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Some Tips To Catch More Pheasants

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To beat a pheasant at his own tricks, you need to call the strategy before you take to the field.

THE SQUEEZE SUBTERFUGE

This tactic works best when you've got six or more players. Sketch the field and your hunt in advance. Drivers and blockers should have the plan in hand and know their positions.

Come in quietly. Stop your car about a mile before the hunting field. Turn off the music, don't slam the door and keep conversation to a whisper. Let your dogs run off their early-morning excitement. You want to see that they're obeying commands and working close before they take the stage.

Give the blockers 15 minutes to get into position. Position blockers on the sides of the field, as well as at the end, to get the advantage on birds that squeeze out the middle. Drivers can come in loud or quiet, depending on your game plan. But when working toward blockers, the best rule is to keep the safety on until there's blue sky beneath the bird.

A variation on this trick can pay off when the field is too big for the group. Focus your strategy on one section. Quietly post the blockers, then create a diversion with loud voices and car doors on the side you won't hunt, to make more birds move into the hunt area.

In a big field, a pheasant will run as far as it can before it takes to the air. At the edge, where crops or the grass give way to a stream, a ditch, a road, or a stand of trees, expect the birds to flush wildly.

THE ZIGZAG FEINT

Employ this trick when there are fewer hunters and a lot of good habitat. A measured, methodical, silent approach is your key to success. Stay 10 yards apart, working from one edge to the other, in a zigzag fashion.

Don't be in a hurry. When working brushy fencerows or ditches, one or two drivers should bust through the weeds with a dog, searching a slow zigzag pattern back and forth. Post another hunter at the end of the row to jump skulking birds into the air. Keep communication between the hunters to a minimum, so the moves aren't telegraphed to the birds.

Most hunters work a field by walking through, 10 yards apart, with the dog moving back and forth. The zigzag pattern works the field in a thorough manner that keeps a rooster guessing.

When a bird is on the run, keep him between you and your partners. He's got you both located. As the noose tightens, he'll either flush or hold.

And when the dog goes on point, make a half-circle 20 yards around the dog to come in looking straight at him. With the bird between you and the pointer, watch the dog's eyes. He knows where the bird is, and he'll be locked on. This will give you the chance to make the best approach, knowing where the pheasant is going to come from.

When a bird escapes, watch its flight plan. It may hit the ground and start running, or it might lock up and hide right where it landed. Mark and follow the flush after the first ruse has run its course.

THE SIDELINE STRATAGEM

Pheasants live along the fringe. Moving from roost, to gravel, to feed and water is easiest in edge habitat. The lone hunter and a dog will make the most points on midday jaunts through fringe cover. Here, the birds go to rest when the sun is high or to escape from the pressure a large hunting group may be putting on a nearby crop field.

When hunting along the edge of a river or lake, you may flush pheasants that have sought refuge on the fringes of nearby fields. Almost always, they'll fly over the water instead of back over the resting cover. These are the birds that have learned that at the first hint of danger, safety lies on the other side of the river.

One place we hunt has ranches on both sides of the river, with an island in the middle. When there are parties hunting both banks, this is the only time these birds are in any real danger. The island is their last place of refuge -- except when I bring my waders or a raft.

This mindset of hunting the edges also pays along the railroad tracks. Where the cinders end and the bushes start is good escape cover. And the bird will most often fly across or along a railroad track, rather than breaking back into the fields.

Ditches are another sideline play. When pushed, a seasoned rooster knows how to use a ditch, whether it's a dry irrigation canal or a barrow pit, to his best advantage. Once he hits the furrow, he'll go one way or the other, most often at top speed.

THE TRIANGLE DECEPTION

One hunter is the point of the triangle, moving through the cover about 25 yards ahead of the rest of the group. The other two hunters should take the edges, pushing a wedge into the pheasant habitat. As the birds in the deep cover move out to the edges, they'll be kicked up by the two hunters at the base of the triangle.

The pheasant doesn't want to leave his hideout. So rather than flush, it would rather hold or sneak. Just when it gets around the point man, headed in the opposite direction, it runs into the next hunter. Strip habitat -- willows and tall sagebrush, cottonwood trees and junipers -- is taller than the surrounding cover. This high cover can obscure the hunters' vision.

THE FREEZE-OUT PLOY

Pheasants expect a motion offense, but they don't know how it's coming at them. If the dogs get "birdy," but they don't find lock up or flush, stop and try a freeze-out. What the roosters don't expect is for you to stop.

It doesn't take a lot of cover to hide a pheasant. I've flushed big roosters from cover that wouldn't have hidden a mouse. These birds are the ones that count on stillness instead of foot speed. You can beat them at this game. Simply stop and call the dogs back for another pass . . . then another. Hold your ground and wait the bird out. Either the dogs will find him, or he'll get nervous and make a break for it.

We once hunted an uncut wheat field along a creek. We knew there was a bird close by, but we hadn't found it. The springers cut back and forth, tails wagging, bodies quivering with anticipation. We walked slowly, watching them. As the dogs worked ahead, we moved with them until Randy, the dogs' owner, called a halt.

Turning and running, then turning again, noses to the ground, the dogs worked the wheat until, in a roar of wings, a long-tailed rooster sought elevation and the safety of the sage. My shotgun pushed twice against my shoulder as the bird swept by. My gun empty, the bird still flying, I heard another gun blast, and the bird folded -- an older rooster and presumably wiser. We admired him for his beauty before he joined the others in the bag.

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF DECEPTION

Strategy comes first. Don't foretell the effect. Go in quiet. Hunt with your face into the wind and slow down. Use blockers when you can and work the edges.

Avoid unnecessary actions. Keep the dogs in check with electronics or with leads until they get birdy. Shouted commands and foot races to catch the dog will only put the birds on the alert.

Never repeat an effect. If you know there are birds left in the field that you just hunted, let them filter back in, and hit them the next day with a trick they haven't seen before.

Keep the method secret. Let the other hunters make all the noise and run the birds to cover. And let them wonder why you always bring home a limit.

It's not a game that you'll win every time you take to the field. Win or lose, the pheasant hunt is most glorious for what returns in memories. Good friends, hard-working dogs, long-tailed birds and sunlight on steel barrels.