Upland Hunting

"Preserving" the Birding Tradition

Upland hunting is often thought of as the ultimate
gunning sport. You’re there to enjoy the grouse woods,
or the stubble fields, or the quail coverts with good companions, good guns, and, best of all, good dogs. A
bird or six at the end of the day is just gravy. The down
side is that wild-bird seasons seem to get shorter every
year. But you can extend your upland gunning enjoyment at
any of the thousands of private-enterprise hunting clubs
now found in every state.

As often the case when upland hunting, the two dogs wee really going birdy around the edges of a nearly impenetrable tangle of gotcha bushes. If the pheasant hadn’t lost its nerve it might still be there. Instead it made a dash into some nearby sorghum, which proved to be its undoing.

Gwynn, just three years old at the time, had the bird pinned in no time flat. Not a hair moved when she tightened over that bird. Steve’s dog Rusty honored beautifully from five or six steps behind.

It was a shame to break the tableau, but somebody finally flushed the bird and the guns rang out. On command the dogs raced to retrieve the downed ringneck.

That’s the way upland hunting should be. Alas, nowadays, it rarely is. Steadily shrinking habitat, modern farming methods, a lack of birds, and limited upland hunting time often add up to a totally different picture---one of slogging for long hours through mud and brambles, without ever seeing a bird. Or maybe a small covey flushes wild a hundred yards away.

The solution lies in hunting preserves and shooting clubs; private tracts of land stocked with birds and managed for upland hunting. They’ve been springing up across the country like mushrooms after a spring rain. And, like it or not, they may be the last bastions of quality bird hunting for most of us.

Some hunters still sneer at the idea of “tame birds from manicured fields.” I used to feel that way myself, especially after my first experience with a so-called hunt club. Turned out to be a farmer using birds as a cash crop. You couldn’t hunt until after he’d brought in his corn or beans. Then he’d release about 500 pheasants weekly onto 350 fairly denuded acres. Birds were everywhere. You tripped on them. The dogs couldn’t work because scent lay heavy all over the place. This wasn’t true upland hunting, it was a strange way of slaughtering poultry.

Although there are, unfortunately, still clubs like that around they are, thankfully, untypical. Today’s hunt clubs are, by and large, dedicated to providing a quality hunting experience. Cover and food plots are planted to maintain the natural setting upland hunters are used to. And most members are not, contrary to popular belief and the propaganda of animal rightists, there to shoot a lot of birds. The bird shooting, of itself, is merely frosting on the cake. Hunt club members, nowadays, are looking for a way they can hunt with their sons the way they hunted with their fathers. The want their sons (and, more and more, daughters) to experience what it’s like to hunt well, with good dogs working great cover, a golden cast to the fall air, and the birds flying. They have a love affair going with dogs and guns and bore solvents, and maybe even a toddy or two when the shooting is done.

In short, upland hunting preserves offer gunning the way you remember it. Or maybe just the way you would like to remember it. Remember that pheasant we shagged out of the thorn bushes? You don’t find wild pheasants in Kentucky at all. But the clubs provide lots of options, including quail, chukar partridge, Hungarian partridge, and ring-necked pheasant among the more common offerings. So, another benefit, is that you get to hunt “exotic” birds without incurring the time or cost of travel.

Given my druthers I’d rather hunt wild birds than stocked birds. But, like everybody else, I don’t always have the time to travel to a place where the hunting is good. Indeed, given the way things are going, I’m hard pressed to even identify such a place anymore.

When it comes to training a kid or a dog or even an adult new to upland hunting, you want lots of birds---which is hardly the case anywhere nowadays except on the preserves. Not only do you control the number of possible targets, you can control where they’ll be.

I well remember when Friend Wife first agreed to accompany me on a bird hunt. I wanted to make sure it was an enjoyable experience. If she was going to get interested in gunning, I figured, there must be some good dog work, and a bird or three. We headed to a hunt club run by friends of mine, where I knew I could control the hunt from start to finish.

We crossed ground she could easily handle (no slogging through the mud) where I knew there were birds (because we’d placed them there), and that Sam, the greatest English Setter to ever put nose to ground, would find them for her. Net result: An enjoyable experience for her, and a new hunting partner for me.

That first hunt took place in late September, long before the season on wild birds opened. And that’s yet another benefit to upland hunting preserves. They have extended seasons, usually running from September to March. Which provide you with additional chances to hunt upland birds---a distinct advantage nowadays, when we all have limited free time.

To be sure, all of this takes money. So hunting a preserve isn’t something you want to do every weekend. But, for a once or twice a season change, it’s worth the cost. At least I find it so.

Give a preserve a try this year. You may find that the price is right for you, too.