By Sierra Amundson

Ryan Amundson and his daughter Sierra with her first gobbler bagged last April near Wheatland, Wyoming.

OK, so I’m not your average 11-year-old girl. I wear camo more than skirts. I’d rather ride my horse than play with Barbie, and I watch the Outdoor Channel instead of Disney.

I’ve gone hunting with my dad, Ryan, since I was in diapers. I passed the Wyoming hunter safety course two years ago and started carrying a shotgun myself and hunting birds last fall. In my short hunting career, I’ve harvested a couple mourning doves, a Canada goose and white tailed deer.

This story is about my first turkey hunt last spring in southeast Wyoming with my dad.

On a Friday night after school, we went to the property we would be hunting and ‘roosted’ some birds before dark – that is we heard them gobble from the roost so we knew where they would be in the morning when the season started.

Dad’s wake-up call came early the next morning, and we were in th more…

Hannah with her first Missouri squirrel

The morning dew glistened underfoot as Grandpa, my guide for my first Kentucky squirrel hunt, and I crossed a large pasture into the woods. I was visiting for Christmas from Mississippi and was intent on getting my first fox squirrel.

We walked almost noiselessly when Grandpa suddenly halted and soundlessly pointed to my left. I followed his gaze and my heart jumped to my throat as a large fox squirrel, big as a cat, ran along the top of an old stone fence. I nodded in agreement to try to get him, clicked my safety off, and waited until he stopped on a bare limb.

As I pulled the trigger of my pump 20 gauge, there was an almost inaudible click as the gun failed to go off. With my jaw clenched tight together in disappointment and frustration, I realized I had not properly seated a shell. By this time, the wary squirrel had skittered into a nearby hole. more…

By Christine Dimke

When the alarm goes off in the morning, it is always a struggle of will.

“Do I go pheasant hunting or do I roll over, pull up the covers and go back to sleep?”

As music blares out of the radio, I decide to just get up and see if dad is awake. If not, then I can go back to sleep. Of course, he’s been up for an hour preparing and I’d better get going or we’ll be late.

I fall back into bed and the dream begins………I sigh and think of how cold it is this morning and how warm my bed is. I go get my stuff and remember my hat to cover my ‘disaster zone’ hair since I did not and will not brush it this morning. That is how it all starts.

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by Dave Books

A friend and I were hunting pheasants along a marshy lakeshore when my black Lab, Jenny, perked up her ears. We got ready for a rooster to flush as she charged ahead into the mud and shallow water. Suddenly, a small brown bird with a long bill burst out of the reeds, flying low and making a noise like a rusty gate. We watched as the little bird flew rapidly across the marsh, twisting from side to side, uttering Scape! Scape!

The author with Mearns quail.

“Jacksnipe,” I said to my friend Joe. “Why didn’t you shoot? The season’s open.”

“Same reason you didn’t,” he laughed. “I was expecting a rooster pheasant, not a Wilson’s snipe.”

“Wilson’s snipe? I thought they were called jacksnipe,” I said.

Joe is a botanist and an avid bird-watcher. When it comes to plants and birds, he knows his stuff. “The snipe is named for Alexander Wilson,” he said. “Wilson was a naturalist and artist who came to America from Scotland in the late 1700s. He traveled around collecting and painting birds, and eventually wrote a book about them.”

At that point Jenny began to whine and give us her “What are we waiting for?” look.

“Okay, Jenny,” I said. “Find us another bird.”

“Where there’s one snipe, there should be more,” Joe said. “They’re migrating south this time of year.” 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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