How tough are these birds?

remy3424 said:
I have only witnessed the true straight up flight after being shot twice. The last time was a group hunt I had, a really strange foggy morning with a ton of frost on everything. The fog was just lifting, it was like a ceiling 100 feet high. The hit bird headed straight up and I yelled to my buddy to get after it as it disappeared through the fog hovering over us, we never saw it come back down. I said it went to heaven. Maybe it recovered and regained a normal flight, it could have fell and we just didn't see it, not sure, but it was a great memorable hunt.
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When they do the tower of power,they drop like a rock.You will find them in the exact spot .
 
Goosemaster said:
He was wrong.Neck shot severs an artery.Ive seen it a dozen times.Tower of power.
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I guess severing a neck artery could do it the same as the heart stopping or bleeding out from a heart/lung shot. The end result of all those would be a black out from lack of blood to the brain. That's different than a spinal neck shot, which would be a more immediate game over.
 
Goosemaster said:
When they do the tower of power,they drop like a rock.You will find them in the exact spot .
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Oh, you are referring to the straight up flight. We were talking about the delayed drop.

I've wondered how high they would go when they go straight up and whether you could wait long enough for them to drop.

What is it about a neck artery being severed that causes them to go straight up?
 
My guess on "straight-up" is a head wound or some type of nerve injury.....the "sudden drop" syndrome...they ran out of oxy/blood and should be lying where they fell.
 
Three examples of toughness in a rooster. Just west of town I shot a rooster that flew strong and died in flight. Upon exam, he only had one leg that had been removed from some trauma and not recently. The leg was severed just above the spur at the joint. Long tail and long spur probably the previous years bird and very healthy. The property owner never remembers seeing him.
Another rooster that was a strong flier that died in flight revealed a green gangrenous necrotic breast that stunk to high heaven. Gag reflex big time. Imagine your freezer quitting one day into a three week trip. Could not believe the bird was alive. One more.
In the middle of a section, Rosie started tracking along a fence line. Ahead of us a rooster jumps in the air but cannot fly, but he is trying. This repeats itself numerous times until the rooster takes a ninety degree turn up a thick road ditch headed to the section corner. My buddy sees our signal and stops at the corner, which freezes the rooster and allows Rosie to finish the successful chase. We covered nearly a mile tracking that rooster. Upon exam, he had a broken wing that had nearly callused over and probably was within a week of flying again. (See picture of previous post). My longest posting ever. They are tough.
 
Limitless said:
I guess severing a neck artery could do it the same as the heart stopping or bleeding out from a heart/lung shot. The end result of all those would be a black out from lack of blood to the brain. That's different than a spinal neck shot, which would be a more immediate game over.
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Sometimes they fly 300 yards,then go straight up,then drop,and it's a done deal.
 
Had one happen two weeks ago that's never happened to me. My buddy shot a rooster and I went to pick it up and the thing started kicking his legs crazy and spurred the heck out of me. I got about a foot long deep scratch on my forearm and was bleeding pretty good. Should make a sweet scar!
 
Goosemaster said:
Sometimes they fly 300 yards,then go straight up,then drop,and it's a done deal.
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That occured on the very last day of the season with me last year. It flew about that distance after I shot at it, made a big U turn, and then dropped like a stone out of the sky on an open field. My friend and I both watched it occur.

I've also had it happen with a wood duck about 15 years ago. Luckily they both fell and died where I could recover them.
 
I've seen the delayed drop with pheasants as others have mentioned, but also with doves and quail. Much less frequently with those species.

As for tough roosters, our group shot one a couple of years ago that was missing a foot and part of the lower leg. It was just a healed-over stump.
 
gimruis said:
That occured on the very last day of the season with me last year. It flew about that distance after I shot at it, made a big U turn, and then dropped like a stone out of the sky on an open field. My friend and I both watched it occur.

I've also had it happen with a wood duck about 15 years ago. Luckily they both fell and died where I could recover them.
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See, goose is the real deal. He's seen it all in his years up on the high Canadian.
 
This may be a bit out of bounds for this thread, but 20 years ago I shot the bull (elk) of a lifetime high up in the Cuchara range - with a beautiful 6x7 rack, scoring 352 dry. As I'm primarily a meat hunter, it was more or less a freak chance I ran into him. The way it happened - even though I'm a CO high-country native, altitude gets to me, and I had laid down for a long nap in a big quaky (aspen) grove. Woke up and noticed some "sticks" waving in the grass about 70 yards downhill from me. Put the scope on it, and realized it's a big bull laying down in the grass. I put him down with a carefully placed headshot. After several misadventures getting him out (my buddy almost got killed when his pack horse carrying both front quarters fell on him), I finally got him in my garage to process. Halfway into the right front quarter, I ran into all kinds of weird, calcified "nuggets". Turns out the poor guy had his entire shoulder socket missing - it was blown out from some hunter's misplaced shot years earlier. There was at least two inches of bone missing between the upper and lower parts of that joint. Everything between was just massive muscle mass. Yet the body was otherwise perfectly healthy, and actually quite tasty considering he had to be 3-4 years old. I had to throw out about 1/3 of that joint, but otherwise he ate perfectly fine. Just amazing what wild critters can recover from.
 
gimruis said:
That occured on the very last day of the season with me last year. It flew about that distance after I shot at it, made a big U turn, and then dropped like a stone out of the sky on an open field. My friend and I both watched it occur.

I've also had it happen with a wood duck about 15 years ago. Luckily they both fell and died where I could recover them.
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I've seen it happen many times shooting a full choke in 50 years plus.
 
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