The greatest weekend endeth
And it was good.I did managed about three hours of sleep on Friday night. However, I was awakened by the cramp from hell in my calf muscle. Thanks to shooting pain in my right leg, I rocketed out of bed and got it stretched out. My goal was to go to bed by 11, so going to bed at 1 wasn't that far off.
The alarm blared to life at 4 a.m. causing me to nearly launch out of bed. I turned on the coffee, got dressed, hauled stuff upstairs and drank coffee until 4:35 or so.
Going outside caused me to realize that anytime that it's 64 degrees on opening day, the temperature would be a problem. However since we hunted our pen-raised birds, it wasn't that much of a problem. We shot 47 pheasants between 18 of us by 10 a.m. I was so over anxious that I missed the first two shots I took. Soon I remedied that fact and had bird number one in the bag. When there are 18 people shooting at pheasants, there is really no way to count who shot how many.
By 10:15 we were taking pictures and beginning the process of cleaning all the roosters. Earlier that morning, we had butchered most of the hens and filleted out the breasts for later. Danny fired up his cooker and eventually, there was fresh pheasant cooking away. We ate like kings. Side dish items included, cheesey potatoes, dressing, mac and cheese, potato salad, baked beans, bbq beef (although I'm still not sure on the reasoning on that one), sausage balled eggs, macaroni salad and pumpkin and caramel apple pie for dessert. I was so stuffed that I couldn't even sneak a piece of pumpkin pie.
We were all sitting there enjoying the sensation of being stuffed to the gills, when Danny came back in with an executive desicion. Instead of trying to keep the 27 hens we had retained for breeding, we decided to shoot them. NOTE:Shooting hens is highly illegal.
It was a scream. I must have shot five of those hens even after they got up in the wind. I laughed so hard. Finally at 2:00 we called it a great day and headed home.
This morning was much the same only there was just 8 of us and we actually did more of a traditional/ethical hunt. Conditions were much more favorable this morning as the front had rolled through. It was chilly, which was perfect. We headed up to Chris's ground to which we saw birds flushing out of range, but finally got some up within range. I blasted two roosters, teamed up on a third, but never saw a quail. Hollie had a perfect textbook point and I wish I would have had a camera at that moment. The poor bird that she pointed should have had a blindfold and a cigarette though. It was annihilated.
Our final numbers.
Saturday-47 pheasant (7 wild)
Sunday-7 pheasants, 3 quail.
Damn what a good weekend.
posted by Rusty @ 4:58 PM
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