Asking a favor-history of pheasant hunting

B

Bob Peters

Well-known member
This post is not on a whim, been thinking of it for a long while. Was gonna wait, but after season the traffic here tapers off.

Here goes.

I think about the past a lot when I think of hunting. I wonder what it was like for my grandfather and his dad before him. I think about the old time pheasant drives, days when the corn was short, the rows were wide and full of foxtail and weedy cover. About hardware store single-shots being common and a time when the first model 12s, model 31s and Ithaca 37s showed up with shining blued barrels newly made in American factories. What it was like to be in Iowa or South Dakota, Minnesota or Michigan back when pheasants were thick and any farm boy could walk out the back door and shoot a rooster or two, or after school a kid could walk the railroad tracks home and kick up some birds. I could go on. I've already got a lot of pen to paper on this and other research I'll keep under my hat for now.

I started with my grandpa. Really both of them, but the truth is, by the time I followed a dog through cover or shot my first wild rooster they were no longer here to answer questions or tell of their hunts. At the heart of the matter what I'm looking to do is preserve some of America's pheasant hunting history. The first ever hunting seasons in the Midwest were roughly 100 years ago. I know those people are gone, but before it's too late I'd like to talk to some of the old timers who hunted a lot in their youth, and saw the early days of it all. If you know anyone with a story to tell or info to share and could get me in contact with them I would be so grateful. Please send me a message on here, drop an email address etc. Whether I end up with a bunch of notes, an article, a book or whatever, I'll be happy to share here. My time-frame is longer rather than shorter as I've got a full-time job etc.

Thank you for your help in this, it is very much appreciated and I'm grateful for any leads you can supply.
 
Bob, all the old-timers you describe that I knew are gone, but I did get a chance to hunt with a few of them, one of which was my great uncle Al. After serving in WW2, he bought a dairy. As I understand it, that was back in the day, when obtaining milk (& other raw dairy products?) relied heavily on local dairy farmers, so Al had many, many connections with landowners in the area. My understanding is that he developed VERY strong relationships with them. He would then arrange hunts on their land for friends, family (including close relatives of mine, like my dad & grandpa), & business clients.

At some point, Al acquired a "farm" outside of town that, to my knowledge, was managed almost exclusively for the benefit of wildlife, primarily pheasants. It was a little before my time, but my understanding is that in that way he was truly a (modern?) conservation pioneer, particularly as it applies to pheasants. He also founded a group called Pheasants Unlimited, although I don't know when, or that it ever gained much traction. I'm certain it wasn't for lack of effort though.

"The farm" has since grown in size, but it's still in the family & is still, I believe, a pheasant haven. Some of Al's children have also come to own what, to me, are rather large amounts of land in the state, whose primary purpose is to promote wildlife production, again particularly pheasants. There's likely more I'm not aware of (& I hope I've got my story straight), but what a legacy of conservation!

When I was a kid, my dad & I would sometimes run up for a family hunt at Al's farm, one such hunt I'll never forget. I had my H&R 20 gauge single shot, & we were walking a weedy tree grove. The trees were little at the time, but are now a full-fledged shelterbelt. I was one of the middle walkers, & toward the end, a rooster flushed & gave me a left-to-right. I shot, & it fell, although I do remember hearing another shot or 2. The pheasant was picked up & present to me!!! I didn't quite understand, as I'd never hit one in my life! But Grandpa, Uncle Al, & my other great uncle Bernie swore up & down I'd shot that bird, & next to Dad, those were the most trustworthy people I ever knew. My very first rooster, & they played it up big!

I remember Uncle Al often, but when I do, that's the very FIRST thing that comes to mind. Every time. That brief instant played a big part in what has become for me a lifelong passion. I enjoy many activities, but none come CLOSE to pheasant hunting. For it I mostly thank my dad, but also my grandpa, & largely Uncle Al.
 
Another quick, related story....

My dad had polio as a kid in the 50s & spent time (several months I believe) in the "crippled children's hospital". Ultimately my grandpa, because he saw nothing positive happening at the hospital, just took Dad home. Daily (possibly multiple times a day?), he'd manipulate & "exercise" Dad's legs, & after some time noticed a little improvement. So he kept at it. Miraculously, my dad recovered fully, when so many didn't at all. He led & active life, never experiencing any effects or recurrence.

Anyhow, Dad would sometimes recall his time in the hospital. He said it was really dreary, but that the greatest times were when Grandpa & Uncle Al would bring pheasants in after a hunt to show the kids & tell stories. That's the kind of men they were.
 
My father in-law (almost 80) was born and raised in Western Kansas. He talks a lot about hunting "back in the day" and he remembers as a kid they would hook a long chain between two pickup trucks and drive through the fields. The shooters would ride in the back and shoot while the trucks were rolling and kicking up birds. He also tells about how a long time ago they was no posted land and it was first come first serve. He said about a week before hunting season would arrive, people would camp in campers beside his parents fields in order to hunt come opening morning.
 
My great grandfather died in the 1940s, but my dad knew him. My dad passed along to me a hunting story from great grandpa: When he first emigrated to IL in the 1880s there were no pheasants in IL, but there were prairie chickens. So many prairie chickens that they had a horse drawn wagon follow the hunters on their drives because they couldn't carry all the chickens they shot, and on calm days the black powder smoke hung over the fields like fog.
 
A friend of mine tells a story about his father in law going to SD in a convertible Cadillac and drove around shooting from the car. At some point they had to stop as there were too many shell casings laying on the floor to push the accelerator.

Spoke with an old land owner this year and he shared a story about using the log chain trick between two vehicles to get birds up. Also had a vehicle that had the right wheel width to be able to drive on RR tracks which gave them lots of shooting opportunities. He casually mentioned they used to do lots of stuff that would get you thrown in jail today and that a 6 pack of beer was almost always part of the “hunt”.

Not really a pheasant story but hunt a 92 year olds farm that no longer lives in SD. I talk to him in the phone 2-3 times a year. He almost always tells me about driving though the fields at night with a light and shooting jack rabbits as a kid. Can hear the memories coming back to him and reliving it in his mind every time he tells it.

As we know things were different back then for sure!
 
Makintrax73 said:
My great grandfather died in the 1940s, but my dad knew him. My dad passed along to me a hunting story from great grandpa: When he first emigrated to IL in the 1880s there were no pheasants in IL, but there were prairie chickens. So many prairie chickens that they had a horse drawn wagon follow the hunters on their drives because they couldn't carry all the chickens they shot, and on calm days the black powder smoke hung over the fields like fog.
Click to expand...
Thus the reason for hunting regulations. Well, change in habitat likely played as big of a factor.
 
My paternal grandfather was in ww1 and my maternal ww2.
My dad told me he’d hear stories of the rabbit drives.
In western Ks deer didn’t exist and buffalo wallows still littered the pastures..In the dirty days I think a lot of the older men had greyhounds or more likely lurchers.Sight hounds were a part of both sides of my family. My maternal grandfather later had coonhounds and progressed to springers by the time I was a kid..
Not many had bird dogs I don’t think pheasant hunting was that big of deal and didn’t take off until the soil bank days in the 50s and 60s. Even then I think most pheasants were shot out the door of a pickup
or probably more than likely out of a car. My dad had bird dogs in his twenties. Still most of the birds I saw shot in my youth were shot by my uncles while I was riding around with them while they were doing chores on the farm.
 
If you are a PF member, the 2025 Upland Bird Super Issue had a great article on the history of pheasants and pheasant hunting in Iowa (A Century of Iowa Pheasant Hunting). It shows in the 60s Iowa had harvests of almost 2 million birds a season. The old boys in their 80s and 90s are who you need to find, but they are fading into the sunset quickly now. Good luck.
IA Pheasant history timeline.jpg
 
Not pheasant but.. My grandpa was a sharecropper. Him and grandma raised 9 kids. He had a huge smokehouse that he used to smoke meat for other people for a small portion. He was a very quiet, proud man who never accepted any help form anyone outside the family. My childhood lays out in my mind like a series of Rockwell paintings. Way too many to recount here and some sadly I know longer recall. Every Sunday all my aunts uncles and cousins would go to grandpas for a huge pitch in dinner. 20 or so kids playing baseball, tag and any other game they could think of. All but me! My little ass would be on dad's or one of my uncle's laps trying to absorb every word of every hunting trip they ever took. You see, it took a lot of meat to feed all those mouths. There was no deer then, but quail, rabbits' squirrels and waterfowl were abundant! Grandpa's shooting prowess was legendary. One story was 32 straight quail. Missed the last shot at almost dark. Another was Grandpa and his brother dropping 10 on the rise. Dad said there were 9 coveys within an afternoon's walk from the house. Ducks and geese could literally darken the sky. If there was enough meat in the smokehouse their attention turned to mink hunting. Grandpa and the boys would take off with a gaggle of dogs from bird dogs to hounds. The dogs would only run mink, don't ask me how they trained them, but they did. The mink would run a circle sometimes and sometimes go to ground. They only had two guns. a 22 single shot and an 1898 marlin 12-gauge that hangs over my fireplace now. Grampa bought it the year my dad was born, 1912. So, someone carried traps and someone carried a shovel. If they couldn't dig it out, they set a trap and came back the next day. A mink pelt was worth a dollar an inch. In 1939 they caught 36 minks, with the largest being 36 inches long. Big money in those years. In 1940, dad went to the army for 4 years and afterwards he didn't carry a gun for almost 40 years. I could go on but that's long enough. Those Rockwell's in my mind had a great deal to do with who I am. Thanks Grandpa.
 
I was born in 1959. My dad's father died in the early 1960's. My dad told me that my grandfather used to take a train from Harrisburg, PA to the Dakota's and go pheasant hunting. I don't know if that happened in the 20's, 30's or 40's. I am not sure if he went to ND or SD. I have no idea where he got off the train to hunt. My brother is 10 years older than I am and remembers him but he doesn't know either. Our dad was always short on details and you couldn't always trust him not to make stuff up over the years to fill in the blanks. I think about my grandfather just about every time I go up there to hunt. All I do know is that he used a Winchester model 12 and he loved to bird hunt. I wish I knew more details but my father's side of the family are long gone and there isn't anyone left to ask. Regardless, chances are good that I've hunted not far from where he used to.
 
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