I feel like I cheated.
But it was fun. I have to remember that.We had our second hunt of our pen-raised birds today. The group met at noon. We were actually down several members from the openind day crew. The trio of Duane, Tubby and Don all had to work at their respective jobs. Joe, one of the founding members was out because last weekend he fell out of his tree stand and broke his leg, and his wrist. However, Joe wasn't going to be denied the oppurtunity to watch us hunt.
Now Joe is a large man, I'm guessing around 6 feet tall and somewhere in the neighborhood of 320+. Anyways, they wheeled him down the ramp and into the back of a truck. Once again we loaded the 55 birds into the cages before we transported them to the field.
I honestly was expecting the same deal as opening day, where they took the cages out and released the birds . Wow, I was really wrong. This time, they loaded the cages onto the back of two ATVs. They drove the ATVs to the edge of the grass. Danny told us to spread out and get ready.
I honestly thought he was joking.
He wasn't.
Joe had a hold of one of the cords to the cage door. He gave a slight tug and out came a bird. After we shot four or five, we went to try to find them in the grass. Then we switched up some positions and did it again. This pattern continued until we had released all the birds. In fact, some of the birds they actually threw into the air.
It was a scream. However, what these shits were landing in can only be described as Holyfuckingthick. The whole process took about an hour or so. The major drawback was that this Holyfuckingthick seemed to swallow the birds up. Some actually did get away.
The landowner of the ground to the south of us just happened to be with us and Danny had asked him if we could walk it back. His response was a classic "Well I would if I were you." So we loaded up into some trucks and the Killer Van and made our way one mile to the south to walk back to the north. I watched Herb on his ATV drive down the edge and all of the sudden he was in the patch. I started laughing because Herb was driving back and forth in front of us like a dog. Dad looked at me and said "I wonder how he points?" and I said "He waves." It was pretty funny to watch this guy on an ATV driving back and forth in front of the group like a dog. I think it actually worked as we kicked up a bunch of birds. I know at least one time he drove OVER a hen, but she was sitting tight enough that she broke right after he went over the top of her.
The 13 of us ended up shooting 48 (37 were banded) while probably leaving 10 out there in the Holyfuckingthick. One guy abstained from taking any birds which allowed us to take four per person. Neuf left early so I grabbed his birds too.
On the way home, I laughed because I realized that if we were stopped by a game warden, they would just shoot us on the spot for having 12 roosters between 2 of us in my vehicle.
I think I may have shot 9 today. I know I killed 4 for sure. The rest were those kills when someone else shot at the same time and it folded up. I had to shoot one out of a tree as well too.
It was a damn good day.
Now, it's time for bed because I'm going hunting tomorrow as well.
posted by Rusty @ 8:10 PM
Comments: 1
