I had to use what little cover I 
had and walk along a small pine 
belt that had a fence running 
along it, with pockets of ink berry 
for food and plenty of cover to 
retreat too.  As I walked down the 
fence line and birds flew off or 
ran in all directions, I came to a 
small hill and crept up to peer over 
and see two pheasants feeding 
in the open about 40m away.
As I got closer one bird saw 
me and jumped up as I hit it 
just off the ground with my 
Winchester semiauto 12ga, when 
the other bird also got a fright 
to almost instantly go to flight 
and I hit it on the second shot!
While I soon gathered my attention 
after such quick action, I noticed 
the first bird was just winged and 
started to run so I fired another 
shot to try and stop it, but it was 
now over 50m away.  I used the 
last shot to put the other bird down 
which too was flapping away as 
I didn’t want to lose both birds.
If only I still had Ruby, my uncle’s 
gundog, she would have raced 
off and caught the fleeing cock 
pheasant. Sadly, she passed 
away at the end of last year. 
Hunting without a gundog can be 
challenging, but at least I still came 
away with a pheasant.  A double 
rise would have been top shelf, and 
I was annoyed to blow my chance.
"I picked up a large rock and pine cone to throw in the 
scrubby gorse patch under the large pines to make some 
noise and scare it out, but nothing.  This is when you really 
want a dog to track it and flush the cock from its cover!"
Wattle trees also have seeds 
that pheasant favour.
68  FISHING IN GODZONE MAGAZINE
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