Finished the morning with 1 rooster in the bag, and one more (probably dead bird) but could never recover.
The first kid shot his bird at about 8:15. First time he had ever shot at a pheasant, and the dogs put a rooster up about 10 yards in front of him, he shot twice and tilted it a bit, but it didn't go down. I watched it fly another 200 yards and it did the helicopter. Sent the dog after it and was able to track it down - pretty cool.
The next kid had a few so-so shots, but couldn't connect. Also passed on a couple of young roosters that he wasn't sure on - which I am glad because until they cackled I would have guessed hen as well.
Finally got a good flush for him on a big rooster and he connected twice, but the bird kept going and going. It never went down, but likely will not survive unfortunately.
All told, saw some good numbers, some good dog work, and the kids had fun.
I understand the 1 bird limit for youth hunters, however it is a bit frustrating for a first timer to shoot his first bird 15 minutes in and not be able to hunt the rest of the morning. He would have had one or two more very nice shots at roosters. I'm not sure how you'd go about it, but I would support a 2 rooster youth limit on private land while keeping the public land limit at 1 bird. I'm guessing the rationale for 1 bird limit is to protect some of the more limited public land opportunities to kill roosters in many areas of the state where a good number of roosters on a given property (like eastern Iowa) could potentially be shot in one weekend by experienced youth hunters bagging a 3 bird limit of "young and dumb" birds.
We had the kids out at our farm to hunt, and honestly I get just as much enjoyment watching someone else bag a bird on our ground as myself. The dogs certainly do not care!
