We left home at 930AM and arrived there with plenty of time to spare before our 1PM "tee time". We met our guide Cam and he was able to take us out 30 minutes early. The plan was originally to hunt from 1 to 4. We paid for "2 guns" -- which means 12 pheasants -- between the 3 of us. The plan was for Christopher to shoot the whole time with his Remington 870, and for me to share the Mossberg with Alexander. I was going to start and then hand off to him.
We brought 1 box of 25 shells of #6 shot with us but bought a couple more boxes from their store just to make sure we didn't run out. The only other gear we needed from Red's was blaze orange vests.
The actual hunting spot was a canyon 5-10 minutes down and away from the road. Cam had planted the birds that morning. He brought his dog Zoe to be our pointer, flusher, and retriever. We went over all the safety and gun handling tips at the beginning and then set out in a line, slowly moving forward sweeping the valley floor. The terrain was rocky and brush-filled with a small creek that occasionally needed to be crossed using railway ties.
Cam did a great job coaching us in real-time, helping us take shots quickly but safely. Zoe's job was to run around non-stop sniffing out the pheasants and making them take off. Usually you get some kind of warning because the dog will slow or stop. The bird can then take off in any direction. We kept our guns pointed upward at all times with our fingers on the safety. Once a bird was airborne it was: Safety-Shoulder-Sight-Shoot. And shoot again if necessary.
We learned the hard way that it takes one or two practice rounds to get the sequence executed smoothly when "Nature" is controlling the "starting gun". Christopher and I had our share of misfires and failed reloads which cost us a bird or two. One thing we learned was that usually you don't score a direct hit mid-flight which brings a pheasant straight down. More often you injure them with a few BBs and then they land and hunker down. That's when the dog turns into a retriever -- otherwise you'd be getting even more exercise.
Our primary sweep down the canyon was very fruitful, and it was only ever a few minutes between our next shot. Some birds flew up and away, which is one of the easier shots. Christopher had one come towards him which gave me a "sitting duck" shot at close range, which he took full advantage of. The only problem there was that there wasn't really much chance of eating that guy. One bird flew right across our line giving us both a few shots but that required getting the lead right. That was exciting, but that bird got away. Once we got to the end of the property line we doubled back to find the birds we never found the first time and the ones that got away. That was a change of gear because we probably went an hour without taking any more shots. We found two or three at the end of this sweep.
All told Christopher got 4 or 5, I got 2 or 3, and Alexander got one. Which mapped pretty well to the investments made by each of us.
Cam processed all the birds at his truck at the end, giving us over 5 pounds of pheasant breast and thigh to bring home and eat. S made pheasant pot pie with about one pound of meat the next day. The rest is in the freezer for the future. The taste was similar to turkey.
One nice thing was that we didn't have to get any hunting licenses ahead of time. We stayed over night in Ellensburg. We could've driven home but wanted to avoid that much driving all in one day.
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