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THIS IS NOT A FISHING REPORT!

Montana Pheasant Hunting 2017

It was my second annual trip to visit to go pheasant hunting with my son Matthew. The drive to Great Falls left rainy Seattle behind and welcomed us with sunny skies and temps in the 50-70 degree range. And no rain! There was, as always, wind, but it was manageble.

We hunted for three days, the first two in the Beckman wildlife management area near Judith gap, public state land, Block Management land (privately owned land leased by the state for public hunting) and private land. Along with us on our daily adventure was Matt's year and a-half old Brittany, Murphy. Last year Murphy was a pup hunting with us, running wild and ranging all over. This year he was much more disciplined and noticibly better at tracking and pointing birds. Several of the birds we shot at Murphy had cornered and frozen in heavy brush. We gave the word and Murphy would flush the bird and we'd take our shot. It was awesome to see Murphy working so hard over a variety of cover - shrubs, brush, high grass, cattails and open fields. And when he cornered a bird and froze it made me really appreciate his breed's genetic traits.

The first two days when hunted the Judith River area of the Beckman Wildlife area, and also a block management area nearby. Lot's of promising land but few roosters were flushed. We did flush a number of hens which motivated us to return the second day and hunt more locations in this large 6,000+ acre location. Day Two we found an excellent small creek with lot's of brush and high grass terain along the shoreline. Murphy tracked and flushed our first rooster of the trip. We also decided this locatin will be a good one to return to next year as we only covered a small amount of the land bordering this creek.

Day Three we checked out two parcels of private land that Matt got permission to hunt on. We'd been on them last year and our confidence level was high. As we drove out to Fairfield we saw several roosters along side the road, further addign to our excitement.

The first farm we hit Murphy immediately tracked several pheasants and flsushed one which was unfortunately too far to get a good shot. After that a couple hens got flushefd. Finally, in a large marshy field that just screamed "pheasants!" Murphy flushed a beautiful rooster. I took a shoot, missed, and then a second. The rooster was pretty high up, a good 15-20 yards p and away from me so when the second staggered the bird I was super excited. The bird laned and immediately started running but Murphy was having none of it, pursuing and grabbing it. Our first of the day and a beauty he was with a 21" tail feather.

Murphy flushed one more rooster in this field but it was too far to get a good shot off. We decided to grab a bit of lunch and head to the second private parcel. This area we knew would hold a lot of birds. We were not disapointed.

We arrived and set up, Matt on the south side of a berm, me on the north side twenty yards away, and Murphy 15 feet below us working the mashy wetland created by the berm. We were ready because last year this spot started producing immediately. And it did again - not ten yards into our hunt and Murphy flushed a rooster, plus another three! Four roosters, two flying toward Matt and two toward me. I shot and missed, but Matt hit one of two and we had our second bird of the morning. Not long after that bird number three was flushed at the end of the berm. He was flying low and was rather small. I hesitated because of the smaller size thinking it was a hen, but then saw the tail and let fire, dropping him for bird number three of the day. We continued on across a large field and worked our way back along another berm. This time Murphy pointed and flushed a nice rooster which Matt shot down. Number four. We walked up to the start of the same berm and walked the outside edge. This time Murphy was ranging off to the right of Matt when a rooster flushed as I was walking to Matt's left. I heard Matt yell out "rooster!" and spun to my left. Matt shot and missed. I fired once and then again at a pretty good distance as the bird dropped from the sky for number five.

By this time we decided to hunt one more time at our first field, hoping it had been rested and birds had moved back into likely holding locations. Murphy was pretty tired after day three of hunting, but he gamely set forth as we had hopes of getting one more pheasant for our six bird daily limit. We walked across a field and started working down another good looking berm with marsh foilage in the base. As we got to the very end of the berm Murphy started getting "birdy" and and then froze and locked on a brush area. Matt was ready and Murphy flushed the bird. Matt made a great shot at a receeding bird and just like that we had our daily limit of six birds!

All in all it was another great pheasant hunting trip with my son. Another adventure in the memory books!

TrackerPro16

10/22/2017 4:28:10 PM

Good report! Always fun to watch the hunting dogs doing their work. I am not sure our two are going to get any hunting work this year as we have a bunch of stuff going on. Not to mention it has been hard to find many in Washington these days without lease land or private.

bob johansen

10/22/2017 5:36:05 PM

you may have to change the name of this site to. "Northwest Hunting and Fishing Reports." A lot of Fishermen are also hunters. I hunted big game for a lifetime.

Amx

10/22/2017 6:23:21 PM

Ya, what rod and lure did you use to catch that limit? LOL

Jimbo

10/23/2017 11:14:21 AM

Sweet, fly material right there, hope U kept.

MotoBoat

10/24/2017 10:32:08 AM

Along with the magnificent colors of a Mature, long tailed Roster, something else begs attention.......long, sharp, ivory tipped spurs! Those 3 traits define a 2 or 3 yo Bird. Oh, size too!

Experiencing a self taught bird dog mature from one season to the next, honing there craft, is something really special too!

I have had 3 GSP's. One of which lived to be 16 1/2yo, passing just last year. He was the most impressive tracking dog (no formal training, he taught himself) I have had the honor of hunting with. I would keep him in the area where the bird fell. But he would occasionally run off. Finally, I let him do just that as I searched the brush for that bird. Deciding the search was futile, I watched that dog track, point...........release, track, point 3 times. Then, release, pick up the bird and run back a 100 yards or more to my location. There were numerous occasions of this in WA, and ND.

One such wild ND Pheasant ran a fence line ditch over 100 yards on two broken legs. My dog had pointed and released himself a half dozen times before the bird gave up. During the retrieve my dog dropped the bird just short of my outreached hand and the bird ran under the barbed wire fence, crossing a 30 ft wide ditch, up onto a access road and was headed for fence row ditch on opposite side of access road with my dog in hot pursuit. That bird was running on his knees, both feet flopping behind as that Rooster ran. Amazingly resilient, tough birds.

Mike Carey

10/24/2017 4:39:00 PM

wow, great story! I definitely have another addiction. Pheasant hunting has many of the attributes of fishing. Very fortunate to be able to enjoy and partake of it. We who enjoy the out of doors be it fishing or hunting are very blessed indeed.

TrackerPro16

10/24/2017 5:11:10 PM

Wrong gun for Pheasant hunting though. Only 'real' shotgun has the barrels side by side...

Mike Carey

10/25/2017 7:27:38 AM

LOL, elitism is part of hunting too, ha! I'm blissfully ignorant of such things. :-)

downriggeral

10/24/2017 9:56:39 PM

Nice Mike you brought back lots of great memories with my dad and our German Shorthair hunting pheasants. They are so beautiful and wiley!
Thanks so much for sharing even though you weren't fishing, Alan

Lobsterbait83

10/25/2017 6:43:25 AM

When did fish grow feathers and learn to fly bahaha

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