Closing out the season

[BrentD]

At 4:30 pm the Iowa pheasant hunting season closed. We were able to finish in style. Doesn't get much better than this.

[superchicken]

Nice. Looks like you made the dog really happy. I'm glad to hear there are still some birds in Iowa with the decline in CRP and the winters you've had over the last decade. I remember when your state was THE pheasant hunting destination. Nice shotgun too. Wanna tell us about it?

[7.62 Precision]

Looks like you have the right shotgun, the right dog, and some nice birds. The only pheasant I ever shot were ones we raised that got loose. Never lived where they were wild.

[RIHMFIRE]

excellent!

[ollogger]

dang, that's a heck of a nice photo!!


ollogger

[earlmck]

Our Oregon Hunters organization runs a photo contest and that one would be in the running for a good prize, Brent. Nice!

[jazman]

dang, that's a heck of a nice photo!!


ollogger

Exactly what I was thinking, nice one!

[BrentD]

Pheasant hunting can still be pretty good in Iowa. And it is definitely on the upswing. The late summer droughts followed by hard winters have had some effects, but the two big killers have been ethanol and really wet springs. This year is was a good nesting season, first in a long time and road counts were up 150% for pheasants in many areas. A couple more decent springs and we will be back at high densities again, but just limited acreage due to the ethanol issue.

Superchicken the gun is a William Evans 12 bore. It is a Birmingham gun and not fancy at all But it is one of my favorites due to the way the hammers are laid out. They both cock very easy with one motion of my thumb, Most 12 bores are too wide to do that. And when cocked the hammers lay pretty low relative to the sight plain so it is easy to acquire the target.

The truly secret weapon is the dog. He is pretty special. Of course, they all are, but this one more than any other I've owned. Now we have to wait. 30 October is a LONG ways away.

Brent

[gamekeeper]

Nice to see a good Birmingham made hammergun still doing what it was made for...
About thirty years ago I spoke to a lady from Iowa whose husband had been shooting Pheasants in Herefordshire England, he told her he had never seen so many Pheasants! but then gamekeepers rear them by their thousands over here, I'd much prefer to shoot really wild birds like yours.

[BrentD]

yes, ours are wild and they can be pretty challenging for that reason. While I've hunted lot of different wild birds, I think pheasants have to rate tops for me. I love the excitement of a flush - even when I know it's coming, it still always a bit of surprise. And the flash and glam of roosters rising into the low-angle light of the winter sun warms up everything. I am very lucky in that I have a couple good places to hunt them.

Bulldog1935, I skinned out the best two and they are drying. Once they are good and dry, I'll box them and mail them off to you. Pheasant feathers have a million used in flytying, if only to hook the fisherman if not the fish.

[Bill in Oregon]

Way to end the season, Brent. With my daughter in grad school at ISU, I have been watching Ames temps, and that had to be a brisk day.
Beautiful hammer double, and a handsome golden retriever. Class act!

[BrentD]

Bill, it was a bit cool, but in the 20s was actually pretty tropical compared to the last several weeks. The wind was pretty heavy at first but died away so we really couldn't complain. On Thursday I was out deer hunting with the flinter in winds that were gusting over 50 and never much lower than 40 mph. Bad enough that they closed about 40 50 miles of interstate due to blizzard conditions. Had to reprime my pan once when I opened it to check and all the flash powder blew away instantly.

The temps then were in the teens so it was pretty nippy. It was great stalking weather like that because I could easily sneak around in the confusion so it was good to be out. I eventually got within 30 yds of a pair but couldn't see well enough to shoot. So, they walked off.

[superchicken]

Pheasant hunting can still be pretty good in Iowa. And it is definitely on the upswing. The late summer droughts followed by hard winters have had some effects, but the two big killers have been ethanol and really wet springs. This year is was a good nesting season, first in a long time and road counts were up 150% for pheasants in many areas. A couple more decent springs and we will be back at high densities again, but just limited acreage due to the ethanol issue.

Superchicken the gun is a William Evans 12 bore. It is a Birmingham gun and not fancy at all But it is one of my favorites due to the way the hammers are laid out. They both cock very easy with one motion of my thumb, Most 12 bores are too wide to do that. And when cocked the hammers lay pretty low relative to the sight plain so it is easy to acquire the target.

The truly secret weapon is the dog. He is pretty special. Of course, they all are, but this one more than any other I've owned. Now we have to wait. 30 October is a LONG ways away.

Brent

There have been a lot of great Birmingham guns. I've been keeping my eye's peeled for an old shooter grade Birmingham muzzleloading shotgun for a few years. I'll find one eventually.

Glad you found a good dog and put him to work doing what he was bred for. Does he do water too? I'm more of a pointing dog guy with a preference for the versatile breeds. The one I have now is spectacular on desert quail and is getting there on waterfowl. Still working on him a bit on steadiness in the blind a bit. But having a dog that ranges and points quail in the desert is a different game than those tasty ditch parrots you are shooting. We have a few down here and my dog will work you pretty hard on them. You gotta move fast to keep up with him because those pheasants won't hold. But on quail in open country, he'll work 200-300 yards in either direction and hold them for me until I get there.

[BrentD]

Yup, pheasants here don't hold too well either sometimes. And 6-8 ft indian grass doesn't seem to matter in the least. So we run a good bit at times. Kicked a big ant hill a few weeks back and face planted. Cracked the stock on my Merkel SxS - Again. But I just glue it up. My guns get a bit of a beating that way. Lots of them are cracked like that.

Yesterday though they held pretty well. Gus is good at getting around them and acting a bit like a setter. He seems to understand the ideat that the guns need to be close.

Of course twice this season, once yesterday, he just has to be his own gun. Yesterday, he had a bird pinned under some grass and snow. With Gus at the front door and the back door slammed shut by a drift, it did not go well for that bird. Gus brought him to hand w/o any assistance from me. Not sure what to do about that. I've never had that happen until this year.

[superchicken]

On the subject of what to do about that, be thankful that you could find a breeder who produces Goldens with hunting drive. They can be few and far between these days. Reminds me of the first NSTRA trial that I put my dog in last spring. I had been training him on chukar because that was all I go get and I had him pretty whoa broke. Unfortunately pen raised quail are a lot slower and dumber than chukar. My dog figured that out and promptly cleared the field and retrieved 4 of 6 birds to hand without a single shot being fired. My wife said "Good dog, and he made sure no one could comment on your shooting, too." There was a lot of whoa training this past summer. He's doing well now, but we are not going back to a NSTRA trial for a while.

[BrentD]

He is out of Gaylan's in New York. Our previous golden was out of Timberline in Oregon (before they crashed). We do our homework and spend a lot of bucks but we get good dogs. It is no accident.

[bdhold]

really nice photo - hope you frame it

[superchicken]

If you don't like a gun, you sell it. It's just not that way with dogs. Dog's live a long time and are part of your family, so it's worth putting time and money into acquiring them. I love firearms, but I spend way more on my dog and my boots annually than I do on guns. I spent a year and a half researching it before I selected a wirehair breeder and he ended up being more than a thousand miles away in Idaho. Great dogs.

http://www.bluesagegundogs.com/

[BrentD]

Superchick, that's about exactly what it boils down to. Especially the guns I buy, I use them for years and then sell them for what I have in them or even a hefty profit. I could buy 3 of them for what I paid for Gus, and that doesn't include the roundtrip air ticket, car rental and motel rooms to go get him and fly home with him. Worth every single penny, and, unlike the guns, I'll not get a penny of it back, but that's just fine with me.

Bulldog, your pheasant pelts are dry. I'll try to ship them this week.

[1894c]

what a great pic...really nice...thank you... :)