Thanksgiving Pheasant Shoot

11/26/08- Chad, Logan and I arrived at the cabin the evening of the 25th. We woke up to clear skies, no wind and temps around 20 degrees. It looked to be a perfect day for Pheasant hunting. We actually had Pheasants running around the grain cribs in front of the cabin while we where eating breakfast and getting ready to go. Definitely a good sign.

The morning started out quickly as there seemed to be birds all over the place. As we drove towards the river we had a group of birds run into a ditch/cattail swamp. Chad was able to flush the group and make a nice shot on the first rooster to flush. We had our first bird 6 minutes into the hunt. We saw several more birds before finally making it down to the river. Once we arrived we got into another rooster almost immediately. Chad made what looked to be a good shot on the bird before it got back up and flew into the distance. Bird #2 on the day held Chad’s shot like a champ and was lost.

We worked our way back towards the cabin before finding a ton of birds around Roger’s mother’s house. After getting out smarted while trying to push a group of birds out of a wood lot we found a pair of roosters in the corner of a cattail slough/shelter belt. The birds held tight as we walked up on them and I made a nice crossing shot on the first bird to get up. After a bit of a search Chad and I had our 2nd bird in hand and "3rd" bird of the day.

200 yards from the location of the last bird killed and we where at it again. Chad had seen a bird flush into a thick ditch with little cover next to it. Chad posted about a quarter mile down the ditch while Logan and I walked towards him. I could see hens running along the edge of the ditch as soon as we got into our walk. Logan and I started flushing hens before finally flushing a rooster that came up from the grass right next to my leg. The large bird was cackling the entire way. I let him cackle all the way to 20 yards before putting a load of #2 in his back. Logan made a great retrieve on the bird and we had our 4 bird MN limit......kind of. The last bird had a tail feather slightly over 24 inches and seemed to weigh nearly twice as much as the other birds.

We saw quite a few more birds while driving home along with thousands of geese on the lake in Graceville. Another great hunt at the cabin and it was fun to get out with Chad after several years.