the pheasants were not
too upset by being startled and leisurely landed
in the deep grass a little further up the tree
bank. What luck! This could possibly
allow myself a second chance. A few
moments later the tall grass erupted
with whirling wings! I raised my
shotgun and fired. The rooster buckled
from the impact and fell to the
ground. I had successfully bagged
my first pheasant in over 30 years!
This pheasant hunting oddesy all
begin months before at the 2008 SCI
Alaska Chapter banquet. After placing
my raffle tickets in the bins I was
fortunate enough to win a SKB O/U shotgun
in one of the many fine raffle drawings offered.
Now to find something to use it for! My wife
Brenda and I had been talking about pheasant
hunting for very long time and decided that
“this was the year”.
Brenda has relatives located throughout North-
Eastern South Dakota so this appeared to be a
good place to start looking. A few e-mails later
we worked out a great hunting spot consisting
of three attached sections of farm and grassland.
There was corn, soybeans, and grazing
land areas. A small lake with a creek and slough
meandered throughout the property. All this
plus mature tree bank areas made this look
like a nearly perfect habitat for the ring neck
pheasant.
Now we were both excited about the “Big Hunt”,
and arrived in South Dakota in mid-October
to prepare for the October 18 opening. After
purchasing our hunting licenses, shotgun
shells, blaze orange vests, etc., we were finally
ready for action. South Dakota doesn’t allow
the hunting of pheasants to start until noon for
T h e A l A s k A n h u n T e r w w w . a k s a f a r i c l u b . o r g
the first ten days of the season
so a leisurely hunt preparation
would be at hand. It was
estimated that the statewide
pheasant population for the
2008 season would be over
40 million birds! Now I was
thinking that the daily limit
of three pheasants per person
would be no problem!
Opening day started off with a
high but broken overcast sky and 15 to 20 mph
north winds. At noon sharp our hunting party
started by walking a few small tree banks filled
with tall brown grass and surrounded by fields
of harvested soybeans and grassland. Nothing.
Another small treebank. Nothing.
Now I was beginning to get a little concerned.
Where were the 40 million pheasants that the
state said were here? All the while I could hear
the hollow reports of distance gunshots.
Nearing the end of the third and largest tree
bank the opening episode took place. My first
pheasant down! Man was this getting exciting!!
The wily pheasant used the wind to full advantage
(my disadvantage) and like miniature
Houdinis could disappear before your eyes in
any type of ground cover or lack thereof. They
would flush from areas that you would not expect
them to be, fly in directions that you would
not expect them to fly, and run faster than any
Olympic sprinter!
Due to poor weather conditions earlier in the
month the corn harvest had not yet taken
place. This would seem like quite the setback
as we had only seven hunters in our party and
could not adequately cover the fields. And it
was. Naturally this is were all the pheasants
seemed to be headed to. I could see multitudes
of them running in the corn rows ahead of me.
This wasn’t working as the pheasants would not
fly and would just disappear ahead and then
flush from behind (always out of range). This
required a new plan.
Later that afternoon while walking through the
meandering slough next to the large cornfield
the pheasant’s literately blackened the sky
before us. (Again naturally out of range).
The pheasants were flying between the cornfield
and cattails in the slough (back and forth).
Finally we closed the gap and the action
exploded! None of us could keep shells in our
guns! Pheasants from the left, pheasants from
the right, pheasants fly towards us, pheasants
behind us. In this extreme target-rich environment
I was experiencing sensory overload!!
Brenda and I finally settled down and closed
out our limits. What an adrenaline rush! We
each had fired over a box and a half of shells. I
guess our shooting skills leave something to be
desired and a little more honing of them is in
order.
And this was only day one!!
Brenda and I highly recommend that you try a
South Dakota pheasant hunt experience some
day. You will not be disappointed. Easy walking,
lots of shooting, multitudes of pheasants,
great scenery, good weather, and excellent
company. What else could a person ask for in a
hunting adventure?
We thoroughly enjoyed the scents of the
fall with the harvested fields, mud, grasses,
cows, gun oil and the smoke from a freshly fired
shell. n