First Chukars!

Great pheasant and chukar hunt!

I maximized my time off this weekend. Here’s a quick summary:

• Hunted deer in Delaware Thanksgiving morning with no success.
• Woodcock hunted Friday morning and shot with my hunting partner Curt. We each harvested one woodcock.
• Archery hunted Delaware deer Friday evening. Saw nothing.
• Hunted stocked pheasants and chukars on Saturday morning. Had a phenomenal hunt. I shot 3 pheasants. Better than that, my daughter went with me and shot 3 chukars. Great stuff!
• Deer hunted Saturday afternoon on the opening day of Maryland gun season. Saw 3 does, but they were out of shotgun range.
• Deer hunted Sunday morning in Maryland. Saw 5 does, but they, too, were out of range.

Steven M. Kendus and Gus with woodcocks and a pheasant

Curt with a snipe (front) and a woodcock (back).

My hunting partner Curt and I hunted birds yesterday with my vizsla Gus. What a phenomenal day.

We arrived at our first public woodcock hunting honey hole around 7:30 AM when frost was just starting to melt off of the fallen leaves in the sapling thickets. Within about 10 minutes, Gus pointed his first woodcock. The bird flew before we could get close to it, but 5 minutes later, Gus pointed him again. I flushed the bird, got off one shot, and dropped the bird to the ground.

As we moved through the saplings, Gus was finding birds in some really thick cover. Curt missed his first few birds, which must have been contagious because I started missing. With Gus pointing a high number of birds, we managed to redeem ourselves. Within two hours, we had 5 woodcocks, although Gus point at least a dozen.

Curt has been itching to hunt snipe for years, so we changed our plans and went after snipe. Gus has never hunted snipe before, but we were finding them on the edges of damp fields. At a prime snipe spot, we jumped a pair right off the bat. I wasn’t paying attention when they flew, so I missed them completely. Curt got a few shots off, but didn’t hit any. We drove to another spot, stepped out of the truck, walked 5 yards, and busted another snipe up! No one shot because of the location near the road. As we walked the field, we jumped 6 more snipes, and Curt knocked one down. Beautiful!

Coincidentally, while woodcock and snipe hunting on New Jersey public ground, we came across some pheasants. Gus pointed one, but the bird ran straight out to the marsh and we lost him. Thirty minutes later, he pointed another one. The big rooster flushed, and I dropped him with one shot. While we were taking the photos of the woodcocks and pheasant, another pheasant began walking from the hedgerow right into the field we were in! Gus and I went up to get a shot, but the rooster flew the opposite way from us, presenting us with no shot.

Although it is the heart of the rut, our bird hunt was going so well we decided to forego deer hunting and put in a full day on birds. Gus, Curt, and I were all exhausted, but it was well worth it.

2010 Opening Day Limit of New Jersey Woodcocks

Whoa. I didn’t think I could top some of my phenomenal woodcock hunts from last year.  It didn’t take long. I topped then on opening day!

My daughter, my dog Gus, and I hunted woodcocks on opening day of woodcock season in New Jersey today. It was great. There was frost and heavy dew on the saplings, which made for a wet hunt, but birds were everywhere.

Gus pointed a woodcock within five minutes, but it flushed before I could get close to it. I fired two shot to no avail. The saplings we hunted were so thick that Gus pointed multiple birds, but we just couldn’t make our ways through the brush to get good shots. I changed tactics and just walked around the perimeter of the sapling thickets. Within 35 minutes, I had a limit of 3 woodcocks. In all, Gus pointed and/or flushed 12 woodcocks. Beautiful! At one point, 4 woodcocks were grouped together and they flushed in pairs. It was a sight to behold.

I may head back out this afternoon to try for some pheasants.