Wounded bird

F

Floyd

Member
The other day I hit a pheasant, there was a small puff of feathers, and one of its legs dropped straight down. It flew for quite a while across a cut wheat field and landed on the very edge of some CRP. I went over there with my dog thinking it would be sitting where it landed with a broken leg, but after several passes with the dog never found the bird.

Has anyone else ever seen this, where a bird that flies for awhile with it's leg dangling the whole way gets away after landing?
 
Floyd said:
The other day I hit a pheasant, there was a small puff of feathers, and one of its legs dropped straight down. It flew for quite a while across a cut wheat field and landed on the very edge of some CRP. I went over there with my dog thinking it would be sitting where it landed with a broken leg, but after several passes with the dog never found the bird.

Has anyone else ever seen this, where a bird that flies for awhile with it's leg dangling the whole way gets away after landing?
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Yes I have. One thing I've noticed is that my marking ability hasn't proven to be as accurate as I'd like to think. That is, my depth perception is not precise after about 100 yards. Often I find that they flew a bit further than I'd originally thought.
 
I'd guess the bird landed mortally wounded (pellets hit vitals such as heart or lunges) sat in one spot and died. Without a trail to find because the bird didn't make one your best chance is to get down wind and hope the dog finds the bird.

Reason I think this is what happened is I've seen it a few times. Bird is shot at leg drops bird flys aways and lands. Take the dog over there and find a dead pheasant by circling down wind. When you clean the bird the liver, lungs or heart are bloodshot because a pellet struck em and the bird bleed to death before you got there.
 
I echo what Wisturk said. The bird dropped it's leg, not because it was broken, but because it was hurting in vital organs. That's a dead bird, for sure, but also one tough to find. I've also seen them burrow underneath stuff and then it's impossible to find them, even with a dog.

A couple years ago a buddy and I worked either side of a small dugout pond. About halfway around his lab flushes a rooster out and I nailed it as it cleared the far side of the pond not 20 yards out. It looked like it folded up dead. There wasn't much more than 20' left of cover from the water to cut hay, only knee deep grass. But a small gully, a foot wide but maybe 2 deep all covered over with that grass. His dog dives in there and comes up with an old, smelly, longdead pheasant. But we never found the one I shot. I figured in burrowed in there somewhere.
 
It is really hard to say. I wouldn't say that it was dead bird for sure. Pheasants are tough and have a very strong will to survive. It is possible it died when it landed but I have seen legs drops and trust me a pheasant can still cover a lot of ground on broken leg(s). They can also burrow into grass and make it really hard to find. You said you made several passes through the area. Did the dog get birdy again? Like kansasbrittany said maybe you didn't mark it far enough. I guess I agree with wisturkeyhunter and RR to the extent that is "mortally wounded" but only because a coyote or some other predator likely will get a meal out of it. In any case kudos to you for following up the shot and making a effort to recover the game.
 
I think that you can get the full spectrum of possibilities. An example of one: I was having an off day shooting. So bad that I had missed 5 pointed single quail with both barrels. I finally hit a quail and dropped a leg. I watched it fly 300 yards over the timber by the river and tail in. I followed up with Star hoping to get in the general area of the bird and possibly find it. On a sand bar by the river she pointed a small drift of snow behind a cottonwood the size of a cowboy hat. I kicked it and nothing. She left point and circled out about 10 yards only to point it again. I kicked it and nothing. She left point and circled out the 10 yards again only to point the same spot. I finally knelt down and dug through the drift to find the dead quail.

On another occasion, I hit a rooster dropping a leg. It landed along the road several hundred yards ahead. I followed up with a good mark because of the telephone poles that marked the landing site. I had several dogs down and couldn't locate the bird. I continued in the same direction the bird had flown and worked all of the way to the next intersection before the dogs pointed the wounded bird, and then I had to flush and shoot it again. The leg was still hanging when it flushed the second time. These birds don't give up easily.

Three or maybe 4 years ago in western Kansas I took a bird with Raven that was a bit oddly colored. I didn't look it over too closely in the field other than to note the odd color. When I got home and began cleaning birds I remembered the bird and gave him a close look over. This bird had 1 foot pointing forward and the other backward. I cut him open to find that his odd leg had been broken by shot and had healed together facing backward. I suspect that it had been hit the previous season and, while dragging the injured leg along, it had set the bone in that fashion. They are remarkable animals.
 
I have found "dead" pheasants in badger holes before.

I really think that some of those birds that we know are dead in the way they fall to the ground get a good dose of CPR when they hit and are resuscitated back to life. :confused:
 
I have found live pheasants in badger holes and, with my history with badgers, I really get wiggy when I reach down into a badger hole!!!:)
 
Pheasants are tough. I found one that had a broken leg, his wing was partially clipped, and looked liked his chest had been plucked. The bird eluded my dogs for a 100 yds till they finally caught him. As I left the field, a guy stopped me and told me he knocked a bird down in there yesterday he couldn't find.
 
Prairie Bird Hunter said:
It is really hard to say. I wouldn't say that it was dead bird for sure. Pheasants are tough and have a very strong will to survive. It is possible it died when it landed but I have seen legs drops and trust me a pheasant can still cover a lot of ground on broken leg(s). They can also burrow into grass and make it really hard to find. You said you made several passes through the area. Did the dog get birdy again? Like kansasbrittany said maybe you didn't mark it far enough. I guess I agree with wisturkeyhunter and RR to the extent that is "mortally wounded" but only because a coyote or some other predator likely will get a meal out of it. In any case kudos to you for following up the shot and making a effort to recover the game.
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I'm convinced a dropped leg dosen't always mean its broke or even most of the time.
 
A very good dog can find downed birds if you let it. Doesn't always happen.

I have a 10 year old Weimerahner that is sometimes amazing. I just let him work. Found one the other day after about 45 minutes where 5 other dogs had looked, 1 was a pup. Here he comes bringing the bird to me.

Walt MI/USA
 
I've learned that when a rooster drops a leg it's because someone shot low and crippled it rather than kill it. I've done it a bunch of times unfortunately. I have marked birds that got hit so hard the sky went black from the feathers and those birds dropped head first. We walked to where he went down, saw a bunch of feathers laying on the ground but no rooster and the dogs couldn't find it. We spent 20 minutes looking for a dead bird and it was no where to be found. I have a very good GSP and he couldn't find it. My buddy wounded one last year(huge puff of feathers) and it flew off over a hedge row. We were walking towards the way that he went anyways so we didn't chase him. We walked to where we "marked" that he went down and Kody got real birdy. We tracked that rooster to the end of the tree row, almost a half mile and when we got to the end, which my truck was parked at, Kody went on point. I stomped around and the rooster took off running, Kody made pretty short work of him though. If my truck wasn't parked there that bird would have ran off and become coyote or hawk food. It's impressive how resiliant those birds truly are...:D
 
i never knew

Wow i have done that so many times drop a leg like that i always thought i just hit it in the legs hard seem like i have read on here some one saying when you hit them like that they fly really really far because they know that they cant move and they are in trouble cant remember.Man you can learn lots on here ,my fav though is the cut corn field dont walk with the rows but against them cant wait to try!
 
Pheasants can definitely be excape artists. We lost one last year that I shot down had two dogs and 3 guys standing right there when the dog trapped it with his paws in a grass field. We all relaxed took our eyes off the dog for a second. Looked back down and the pheasant was gone. The dog looked under his paws like he couldn't believe it. Neither dog could pick up the scent it was like the bird vanished. There must of been a hole nearby but we didn't find it. No one could believe that bird wasn't going in the game vest. We lost 3 birds last year one of them fell on thin ice another in very thick cattails.
 
Not a 100% deal but in my experience when a rooster is hit, drops a leg and continues flying it has usually taken a non-lethal hit in the vitals. Most of those birds tend to fly to the heaviest cover they can and seems they usually have plenty of time to thoroughly bury themselves before the loss of blood kills or incapacitates them.

Sometimes because of "air-washing" and the fact they are not moving around and leaving scent these birds can be very tough to find. We all know wounded pheasants will run and often times after a few minutes looking for a downed bird we often begin to expand the search area. If your hunting an area with lots of birds the dog may start to get on other scent and things can go downhill quick.

Had one rooster last year that I marked down, walked to the spot and stood while the dogs searched the area. After some time in the immediate area with no luck the dogs started to move farther out but before leaving with them I dropped my hat as a marker. Eventually my male got on a scent trail and after a short chase flushed a healthy rooster that I also shot and the dog retreived with no trouble.

Eventually worked our way back to the spot where I dropped my hat and was considering my options when I noticed the female starting to scent something. She was birdy but not quite dialing it in so I called the male over and before I knew it he was torso deep in a clump of switch grass less than three feet from where my hat laid. Seemed like it took forever but after much snorting and grunting the male popped out the clump with the first rooster in his yap. Not long before I had spent at least five minutes standing less than 3 feet from that rooster and the dogs had made several equally close passes without any clue it was there.

After experiencing this quite a bit over the years I have to believe this is what happens with many of the birds "that just up and disappear".
 
Yep, dropped leg roosters are very hard to find. Without a dog almost impossible. Seems that they also get over private land before they land, making it a trespassing situation. I have given chase w/o gun with dog sometimes, but am always uneasy doing so. I have also shot several that I know I have hit, but show no signs of being hit and no legs drop or feathers fly. Watch it fly off, then it folds up dead 1/2 mile away. Pretty hard to find at that distance also. Those are the single pellet in the heart shots.
 
kiotehntr said:
I've learned that when a rooster drops a leg it's because someone shot low and crippled it rather than kill it.
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I agree, I think without more info most of us are assuming a going away bird with the head obscured and a low shot. Unfortunately, we have all seen it way to many times.
 
Floyd said:
The other day I hit a pheasant, there was a small puff of feathers, and one of its legs dropped straight down. It flew for quite a while across a cut wheat field and landed on the very edge of some CRP.
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Just curious... what size shot were you using?
 
Floyd said:
I was using #5 shot, 12 ga, 1.25 oz
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One more question... what was the choke? The reason I ask is because my brother has shot that identical load(Win Super X #5 3+3/4 drams 1+1/4 oz 1330 fps) for over 20 years thru an O/U choked IC/MOD. When he hits them with the MOD there are very few cripples, with the IC significantly more. Chasing the crips all over IA and SD always makes me think that if you shoot a gun with a modified choke the shell you choose is not quite as important, but if you are trying to kill wild roosters with a gun choked IC you should be packing a lot of large plated shot.
 
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