Look out for combines!

Pheasant hunting while visiting relatives in Missouri is a nice way to work off the Thanksgiving dinner and dessert. What are the other options? Well, you could shop ’til you drop at the malls, go for a walk in the neighborhood, or try to sleep it off, which comes most easily, but [...]

Talk it out before you walk it out.

Look out for combines!

Pheasant hunting while visiting relatives in Missouri is a nice way to work off the Thanksgiving dinner and dessert. What are the other options? Well, you could shop ’til you drop at the malls, go for a walk in the neighborhood, or try to sleep it off, which comes most easily, but has the least productive results. For a good workout while still spending time with the relatives, go hunting!

 After talking with a conservation agent, we were informed the best place to look for a pheasant was next to a corn field that had recently been cut. There are plenty of corn fields here. There are some soy bean fields, too. We found ourselves walking along the perimeter of corn fields, in the tall grasses, searching for birds.

At breaktime, eat carb and protein packed snacks, drink water and give the dog a bone.

 This is where the terms “driver” and “blocker” come into play. Some hunters “push” or “drive” the birds toward the other hunters who “block” the escape route, forcing them to flush and fly rather than run to safety. It’s a great theory, and I’m sure it works well for many folks, in many instances.  It just didn’t produce birds for us that day.

 Everything that came up in front of us happened in thick cover while walking side-by-side in a line. One time, the seven year old was whacking weeds with a corn stalk when a bird flushed! Hey, what ever works, right? We had to walk long and hard for what we saw. We all had a shot and came back with one rooster. Awesome for the seven year old, and pretty cool for the 37 year old, too!

Even though it's cool outside, water the dog!

 It would have been a fabulous hunt without the Xcellent shot by HuntingXpert Contributor, Thomas Milyo, but it sure helped give a “grand finale” sort of feel to the end of the day. We spent hours of calorie burning, torso trimming traipsing throughout the fields of corn and soybeans. “Chasing” combines, “dodging” deer and even sweating a bit (the high temperature was about 65°f) on Thanksgiving weekend in Northwest Missouri paid off!

It was a treasure just to see all the deer that were temporarily uprooted by the noisy combine. It was a joy to be able to watch the Brittany work. It was a privilege to be able to hunt for $11! All this, and we worked off that 2nd piece of mom’s homemade pumpkin pie? Beautiful. Thanks, MDC for giving us a place to hunt! Thanks, Cousin Tom, for being our guide. Thanks, Keller Milyo, for keeping up with the grown ups with no complaints! Truly a time for counting our blessings instead of counting calories. Get out there and see how high you can count.

Giving thanks

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 am and is filed under Hunting, Lessons from the Field.