By Boomer the intrepid bird dog

Author: Hi, Mr. Quail, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

Quail: What are you going to do if I say no, shoot me?

Author: No, of course not. One of the rules of journalism is “never shoot the interviewee.”

Boomer: Would you mind if I just picked you up gently and carried you around?

Quail: Over my dead body, drooly whisker face!

Author: Please you two, knock it off. Mr. Quail, may I call you “Bob?”

Quail: My name is not “Bob White,” it is Colinus virginianus. “Bob White” is the human way of describing one of the calls I make. You may call me “Colinus.” more…

By Howard (Skip) Schwartz

Talk about peculiar! How do you go pheasant hunting without a gun, using just your hands and wits? The following true story will tell you how. It took place mid-winter in rural Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, back in the 1950s. My two young brothers and I headed out to a creek known to harbor a small, scattered pheasant population. Our transportation was our legs. No lunch, no thermos, no guns! We were poor back then, looking for food and some fun. Our parents really looked forward to us bringing home some meat for the freezer. Would we succeed?

Photo by Roger Hill.

Our story begins with the three of us slowly trudging along in knee-deep snow in pursuit of our favorite game, the wily pheasant. Our “hot spot” for pheasants was a winding creek bed surrounded by harvested cornfields. Jim and I being the younger two, walked along one bank, and our older brother, Dick, walked along the other. Hand gestures were our main form of communication since any loud noise would scare the pheasants away. We moved cautiously — no voice contact and no quick moves. We looked in front of us, to the sides and down the shallow ravine. We searched, not for a pheasant at first, but its tracks. We’d learned that after a snowstorm, pheasants would look for food, but would often hole up mid-day in protected areas like ravines. Finding their tracks was key to hunting them down.

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