“This is it?” Billy asked as we drove down a gravel road past a row of about a dozen other vehicles. We were arriving at Denman Wildlife Area, a 1,800-acre swath of land in Eagle Point controlled by ODFW. Billy, Steve, and I were all there for one reason: opening day of pheasant hunting. We’d never hunted pheasant before. In fact, Billy had never hunted anything before today.
We drove as close as we could to a faded yellow gate and parked between two pickup trucks. As we got out, I took a look around. The lights from the surrounding factories shone in the distance as their smokestacks billowed, and various cars barreled down the estranged highways that bordered the hunting grounds on all fronts. I had been here two days earlier to scout the area and decided to come back, considering that the state stocked Denmen with pheasants for this hunt. It was much busier than it had been a few days prior. In addition to the lively surroundings, there were at least 20 other hunters with dogs lined up on both sides of the trail that cut through the tall, tawny grass beyond the gate. They were staring at their watches, patiently waiting for legal shooting hours. While taking in my newfound suburban hunting environment, a fight broke out between two hunting dogs.
We were not used to hunting heavily pressured areas. Sure, on occasion, one might run into a person or two while deer or grouse hunting in the mountains, but it was pretty easy to find areas in Southern Oregon where one could hunt without being bothered. This was chaos, to say the least. We all grabbed our shotguns, a couple of handfuls of #6, and headed as far down the trail away from the mob of retirees as we could.
After walking past a horde of old men and their dogs, it was hard not to be discouraged. Regardless, I was there to hunt. After all, I told my boss I had a dentist appointment that morning, so I wouldn’t be available until noon. A morning in the field beats a morning working, regardless of success on a hunt.
Our group split up once we were about 200 yards past the last pair of hunters on the trail. We spread out among the vast expanse of hip-height grass and buck brush. Within minutes of splitting up, I heard multiple gunshots in the distance. “Damn,” I thought to myself. Then I heard a gunshot that was significantly closer. It had to be someone in my party.
I turned my head in the direction I had heard the shot come from, and to my surprise, a rooster pheasant glided effortlessly over the landscape, coming into perfect view of the surrounding mountains as the sun rose. For a moment, I forgot I was on a plot in the center of an industrial area. I shouldered my over and under, clicked the safety off, put my bead on the rooster’s beak, and squeezed the trigger. I lifted my cheek from the stock of the shotgun and watched as the bird plummeted to the ground. Another shot rang fairly close as I approached my kill. My eyes stayed locked on where the bird landed to avoid losing him since I was without a dog. I picked up the multi-colored bird and placed him in the rear pocket of my game vest, then headed toward the nearby shots.
Within thirty minutes of this hunt, we all bagged one bird. We hiked around for a couple of hours, trying to spook game out of the brush, then called it a day. While field-dressing our birds by Steve’s vehicle, an old timer came up to us. “I spent $2,000 on this dog, and I’m going home empty-handed. At least you boys bagged something,” he said, shaking his head. “God damned industrial pheasants.”
