A Bird In the Bush Is One In Hand

Oregon chapter went upland game hunting today.  First time for this writer and current expert.  We started off our journey on the way to Madras on rt. 26 by hitting a patch of black ice.  The same stuff being from the East coast I never gave any merit to, for god sake they have something called frozen fog here too.  Were driving along going straight and not speeding when out of nowhere we started doing 360's for about 100 yards on the other side of the highway before coming to rest 4 inches from a Jersey barrier.  After a few fist pumps and high five's with a few laughs thrown in we were back on our way.  

We arrive in Madras at 9 a.m. and meet Jim our guide for the day and his 10 dogs.  Were hunting a preserve which means Jim raises the game birds then plants them in the fields for guys like us to fold.  We get the rules: don't shoot the dogs, don't shoot Jim and have fun.  The day was perfect as you could see from the pictures.  We load up the guns the dogs are let loose and were off.  We purchased 16 birds total, a combination of chukar, quail and pheasant.  A little nervous, never having shot upland birds I didn't really know what to expect, plus I sure the hell didn't want to shoot a dog.  Quickly the nerves were settled when a pheasant jumped and I literally shot its head clean off.  Jim was quite impressed needless to say, I killed it without getting any bb's in the meat.

Cliffy soon was on the board and we were dropping birds left and right.  The dogs did their job well and we did ours.  Cliffy and I made quick and swift work of the morning, we had Jim and the dogs until noon but we already shot our bag and it was only 11. So Jim took us up to an area where some other jokers hunted yesterday and missed some of their birds and we cleaned up their birds too.  

One thing I learned along the way that morning was the shot size was way too big.  I was shooting 5 shot 3 inch shells, I thought go big or go home, right?  Well there was on instance when a chukar jumped and I literally vaporized it.  Cliffy said that it looked as though I shot it out of my gun it was moving so fast after I hit it.  1300 feet per second fast.  The dogs being Experts in their own right, retrieved the carcass what was left of it.  Jim held it up and we all laughed.  Jim called it tenderized dog food, it was just that dog food.  The dogs all ate it then thanked me with a lick on the leg.  

An awesome morning that started off with screams ended with feathers flying everywhere in my back yard.  Remember Jim said have fun and fun we had.  It's something I would do once a year but I would also like to walk some public land and try my hand at wild upland hunting.