When, Where, and How did You Shoot Your First Pheasant?

BritChaser

BritChaser

Well-known member
Where were you when you bagged that first beauty? How old were you? Were you with your mom, dad, uncle, aunt, grandma, grandpa?

I will start. I was 12 and hunting with my uncle and grandfather near grandpa's farm house in Republic County, KS. I was carrying a single shot .410. A hen flushed, flew high toward us and I knocked her down when she was almost straight overhead. If I lose my memory with time, that one will probably be that last to go.
 
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13 years old, single shot .410 stevens, MN WMA, Dad, Brother, Uncles, cousins.

First upland bird I shot was a Ruffed Grouse at 12 years old same .410, Dad, brother, uncle, and a great uncle who is still amazed to this day I got one with that .410
 
12 years old hunting with my Dad and brother southwest of St Cloud, Mn. A big ol' rooster flushed at my feet and I knocked it down with my singleshot
.410 at 25 yards. That was 48 years ago and hundreds and hundreds of pheasants shot since then and I STILL get the same feeling as that first one. I don't think that feeling will fade.
 
my first shot was a pheasant with a 16 gauge single shot shotgun i got for my 12th b-day. i dont know the brand but i still have it today, it wont shoot bc its all rusted up.

I remember walking in the trees with my dad as he was blocking and i walked through the trees and shot my first pheasant, didnt kill it, but got to it and picked it up still alive and walked out of the trees.. there was my dad with Conservation Officer Jim Padmore. Dad and him are somewhat good friends, they talk alot together, but he was amazed i shot this pheasant.. i told Jim it took me 20 shells and 15 odd pheasants before i actually shot my FIRST bird. man my shoulder was sore. good thing i did my gun training with Jim Padmore a year earlier. i had my gun permit. ;)
 
Good thread I can't wait to read all the stories. Heres mine...

It was last year, my second pheasant season, I was 23, and I was hunting with my brother. We were hunting with my new dog JP on his first wild pheasant chase. The story unfolded on a local national wildlife refuge the Tuesday after opening weekend. We don't have great pheasant pops and this area gets hunted hard opening weekend. After about an hour of hunting and a lot of hens JP finally put up that first rooster out of some thick tules, it quartered right into my brothers shooting lane and he brought it down with one shot. I thought that would be the only rooster that day, but about a half hour later JP put up a rooster that flew straight away and I droped him. Three green pheasant hunters and three first pheasants, what a great day.
 
dog played centerfield

I didn't shoot my first pheasant until about age 40 because I was a self trained hunter that took up hunting as an adult. None of the men in my family were hunters previously.

Back to the pheasant, I was walking thru a corn stubblefield when a rooster flew sort of straight up in the air. After I shot it, my Brittany had time to be waiting where it would come down, sort of like an outfielder in baseball.
 
I shot my first 3 weeks. I just got my first hunting dog and have been training him with my wife's uncle for the last 3 months. Took him on his first hunt ever, so it was a first for me and him. One of the highlights of the day was when one of the pheasants was shot over a pond and Graham(My shorthair) jumped right and retrieved as if he was a lab.

It was great to see that all of that hard work has paid off.
 
Great thread!

I got into pheasant hunting fairly recently, 3 years ago at 34 years old. My grandfather hunted but passed away before I was big enough to carry a gun and father has never been a hunter though he did teach me gun safety.

My first bird was at the end of my first day hunting on opening day in Colorado. I shot it in a dried up water hole that was filled with weeds about 30 minutes before sunset. It was going to be our last field before heading back to town and I was a little bummed I had not had a clean shot a bird all day. I took two steps into the weeds and the rooster got up right in front of me. I pulled the trigger a little quick and brought the bird down with one shot. When we met our hunting group back at the barn to clean the birds everyone was impressed as the rooster I shot had the biggest spurs and longest tail. I still have the tail feathers hanging in my office.

That experience hooked me and I know get out every chance I can, which seems to be between 20-30 days a season. I have only hunted Colorado but look forward to getting out and exploring the bird hunting in other states.
 
Good thread, I love reading everyone's responses. I shot my first pheasant about 10 years ago (my last year in college). My Grandpa had given me his old shotgun and it was sitting in my closet at school with very little intention of ever using it. I met up with two guys who were always hunting and it sounded pretty cool. Finally one day we got 6 inches of snow and they had just got back from a trip and I thought I'm going to give this a try. I loaded up the gun and headed out to some public ground along the lake. I parked the car and began walking. I walked about 1/2 of a mile and thought this isn't for me. I turned around and started to walk with my head down back to the car. I got within 100 yards from my car when I stepped right on a big ol' rooster pheasant. That thing came cackling out of the snow and scared the living heck out of me. I shot first from the hip and then managed to shoulder the gun and drop it with the second shot. I stood over that bird for 5 minutes thinking this was the coolest thing I had ever done. Needless to say I was hooked for life. I still have that tailfeather as well.
 
Some guys on the Navel Base I was serving at in 1955 had some guys that liked Pheasant hunting. One trip when they were getting ready to go. They wanted some coffee from the galley. I being the base baker got them their coffee and told them I would like to go with them sometime. They told me how to get a gun from the Armory and so forth. We went and one of them had a Pointing Lab. She hit a point in the row of a picked corn field I was in. They told me how to flush the bird, I did and nailed it on the second shot. I have been hooked ever since........Bob
 
I notice a theme in these stories, " I've been hooked ever since". Even those of us who didn't say it out right I think it was implied in a Hemingway esk conveyance through silence.
 
I was flanking what was expected to be a futile but quick push of my friend's Grandma's grove in La Qui Parle County in Western MN. At 12 years old, like so many of you, armed with a single shot .410 and dressed in hand-me-downs. I heard someone yell "Rooster!" from inside the grove and there he came streaking out of the grove from my left to my right. I'm pretty sure I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. :) Dropped him at about 25 yards.

With my childhood Golden bringing it back to me, and my Dad and friends there to have seen it, I was pretty proud. Of course my buddy's dad had to throw in an "It's about time!". It wouldn't be hunting without a little ribbing.

The rush hasn't lessened in 22 years...
 
i was 12 at the time. i had been goin with dad for years before i could shoot. went out opening weekend for my first "real" hunt, didnt knock a bird down, non the less it was fun. same a couple days before christmas a group of headed out to some private land we used to be able to hunt, first field of the day which we called "the honey hole", thick crp out in the very middle of a square mile, winter wheat, on one side, milo stubble on the other, cedar tree shelter belt at the north end, hedgerow running from the road to the south end, walked across the winter wheat to get down to the crp, there were like 6 or 7 of us hunting, so some guys walked farther down to spread out, i stopped on the very end ..while everone else is spreading out a rooster gets up not 10 feet infront of me, im pretty sure i dusted him before he even got above the grass :) but ill never forget that. that "honey hole" holds alot of memories and some amazing storys in it, wish we could still hunt it, its leased to out to a group of guys from texas, nice guys, but still wish it was ours
 
1st Rooster

I too started late at 22 when I got out of the army. I grew up in Missouri so we hunted furry critters...so a friend of mine who I worked with took me hutning all season and I never got a shot on a bird....we ran bars in KC then and were going to Lawrence KS in late Jan to hang flyers for a concert. we hung exactly one flyer then headed to his 80 acres near valley falls with his lab & english pointer ( dang dog always bustin birds too far out). Well it was late afternoon and we were walk a thicket by the road next to cut milo an he came up and I broke my cherry with a shot from a 12 ga.mossberg I bought at a pawn shop for $60.00. Like others that was it and I was hooked. That was 20 years ago and now I am on my 2nd crew of dogs ( Ellie & Rufus the britts and Ryan the lab) and still huntin with the same guy and at least 15k poorer financially,but more rich in many other ways for the experiences I have had a field.

Kick'em Up!
 
Kansas , 1970, 16 years old west of Concordia,Ks. On my own with another high school kid, drove all night, slept in the station wagon. Hunted shelterbelts and plum thickets, shot my first bird from a plum thicket, started hunting ONLY plum thickets, had a big english setter, he'd point, we surround plum thicket, bird came out, we shot it. I believed for years that all plum thickets adjacent to crops had roosters, kinda like Santa Claus. In those days mostly they did!
 
Must be old timers, I can't remember the first one. But got hooked anyway. I do remember running one down on the farm as a kid in some alfalfa, took a chance on what it was running in the grass and dove on it. I did not know what I was diving on, as all I could see was the grass moving from two critters ,I thought it was going to be a rabbit. Let it go. So I will say my first one was caught by hand in IA.:D About 10-12 years old.
 
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27 years ago when I was 17 yrs old and on my first big out of state hunting trip. Went with my brother and a friend of his. We were walking a big CRP field, no dogs, close to the end of shooting time with a big snow storm moving in. Up went the bird and I shot him with my Remington 1100. My brother who was standing several hundred yards away on a hill kinda overlooking where I was at, said that was the neatest thing he had ever seen, watching the bird flush and begin to fall before he heard the shot. I have traveled west many times since but I remember that bird more than ever. I have shot nice deer, lots of ducks and geese, alot of furry animals but those gaudy birds sure fire up my every nerve. I guess got my dad's passion for pheasants, for he was a man that loved to hunt but always his stories were about chasin pheasants in Ohio's heyday back in the 40's and
50's.
 
1977, Frontier Co. Nebraska. 12 years Old. After accompanying my Dad, older brother and company for several years without a gun I finally got to join in and hunt with the group. I had the bug before I even had the chance to pull the trigger. I was hunting with my Grandfathers Ithaca Model 37 16 gauge. That gun had been handed down from Grandpa to Dad to my older brother then to me.
I don't remember the actual first bird, but those first hunts are burned in my memory. Dogs, birds, hanging with the older guys, eating a burger at a small town bar at lunch. Since then I have chased roosters in MT, ID, SD, ND, Alberta and of course NE. Haven't lived in NE for over 30 years, but return several times a year to chase pheasant. I'll be back in 2 weeks! It is nice having a Lifetime NE license. :cheers:
Now I have my teenage son hunting with me. He recently bagged his first Wild Bird Pheasant. And the cycle starts again!
 
Great thread!enjoy reading how you guys shot your first.....i havent shot a pheasant yet but i hope too some time..i did take my first deer if you guys wanna hear bout that
 
Cane72 said:
I shot my first 3 weeks. I just got my first hunting dog and have been training him with my wife's uncle for the last 3 months. Took him on his first hunt ever, so it was a first for me and him. One of the highlights of the day was when one of the pheasants was shot over a pond and Graham(My shorthair) jumped right and retrieved as if he was a lab.

It was great to see that all of that hard work has paid off.
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Nice! Sounds like you're hooked for life.
 
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