Last Sunday, some friends and I went pheasant hunting at Ed Davis Gamebird Farm in Edgerton, Missouri. If you've never been to a gamebird farm, it is an interesting experience. The operation goes a little something like this:
1. You pay a certain amount of money. We paid $100 per person.
2. Birds, in this case pheasants, are collected from pens that they have been living in. They were born and raised in captivity.
3. The birds are released into the wild by the folks that run the farm.
4. You can either go out with a guide or on your own and you hunt the birds.
If this is a new experience for you to read about, I know what some of you are thinking. Is this really hunting? Is is fair chase? I get it and by no means am I going to argue with anyone's opinions. What I will state for the record is that we had A LOT of fun. Some of those in the group can't go on a trip to South Dakota to hunt wild pheasants. We either don't have the time, the money, or the physical abilities to pull of such a hunt. This was an experience that was exciting, inexpensive (by comparison), and close to home. If you're remotely interested in doing something like this, I say go for it.
There were six of us in the group which meant 30 birds were released. We hunted from about 12:30-4:00 and ended up with around 20 birds. What is important to note is that birds from other hunts that didn't get harvested have the potential to be taken by hunters as well. These birds didn't hesitate to flush, run, and make the hunt a challenge. To me, it felt like a wild bird hunt...but then again, I don't have anything to compare it to so take that for what it is worth. My average shotgun skills also made the hunt less than easy.
We hunted with Jack who just happened to be my former middle school gym coach. He is a great guy and always trying to teach. I think we all learned a lot about the birds and how to hunt them! He had two dogs that were bird hunting machines. It was a thrill to watch them point, flush, and retrieve. If you've never seen a bird dog work, it is a thing of beauty!
Waylon, my German Shorthaired Pointer, also came along. He doesn't have any formal training and will most likely never become an outstanding bird dog which I am fine with. If all he does is run around and have fun, then we are both happy. He's a great pet and amazing fishing partner which is what I really wanted in the first place. Thanks to Jack, he also learned a few things in a short amount of time. He pinned down some injured birds and even tried to retrieve a little as well.
Overall, this was an amazing experience that I can't wait to do again. To me, any time spent outdoors with my friends, my dog, and doing something that we all love is something that I appreciate more than I can put into words. I hope you are able to do the same in the near future whether it is in the woods, in the field, or on the water. Memories like this can last a lifetime!
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