My Christmas/ Valentines Day present

[rjm158]

My wife told me at Christmas that my present was going to be late and it was too big for a box. I let it ride and, quite frankly, had forgotten about it until yesterday when she announced out of the blue that I was going on a pheasant hunting trip with my two stepsons. She knew I have always wanted to hunt pheasants but they aren't indigenous to where I live in Missouri. My youngest stepson and some if his inlaws had gone to a preserve about 40 miles away last fall and said it was great. So, whenever we can get everyone's schedules to coincide, we're going to try it ourselves.

In my teens and 20's I hunted quail with my dad but lack of birds and difficulty walking brought on by his age ended that. I haven't been upland hunting since. I plan on using his shotgun (Remington Sportsman 58 12 ga) so I'll sorta have him with me.

For members who have far more experience than I, do you have suggestions as to ammo/shot size? They don't require steel shot which is great because the barrel of my dad's gun isn't suitable for that.

Thanks in advance.

Ron

 

[wvbuckbuster]

Sounds like a nice present and forth coming hunt. My only experience on ringnecks was going with a friend to a preserve to hunt chuckers that he wanted to hunt for training his dog. The people that ran the place and put out the birds told us if we ran across any ringnecks to have at them. As it turned out the dog pointed 2 of them, flushed and I got both using a Weatherby 20ga shooting 1 0z #6 . Folded both about 30yds, clean kills. So, with your 12 ga #5 or #6 should work fine. Dan.

 

[Blkram]

Congrats on the hunt! What a gift!

While I haven't had a chance to hunt pheasants specifically, I did try a couple of stalks on them with the compound bow while I was hunting antelope in E Alberta. Didn't get a shot opportunity...
I have since acquired ammo for pheasant for the 28 ga. and it is made with #5 shot, so that would seem to be a good choice for the 12 ga???
If/when I get back down that way on another antelope hunt, I will be taking the shotgun too for pheasant and Huns.

I'm sure there are others here that can provide more advice from actual experience.

 

[JD338]

Congratulations on your upcoming hunt. Sounds like you fellas are going to have a great time.
12 ga 1 1/4 oz field loads with #5 or #6 will get it done. I'm guessing you have a modified choke.
Looking forward to seeing pictures of your hunt.

JD338

 

[rjm158]

JD, you're right, it's a fixed modified choke. I failed to include that info in my original post. This gun is from the late 60s, the predecessor to the 1100. My dad used it to kill squirrels rabbits, quail, a wild pheasant once that flushed when quail hunting, and even coyotes. It was his favorite for many, many, years.

Thank you guys for the info. That helps me get an idea of what to look for. I'm going to look through ammo he had and see if there's anything workable there.

Ron

 

[JD338]

Federal Prairie Storm is pretty good stuff. My wife uses it in 20 ga 3" #5 for turkey.

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JD338

 

[RL338]

Sounds like she got you a perfect gift. Good luck to you and your stepsons.

 

[salmonchaser]

Good lord I normally agree with Jim but don’t use the prairie storm. On wild late season birds in big open country it makes sense. Preserve birds you’re going to shred them. When I was guiding upland birds I asked the guys not to bring them, just too much of a good thing with slow flushing birds. Any good load, fives or sixes going 1350 or so fps will work just great. Don’t get cheap field loads. The cheep stuff is going 1150 or so and tends to cripple birds. Have a great time.

 

[rjm158]

Today my stepsons and I went on our pheasant hunt. The guy who runs the site said he was one pheasant short of the promised number so he substituted 3 chukars. This suited us just fine as none if us had hunted them before.

We had an absolute blast! We used a chocolate lab named Echo who was great and we ended the hunt with 14 pheasant and 3 chukars.

Ron

 

[salmonchaser]

Outstanding, sounds like a great day. Echo must have had those chukar figured out.

 

[RL338]

Looks like a well deserved gift

 

[rjm158]

Salmonchaser, actually today was the first time he'd ever seen one. He REALLLLLY wanted to keep one to play with for a while but his owner had other ideas.

Ron

 

[truck driver]

That sounded like a whole lot of fun and something I haven't done for years since no till farming and the birds cover destroyed so more crops could be grown have seen the wild birds become extinct around here.
I still let the fence row behind my home grow wild but over spray of chemicals has slowly taken its toll from no till farming.
Pheasants and Quail no longer exist here and Doves are few and far between.

 

[JD338]

Looks like a fun and successful hunt, congratulations.

JD338

 

[KinleyWater]

Looks like a great time. Kudos to the owner for making things straight for you.