While I’m busy prepping for the upcoming hunting season I’m also busy trying to clear out the freezers in hopes of re-filling them soon. I had a few pheasants left from last winter and decided to try something new with them after doing some variation on smoked pheasant for the last several. We had some Shrimp Creole a few weeks ago and are inundated with tomatoes from the garden at the moment so that inspired me to make Pheasant Creole last night and it was awesome plus I did it in the slow cooker so it didn’t heat the house up too much on a hot day.
Tag Archives: Pheasant
Looking forward to next season
Hunting season pretty much ended at the end of last month when turkey season closed here in Washington. Of course, tag hunting season was still ongoing and I just finally received word of all those efforts and am getting ready for next season. Last year was really my first true hunting season. The year before when I decided take up hunting again it was limited to a few pheasant hunting trips but in 2016-17 it got much more serious. I ended up the season with 30 days of hunting in total, 23 days of pheasant hunting, 5 days of deer hunting and 2 days of turkey hunting. Overall, I was pretty successful, I must have taken about three dozen birds, one Mule Deer buck and two Merriam’s turkeys. I managed to gather enough food that we have been eating wild game a few days a week since last fall. Add in fish that I catch and we are just under half our food supply now from hunting and fishing.
First snow for Lira
Playing before the hunting starts
It had been a week since the Western Washington pheasant season closed and a friend came to town with his dog so we decided to head over the pass with a small group, brave the cold and do a hunt at Cooke Canyon with the dogs this week. I was a bit worried about Lira in the cold and snow so got her a neoprene vest to wear and decided to see what would happen. When we got the dogs out of the truck they both basically went crazy running around in the snow chasing each other. Lira had Reagan by the tail much of the time. Snow seemed to be no problem.
Why I’m sticking with my 20 for the rest of the year
I currently own two shotguns – a 20-gauge that I bought last year and a 12-gauge that I bought this year. Both are Benellis. The 20 a Montefeltro and the 12 an Ethos. I’d been alternating guns a bit this season but recently noticed a trend. When I carry the 12 gauge I don’t see any birds. I mean none. I haven’t even fired a shot out of that thing in the field. When I carry the 20-gauge I see birds and have shot all my birds this year with it. Now I’m superstitious and am sticking to the 20 the rest of the season.
Lots of bird hunting this past month
In the last month since I got home from my Idaho deer hunt I’ve been spending a lot of time out bird hunting with Lira. So much time, in fact, that I haven’t been fishing for a month now. We’ve been spending time at Cooke Canyon in Ellensburg and several of the Snoqualmie Wildlife Areas on the west side. Lira has gotten better and better at finding birds, holding point and retrieving over this month, it has been really fun just watching her progress. She’s also graduated from needing to be leashed up to being able to be free and, for the most part she listens. She definitely would just as soon go out and play with other dogs as hunt though, it takes some prodding and a few zaps to get her out of play mode into hunt mode first thing in the morning.