If you’re gonna hunt pheasants in the rain…

I hate pouring-down rain. If I have to be outside, or even if I choose to be outside, pouring-down rain is my least favorite weather. That, and frozen rain. Grick.

So, guess what kind of weather we typically get in December in western Oregon? You got it. Pouring-down rain. But this winter, we’ve been beguiled. It’s been dry and cold, not wet. So a hunting trip down in the Umpqua River valley seemed perfect for our Christmas vacation.

The Big K Ranch is a beautiful place. It’s just the place to go when you want a lovely setting, great hospitality, comfortable cabins, delicious food, and good pheasant hunting. That’s my kind of hunting trip.

Russ hunting in front of the Big K lodge and cabins

We had all of that, plus pouring-down rain. But if you’re gonna hunt in the rain, you better take an Irish Water Spaniel. Or two. Plus a Boykin Spaniel for variety, and friends for good company.

Norm and Scarlett, the Boykin Spaniel, quartering the field

We hunted two fields, each about 100 acres. The first run, we took Scarlett, handled by Norm, with Russ and Kent as gunners. Scarlett bounded, jumping up and over the cover, quartering the field. She flushed one pheasant, which got away, and then found two or three additional birds. But as you know, it was pouring down rain. The pheasants didn’t want to fly in the rain, so they ran along the ground. Scarlett gave chase, but the pheasants were faster, and ran into the thick, thorny brambles that filled a ditch along the center of the field.

Cooper hunted the second field, with me as handler in the center of the field and Russ and Kent again at the edges as gunners. Cooper found his first rooster, which did its best to run and then fly away low. Cooper fired his afterburner, and after almost getting the bird several times, pulling out tail feathers with each grab, he finally caught the bird and delivered it to me alive.

That experience turned the lightbulb on over Cooper’s head. Wow! There are birds out here! Over the next hour or so, he quartered the field and flushed three more pheasants. One got away, but two were shot, retrieved, and delivered.

Russ and Kent admiring Cooper's pheasants

Toward the end of the morning, the rain lightened up just a bit, and we decided to take Tooey out into the field that Scarlett had hunted earlier that morning. Tooey has sometimes been really excited about birds, but other times she’s been sort of ho-hum. So we decided just to see what would happen. Tooey quartered the field beautifully, without much handling. She’d run to one side of the field, get to that gunner, and then turn around to run to the other side.

I’d say that Tooey was mostly just out to see what was out there, maybe a mouse or a vole (she likes critters). But at one point, she trotted out past the edge of the field we were working and into the cover off to the side. And wow! She flushed her first pheasant! Russ shot it, and Tooey raced off to retrieve it and deliver it to hand, just like we’ve been training.

Tooey looking pleased with her first pheasant

We hunted a bit more, but by that time we were all tired and dripping wet. But happy. Handling my dogs and watching them work in concert with the gunners made me forget all about the rain.

Wet gunner, wet dogs, wet pheasants -- but who cares about the rain?

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