North Dakota's pheasant opener greeted us with cold windy weather, with a little snow. Combined with lower bird numbers, this opening weekend felt more like a late season hunt than it normally does. Two friends, a son of one, and our chocolate lab rounded out our group. We ended up taking four pheasants opening day, and five the next. That is a far cry from the daily limit of twelve that we were gunning for. My gun failed to shoot on the second shot a few times, making shooting the Franchi Renaissance not the pleasant experience it is supposed to be. (It was just sent back to Franchi for repair.) I was wishing I had kept my 11-87 26".
Of course, we missed our share also. But shooting our limit really wasn't possible with the number of birds we had within range.
Last weekend, we decided to try it again. Another 5 hour drive, and we were back in pheasant country. Giving the birds two weeks to educate themselves, we knew that it had the possibility to be even tougher than the opener. It really wasn't as we ended up with eight birds in two days, but with three shooters and a dog instead of four. We also did quite a bit of exploring new areas, and hunting the PLOTS land that is open to the public. I must commend the ND Game & Fish Dept for this excellent program. Two weeks into season, there were plenty of birds to be found in PLOTS if you were willing to work for them. Hundreds of acres of CRP, entire sections of it open to public hunting, gave pheasants plenty of cover, and plenty of area to skirt around the three of us and the dog. She worked her tail off, and put birds in front of us. We hit about half and recovered all we hit. We walked about ten miles on that Saturday, including some very beautiful country around the Heart River.
One of the highlights was watching my dog Coco chase down a jack rabbit! Not that she is supposed to be! but she broke ranks and gave it her all, much to my dismay. Just as she came with a foot of him, the jack turned quickly. She tried to make the turn and just rolled. But it wasn't but a few seconds later as the jack was going past us again she caught up! He was getting tired, and that just egged her on. None of my previous dogs have ever been able to even get close to them, but here she was closing in fast! The jack dodged again, she avoided the roll and was now again within a foot. Up into the side of a waterhole duggout the jack ran with Coco right on his tail, and then just disappeared. It took her about two seconds to figure out he had piled down a hole and she hadn't actually ran over him. By the time I got over there she had dug him out. I do not look forward to our next encounter with a jack. There will be no stopping her.
I'm trying to set up a shotgun for my young sons. I have an 870 Express in 28 gauge with a 24 1/2" barrel. I need to put a youth stock on it, I think a 12" pull will work well for them as the older two that shoot a bit are 8 and 10. Perhaps a Youth model 20 gauge is in the future.
