Pheasant hunting in the U.S. is very popular thanks to the importation of the Szechuan pheasant from China in the 19^th century.  Some states such as North and South Dakota with the highest wild pheasant populations are the magnet of those with the ability to pay the steep license fees and for a guide.  But for most people who just want to drive less than an hour for an early morning or evening hunt, it takes research and great skill to take the pheasant.

Pheasants are very smart birds, they have very sensitive ears and can hear that car door slam ½ mile away.  Pheasants love to run under the high brush and particularly run in a circle behind you.  If you are working a straight line and having no luck flushing a bird, you should circle behind yourself and spook up all the birds that ran behind you.   When it’s very cold, pheasants will go deep into marshes or ditches to keep warm.  When the marshes freeze over, start working in those areas.  The age of pheasant can also be a factor.  Most pheasants don’t live more than two or three years in the wild. The spurs in a one year old are rounded off. In their second year, their spurs become pointed and the black spots going down the tail of a rooster are in excess of 30.  If you get a 2 year old, you have a very smart bird.  They have managed to escape all sorts of enemies.

During hot weather, pheasants retreat into the cool woods or swamps. They will bury themselves under thick grasses making it very difficult to get them to flush.

Basically, the pheasant has two strategies: run in circles and backtrack behind the hunter or hunkerdown and hide. 

The ones who get flushed are surprised and panicked, that is why moving quiet and slow will get more flushes.  Good dogs can chase a running pheasant and grab at him so that he’s forced to fly.

Some dogs will bite at a hunkered down pheasant and give up, since they are not aggressive dogs.  They need to be trained to push the pheasant up.  Two dogs work better this way.

Dogs will increase your changes of flushing a bird tremendously,  but a dog who hunts more than 40 yards ahead of you is ruining the hunt, since they flush the birds where your shotgun pellets reach their limits.  Most good bird dogs instinctively know where to put their noses, but you must teach them to stay close and hunt close. 

Some dogs need to hunt with another dog for a couple of times in order to understand what is going on.   There are hundreds of books explaining detailed directions about how to train a perfect bird dog.  Very few dogs are perfect, but the dog that is worked with love will do almost anything to please you.  Before I got my Springer, I sat in several pheasant hunting seminars and learned that the Springer is one of the best pheasant hunting dogs because they hunt close and want to please.  Hunting preserve owners will tell tales of untrained dogs whose owners open the car door and the dog takes off ½ mile into the brush.  Another practical tip is: It’s better to spend $900 on a dog with good hunting genetics than $900 on training a poorly bred dog.

This is a statement directly out several seminars, that I have attended.   Getting your dog into the field as early as possible is the best thing that you can do. 

Even if they just sniff and point at three months, you’ve got a dog on track.

Stalking the pheasant is slow work. When you push loudly and quickly through the brush, the birds start running and do not flush.  If you walk 10 yards and stop, the birds can’t tell where you are going and stop running.  That’s the best time for the dog to find and flush them.   If you don’t have a dog, you will need several people to push the birds into a flush.

Most serious pheasant hunters have an over and under shotgun. I use a 12-gauge pump Ithaca 37. Kalina photo.

Shooting in close proximity to your dog and your shooting partner must take clear thinking.  I have held back on many a great shot because the bird was flying too low to my jumping dog, or my partner stepped in the line of fire.  Spinning around to shoot a flying pheasant means careful foot placement since you don’t want to have your finger on the trigger just as your foot slips into a hole.  Walking with care is crucial.  You are not in a hurry.

Be sure to carry a water bottle for you and the dog. You can lose good judgment through dehydration. Dogs can get over heated very quickly and every year we hear about dogs dying because their owner wanted to hunt them long hours.  Dogs need more rest and water than they let you know.  If your dog lays down while hunting on a warm day, it’s time to go back to car and cool her down.  Dogs love to hunt and they can kill themselves by just over doing it.  If your dog gets overheated, (gums get white), Open her lip and pour water in the side of her lip.  She will gradually want to drink on her own when she recoups. There has been a lot of discussion about the dogs who died last year on pheasant opener in South Dakota presumedly from heat exhaustion.  Only recently, some evidence has come up the fact that blue algae (a toxic algae) found in ponds at the end of the season, may have been the source of these deaths.   The rule about blue-green algae is that it usually erupts at the end of the season after a very hot spell.  It will look like a bluish tint.  Keep dogs out of ponds that look like that.

If you don’t have any good public hunting spots, call a pheasant hunting preserve.  It’s cheaper to go to a pheasant hunting preserve than to drive hours to another state.  Most hunting preserves are open much longer than the state season.