Insight: Second Saturdays

Greg Doering, Kansas Farm Bureau

Outside of holidays, the most important date on the calendar when I was growing up was always the second Saturday of November or the traditional opening of pheasant and quail seasons. While I did plenty of quail hunting in east Kansas, we always headed west for the opening day to chase ring-necked pheasants.

While life has interrupted my participation for the last several opening weekends, including this year’s, the memories of past hunts are always on my mind when the time rolls around. Provided we were heading to the far western frontier, pheasant hunting remains the only reason I was ever permitted to leave school early without suffering a dire illness.

Leaving in the early afternoon still meant hours of driving after dark until we arrived at our destination. We’d scroll through AM radio stations and listen to high school football games we didn’t have a rooting interest in.

Lodging arrangements varied from hotels to the spare bedrooms and basement couches of friends and extended families. I still smile when I check in to a hotel that prominently asks guests to refrain from cleaning birds in the rooms. I’ve never done that, but I understand why the signs are there.

We’d rise well before daybreak to make it to the fields, stopping for a quick bite at some breakfast fundraiser held in either a church basement or VFW hall. The food was always good and fellow diners included a large number of people in orange coats and vests taking part in the same ritual.

After fueling up, it was on to the hunt, which consisted of walking down rows of harvested corn and milo fields hoping to flush a rooster close enough to get a shot off. On a good field you could see birds running down the rows. Blockers at the end of the field helped hold the pheasant until those walking the fields and the dogs could arrive.

Ideally the dogs would assist in the hunt by helping push the birds or go on point and calmly wait for someone to get close by before flushing the bird. In reality, the mix of labs and German shorthairs our group hunted with were as likely to charge ahead with wild abandon as they were to stay on point.

When everything went to plan, there’s nothing that can replicate the rush of a pheasant taking off in front of you. The rustle of wings against the crop stubble followed by seeing a bright green head contrasted against a rooster’s coppery body gets your heart pumping.

Under the best of circumstances, the pheasants would fly against a blue sky, but we also hunted in some truly miserable conditions. Only once can I remember quitting early. It was late in the afternoon of a perfect November Saturday and we stopped to hear Greg Sharpe call the fourth quarter of a K-State-Nebraska game.

That was a good year for pheasants and football. This year’s crop of ringnecks is looking good according to roadside surveys. The 100,000-plus hunters who will chase them from now until the end of January should have plenty of opportunity.

I hope to be among them at some point over the next few weeks. Even though it won’t be quite the same as all those hunts that began on the second Saturday of November.

"Insight" is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state's largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.