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This is a story about the lengths we hunters will go to get our game. It is also a story about how tough Johnny Ringneck can be.
Saturday was the opening of pheasant season, and as we do every year, we go to a large rice farm off Highway 99 just north of Sacramento to hunt with our fellow members of the Golden Ram Sportsman’s Club. It is the only time the club actually plants pheasants, birds which have been raised in pens and are then released into the fields.
Planted pheasants are not nearly as smart as wild ones; we saw at least one, maybe two who’d succumbed to hawks. More on this later. The point of the opening hunt is for everyone to get out, get some shooting in, and generally have a great time. Is it hunting? Not normally, as the birds are generally pretty easy to chase down. We usually get several birds each time.
So it was with high expectations that Holly and I drove up the 99 to Sankey Road. “I really want to walk until we get our four birds,” I said. Hunters are allowed two rooster pheasants apiece on opening weekend, three apiece after that. Holly agreed.
When we arrived we found Brian and Riley the Dog. Holly hunted with Brian last season. Brian had brought his friend Pat and Pat brought Trump the Springer Spaniel. We decided to hunt as a group. Hot damn, two dogs! We’d get our eight birds no problem. Remember, these are mostly planted birds, although wild ones live on the ranch as well.
Off we went. The ranch manager said he’d planted the birds along ditches and the levee roads; pheasants are known as “ditch chickens,” after all. Once we started walking, we could see why: The rice fields had been disked, and the checks were devoid of cover. No cover, no birds. I felt a bad feeling creeping up the back of my neck.
Still, we expected to flush a rooster at every tuft of tules we approached. Now a cock pheasant flushing at close range is a thrilling, heart-stopping moment; sometimes they will hunker down and flush literally at your feet. Fat men have been known to drop dead on the spot from fright when this happens.
Soon Trump got birdy, his little spaniel butt shaking. “Get the bird! Go get ‘im!” Pat urged, and Trump dashed into a ditch. We all lifted our shotguns, but immediately saw that what rose was an annoyed red-tailed hawk, not a pheasant. The rooster, headless, was in the ditch. I thought about taking it. But at that point I was still proud.
So we walked on. And walked. And walked. “Where the hell are the birds?” we asked. This was nothing like the previous years, where everyone would have a bird in hand by 9 a.m. This was, well, hunting. Real pheasant hunting, like what I did in South Dakota years ago.
Finally we found a field where the checks were not defoliated. Surely there had to be pheasants here. So I walked through the brush on one check, Holly trudged through the soft plowed field on one side, Pat on another, and Brian was on the next check. A classic pheasant line.
Pheasants will run away in front of a line like this and will eventually flush when they reach the end of the cover. So to do it right, you need to go pretty fast or they will flush out of range. Pheasants are very, very fast runners. But we were halfway through the field when Trump flushed a pheasant. “Erk! Erk! Erk! Erk!” That cackle is unmistakable. I swung on the bird but couldn’t get a shot off in time before it flew out of range.
We watched as it sailed into the next field — and was immediately pounced on by a red-tailed hawk! The hawk was jumping all over the pheasant and was no doubt tearing it to shreds. Brian let out a sigh. I turned to everyone and said, “I’m going to get that bird. I’m bigger than that hawk and I’ll take my chances.”
So I rushed over to the next field. “Rushing” is a relative term, as the disked field was soft and wildly uneven. Even moving at a normal walking pace felt like running. I kept my eyes on the hawk and the pheasant as I slogged closer. I’d heard from our new friend Rebecca, who hunts ducks with falcons, that raptors tend to eat the head first. That’s OK. I don’t eat the head.
This’ll be a bit unseemly, I thought, letting the hawk do my killing for me, but fer chrissakes I’d been walking for three hours without so much as seeing a damn pheasant! But as I got closer the hawk spotted me and flew off. And then the pheasant got up and looked at me, its head still very much on top of its body. And then it began to run. Fast.
Shit! It was getting away! I ran — or did the closest thing I could to running — to the spot where I saw the rooster dash into the brush surrounding a rice check. I caught my breath as Riley the Dog arrived. “Get the bird, Riley!” I urged him. ”Get the bird!” Riley began sniffing for pheasants.
Holly had caught up with me by that time, and was marching with me to my right. Riley froze. There’s the bird! “Erk! Erk! Erk! Erk!” It flushed and I swung on it — BOOM! — Holly and I shot at precisely the same moment. I can still see that pheasant shuddering in mid-air, crashing down to the muddy field…and then flying right back up again, fleeing the mad Riley, who was snapping at his feet!
For the love of God, will this pheasant not die? He sailed down near the end of the field, definitely wounded. We resumed the chase, but when we got to the spot, no bird. Riley searched, then Trump joined the search. Holly and I looked in a ditch, Brian over on the next check. Finally, Pat came along just as Riley cornered the rooster. He grabbed it and helicoptered it, breaking the bird’s neck.
It was over. Finally. Or so we thought. We put the World’s Toughest Rooster into Holly’s game bag, and went off looking for another pheasant we had flushed during the chase. But a few minutes later, Holly noticed the bird had shifted in her bag. She opened it to check, and there was Johnny Ringneck, looking for a final avenue of escape. Not this time. Holly wrung Johnny’s neck. Examining the bird, Brian declared it a pen-raised pheasant. Dumb. But tough.
The Unkillable Pheasant was dead. It took the combined efforts of a hawk, two dogs and four hunters to kill him. But there’s an epilogue to this story…
I would be God-damned if I wasn’t going to eat every bit off this bird, given all the trouble we went through to get him. So when we got home I began to pluck him. (If you ever wanted to know how to pluck a pheasant, here’s a tutorial.) I was expecting a pretty shot-up bird. After all, Holly and I both hit him squarely, right?
Apparently not. This rooster had barely a mark on him. All I found was a single copper BB lodged in his back. We had literally chased down a pheasant — by hand.
How will we eat this pristine pheasant? He absolutely must be dry-aged, then brined, then roasted whole. I will drink my best Chateauneuf du Pape in his honor. More on that later.
Hank, that is as amazing as it is hysterical! Enjoy every bite of that tough old bird…
Wild pheasant used to run through my neighborhood until it was totally urbanized.
Nowadays, it’s the farm-raised variety I enjoy, no Hank in my hood to share the bounty.
What a wonderful story!
Really intereste to see that you pluck your pheasant immediately. We hang ours for three days first and then pluck them at room temperature.
Only you could experience such an event….you really need to write an autobiographical collection of short stories some day.
Thanks, Jon and Mike! I may just write such a book…someday.
As for plucking the pheasant, as you are British I know that you hang your birds in the feathers. Do you draw them or not? My theory is this: I don’t want guts in my birds after they die. Period. So I’d draw the bird. Now I’ve got a hole in him, which will make plucking that much tougher, and plucking pheasants is tough as it is. So I get him ready and age him in the fridge.
Have you every heard any scientific reason for hanging birds undrawn in the feathers? I know you cannot age meat properly after it’s been frozen, but I have never seen anything compelling to tell me the feathers and guts do something good to the meat. I’d love to see any evidence!
I love the series of up close photos to show just how beautiful the bird is, and then a photo of it plucked and naked. That made me laugh quite out loud at work.
Funny story, Hank.
I used to hunt CA’s rice fields for pheasants for years, but got so discouraged at the lack of cover (and birds) with the clean farming and all the hunters hitting the same few ditches and checks with cover. Just got a little too monotonous.
I’ve gotten back to my roots and nows spend a few days hunting wild birds at the state wildlife areas, where the habitat is great and the variety of cover makes things interesting. The pheasant hunting is still decent even if it’s not like the “good ol’ days” where guys would limit out routinely by 8:30 a.m. The nice habitat and diverse cover at least keeps you interested.
I’m not sure you need to keep a pen-raised bird “in the feathers” or a first-of-the-year wild bird as they are pretty tender. Definitely hang an old cock. I used to live in Italy, and you would always see pheasants hanging “in the feathers at the local markets. So, the Italians must know what they’re doing.
A great blog post! Talk about the Arnie of pheasants. Blimey. I actually cooked a pheasant this weekend too (pheasant pasty), but it was bought not hunted. I couldn’t be believe the bloody price of it! Over 20bucks. Back home in England, farmers are selling ones they hunted for about 6bucks a bird. Crazy to think I would end up hitting a few in the car every winter most years.
Let me know if you post on the pheasant pasty — I am developing a venison pasty recipe and would love to read about your version.
Okay, if you’re cooking pasty, I’m there!! I was just crying to a friend yesterday how there are no pastys in the US….
And I’m a little saddened that the hardworking redtail didn’t get her fair share. But I also realize that said hawk is lacking in tastebuds. (or they wouldn’t start with the head…although apparently brains…well that’s a recipe for another post) Anyway, SuperPheasant surely deserves to be relished.
Great story. You’ll post the recipe when the Unkillable Pheasant goes into the pot, right?
Great story! Last weekend I shot a duck and as it fell 40 yards out, a hawk came swooping in on that bird. Heck, he got to it almost the same time it hit the water. I did my best ‘run’ as well to get there before the hawk could do damage. First time I had witnessed that!
Love your stories and Holly’s as well! Keep them coming! Rick
Maybe you should take up falconing- then you could drink beer while you raptor does all the work.
I just got the Japanese cookbook for my birthday, based on your recommendation, along with an insane bounty of ingredients fresh from Japan.
Adele: You bet I will post it up. Prolly later this week.
Duckfan: Thanks a heap! I’ve had hawks dive-bomb my shot ducks, too. Good thing we’re bigger than they are…
Peter: Not a bad idea. I’ll see how Rebecca does it…and congrats on the Japanese book. Reminds me, I need to get back to it. Hunting season has me distracted.
“I have never seen anything compelling to tell me the feathers and guts do something good to the meat”
Woodcock??
Have you thought of preparing the pheasant according to Brillat-Savarins specifications? That would make for an interesting post.
What a hilarious story! Intrepid hunters, truly.
And how true is everything you said! The closest I’ve ever come to landing a pheasant was when I smacked one with my windshield. I quickly pulled over to grab it (I’d smacked it pretty good, and was ready to wring its neck and take it home for dinner), but it got sucked into a ditch! It was really rainy and it just got washed downstream or sucked into a culvert or sommat. Ditch chicken indeed.
I had pheasant tail feathers in my wedding headpiece. It was from a bird that succumbed to a hawk.
Elginite: You know, that’s a great idea! I love Brillat-Savarin, too — and I now have health insurance…
Heather: You are not the only one I have heard rush out of a car to grab a pheasant they’d whacked! And pheasant feathers would be gorgeous in a wedding headpiece — it must have been lovely!
I love this story. You want the hunters to get their bird, but you can’t help cheering for the bird, too.
That story is as hilarious as it is amazing Hank!
I also have seen how tough and hard to kill those birds can be.
Enjoy your hard earned harvest, every mouthwatering bite!
I hunt Illinois public lands and one place I hunt seeds pheasants every morning. I was lucky enough to get drawn for a spot that morning and I was by myself, so I committed to only shooting roosters (you can shoot both sexes on controlled lands, as they put both sexes out) and only if my Shorthair pointed and held as she should.
Unfortunately, she pointed and held two beautiful roosters in the first five minutes and I shot them both as I has resolved. Upon her retrieve of the second bird (my limit) I took the not-quite-dead bird from her and carried him back to the truck. Upon placing him in the truck I wring his neck quite satisfactorily and his eyes closed.
In Illinois you have to tag your controlled birds at the check station, so I returned there to check out. I exited the truck and locked it, with my dog securely inside. As I opened the tailgate I pulled the two roosters to the edge and the proceeded to remove my requisite back patch from my vest.
Once my hands were occupied the not-quite-dead rooster rolled off the tailgate, hit the ground, rose to his feet and took off wobbling away from the truck. As I went after him and gained on him he picked up speed and was rapidly outrunnning me. I ran back to the truck and grabbed the door handle to release my frantic pointer who was watching the whole thing. Except, I had locked the damn truck and the keys were deep in my pants pocket.
I turned back just in time to see the rooster loop back towards me and run into a 14″ by 30′ long culvert pipe that ran under the parking lot. Onto my hands and knees to see the rooster headed out the other end. I ran to the other end just in time to see the rooster hit reverse and head back the other way.
Five times we did this when suddenly the rooster stopped, wobbled and fell down dead in the three inches of water in the pipe and 12′ from the end. I had to enlist the help of the State employees to fish my wet, bedraggled and now, quite-dead rooster out of the pipe and had to explain how he got there in the first place. Now I make sure that they are good and dead when they go in my vest.
Great website!! I found it today while Googling info to preserve pheasant capes for fly tying supplies…
I first found your info on hanging/aging the birds – great info there and worthy of a bookmark!!
I had to read the unkillable bird story since my hunting partner and I had our own experience with a couple of tough ones this season.
A couple of Sundays ago, neighbor and hunting buddy Paul showed up in the AM after hunting the local release site with his awesome bird dog, Bob (black lab). Had one in the game vest and got shots at a couple others. He asked if I wanted to join him for an afternoon hunt in the same area – of course!
When we got there, Paul asked if we could spend a few minutes looking for a bird he had knocked the be-jesus out of in the morning, but that he & Bob could not find – a pretty brushy and swampy area. We gave it about 15 minutes of brush beating, but nothing. We then headed out for our planned hunt.
We made a big loop of the area and came to the south end of the thicket where we searched for the downed bird – about 200 yards away from where we looked. Bob indicates he’s on to a bird and we ready the scatterguns. He dives into the brush, but no bird flushes. Bob is crashing around the brush patch, and we can hear him heading deeper into the thicket.
After a couple of minutes we can’t hear Bob anymore and start calling him – once in awhile we hear him, but he’s not close. I head up the fence line and call every now & again. After another five minutes, I hear him getting a bit closer and call, offering a cookie this time
Another minute or two passes, and I see glimpses of Bob walking out, rather slowly like he expects a good scolding for running off. When he gets close enough, I see that he has a live, but injured, rooster in his mouth!! Good boy Bob!!
Heaps of praise and a cookie for Bob – he found another cripple a week later on an afternoon hunt that we did not shoot – nice to save ammo that way!