If you live in Ohio and you pheasant hunt, you’re out of luck. But if you want to travel and have a relaxing hunting experience without crowds, let me share what I found for myself.
By Ray Reilly for Press Pros
It’s November. And the sad part about November for outdoorsmen in Ohio is there’s not much to do if you aren’t a deer hunter. And if you are, you’d better know someone who owns land and is willing to let you hunt.
Plain and simple, even in a state polluted with too many whitetails – even in the city parks – it’s not that easy to hunt anymore, even for the purpose of herd management.
And if you’re an upland hunter don’t even bother unless, again, you’re privileged to know someone with property they’re willing to let you hunt. Rabbits and squirrels, mostly, because there are no wild pheasants left in Ohio except for minute patches in northwest Ohio and south central, along the Scioto River. It’s estimated that there’s fewer than 5,000 wild pheasants remaining in all 88 counties.
That’s the bad news.
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The good news is…if you can afford to travel, and have the time, there are places in the Dakotas and Montana, both public and private, where you can see beautiful country and hunt to your heart’s content. It’s simply a matter of how committed you are to find that right place, and to adjust your priorities.
My phone rang last August and a friend from Houston, Minnesota asked me about all of the above. Would I like to go pheasant hunting? Am I willing to commit a week? And would I spend $3,000, minimum, everything included, for a quality private pheasant hunt without a lot of other hunters?
$3,000?
My mind instantly flashed back to the days of walking picked corn fields in northeast Ohio as a twelve-year-old and shooting all the roosters you could carry with my dad and uncle…for free. “Just don’t shoot a cow,” my Uncle Dick would say. I shot my first pheasant in one of those fields and carried it by the feet for the rest of the day. I couldn’t take my eyes off its iridescent colors, and was really upset when Dad and Uncle Dick starting jerking the feathers off it when they cleaned and packaged the birds, afterwards.
“Hey, you want to go, or not?” Jack Hesson repeated, interrupting my daydream. “You can write it off. And I guarantee you a good time and a good experience. People that I know have been to this place and they recommend it highly. Get out of your rut and let’s go. We have to reserve our spot.”
Three months later I flew to Minneapolis, from there we drove to Pierre, South Dakota and headed southwest towards Jones County and the farm of Al and Susan Schmidt, about a 90 mile drive, I think, by the crow’s route. We found it on a country gravel road near Newlin, along a small twisting river, and pulled up a long neatly maintained driveway to a beautiful two-story house with nicely-kept out buildings. The Schmidts were there to greet us and instantly I knew something was different about this, compared to past hunting trips.
In a house that resembled a B&B, we each had our own rooms upstairs and all the space in the world. Dinner was prepared by the time we had unpacked and we sat down to one of the best meals of my life. Afterwards we visited in the living room in front of a warm fire and proceeded to get the lay of the land.
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The Schmidts were retired cattle people on almost two thousand acres of land. “And we had two choices when we got out of big cow business,” Al said. “Sell the family farm, or make it into something that’s both desirable and profitable. We made it into a pheasant ranch, but on our terms. We still have some cows, but it’s limited.”
The terms?
“We host one group per week, four people maximum, for a three-day hunt, room, meals, everything included. It’s strictly wild birds, and people are usually happy with what they find?”
Usually?
“Yes, it’s strictly wild,” Al added. “There are no pen-raised birds here. There’s only habitat and management. We attract birds because we have habitat. We don’t release. There are good years, and there are some that aren’t as good. It’s hunting the way hunting should be. You’ll find birds, but you’re going to walk. And you may find sharptail grouse along with pheasants. My goal is that by the time the season is over nothing is hunted on the property more than twice. We’ll be up in the field tomorrow by 9 am.”
Suddenly it dawned upon me. Literally, this was a bed and breakfast with pheasant hunting.
“And how many other people do you know who are doing this?” I asked.
“As far as I know, none,” Susan said with a smile. “We have guests from time to time, out of season, but not that many. Just friends that have been here before and want to get away.”
The Schmidts began the project in 2012, and in twelve years the property has become an upland bird paradise with creek basins, cattails, hundreds of acres of bluestem grasses, and about a dozen food plots that are as big as twenty acres, loosely – all spread over 1,800 acres. After the best home-cooked breakfast imaginable, the Schmidts loaded us up in a pair of John Deere Gators the next morning and we headed out towards a creek bottom about a half mile from the ‘big house’. Jack had his Springer Spaniel, Viking (he’s a Vikings fan) and we eased into the weeds and cattails that bordered a quiet creek that went entirely out of sight, if you wanted to walk that far.
“Enjoy yourself,” Susan said with a smile. “We’ll bring you lunch at noon.”
Bring lunch, you say?
“Oh sure,” she said. “There’s no need for you to waste time coming in. I’ll be here.”
“One thing more,” said Al. “What are you guys shootin’…guns, I mean? You’ll see birds, but not clouds of them. Make sure you have enough gun.”
For years I’ve hunted with a Remington 16 gauge 870, and when I pushed shells into it I had no doubts about whether it was enough gun.
Jack, on the other hand, had brought a 20 gauge autoloader and a 12 gauge. He left the 20 gauge in the case and took his 12 gauge Browning.
For the first quarter mile you might have guessed you were hunting on a football field. Great cover, but not birds. Not even a Meadowlark. Finally, Viking went on point, and when we walked in a pair of hens got up, noisily. We continued up the creek for another half mile with nothing except the sound of Viking bouncing around in the cattails. The temperature was in the high 30s, but we were both wet with sweat, growing more dubious by the moment.
“It’s pheasant hunting,” Jack said. “And have you ever seen prettier cover. Enjoy the day and the walk. We’ve already killed enough birds over the years. Smell the roses.”
Moments later the buzzer on Viking’s collar sounded. Jack’s GPS identified her as fifty yards away, and on point. Neither of us were in a hurry as we walked slowly toward her, stopping every few yards to try and see her. It was during one of those stops when the biggest rooster I’d seen in years bore out right under Jack’s feet. He waited until it was at a good shootable range and folded it neatly with one shot from his Browning over and under.
“We’re not skunked,” he said as he started to retrieve the bird. And on his third step the head-high bluestem in front of him exploded with raucous cackling and the thrashing of wings. One…two…three…four…five…probably six roosters and half that number of hens erupted in all directions. Jack fired twice, brought down one of the cockbirds flying directly away from him. And out of the corner of my eye I found a pair of roosters doubling back behind me. I turned to swing on the farthest one and the shot from my 870 dropped him. Jacking in a fresh shell, I saw the other one just in time at about 30 yards, a crossing shot to my right. A second shot brought down the second rooster. Suddenly, we had four birds in forty five minutes and maybe two miles of walking.
What you do is go for the view, and enjoy the added bonus of shooting some birds.
And when we got to the end of what once was a pasture, now sown in prairie grass, off to the right sitting on top of the hill in his Gator was Al, taking it all in with a nod.
By noon we had each collected our third bird of the day and Sue was there, as promised with lunch…grilled tenderloin sandwiches and all the fixins’.
“We’ll strip these birds out here and I have ice in the cooler,” she said. Sliding on a pair of rubber gloves, she pitched right in to help Jack and me clean the birds and get them iced. “Al’s going to show you where he wants you to hunt tomorrow,” she added. “And he’s waiting for us back at the house.”
By Sunday at noon we had our three-day limit, and frankly hated to say goodbye. Everything was as comfortable, convenient, efficient, and predictable as the best pheasant hunting Ohio ever had in the old days – when there were birds. And when you figured in the cost of lodging, meals, license and fee for hunting the property, it was less than the lodges you hear about in on the Outdoor Channel or in the magazines. And, we had the property, the house, and the amenities to ourselves.
“This is better than owning a place,” said Jack. “Imagine the work, the taxes, and the cost of owning that place,” he said as we pulled onto the interstate for home. “And we had the place to ourselves, like being in your own house…no other hunters. Was that not worth more than we paid?”
All in, including my flight, I was in for about $3,500. As good a five days as I could have asked for, and good enough to do again.
There are plenty of opportunities like it, and plenty of prices and ways to do it – many not so plush. But do your diligence and homework. Go to see the country and not clouds of birds. Take your time and let nature do the rest. That was our experience, plain and simple.
‘Til next time, I’ve enjoyed it.
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