The Pheasant Hunt

Sometimes when you go hunting you just pick the wrong spot. What are the odds you would pick a hunting area with $24,000 worth of out of town hunters on it? Here’s the story.

The Pheasant Hunt

 

In September of 1976, my brother Craig and I loaded up our gear and headed out for a pheasant hunt. There was an old road right of way that had grown over with tall grass and weeds about 100 feet wide between two maze fields near Sunray, Texas, that was ideal for pheasants that we had hunted for the past five years with good success. We stopped the car near the area and started down the strip. We flushed a couple out, but they were way out of range. After we walked a couple of miles, we decided to head back to the car. There was a road just across the fence in one of the maze fields so we hopped the fence and started walking back down the road towards the car. After we had walked a while, we saw a pickup truck speeding towards us at about 60 miles an hour. The truck stopped and a guy got out and started hollering at us at the top of his voice that this was posted land, we were trespassing, and he was calling the sherif. We explained that we were not hunting the field, but the old road right of way. He said that was posted too. He then told us that he had leased this land and he had 12 hunters lined up from Houston ready to hunt this field that had paid him $2000 a piece. We told him if he was going to call the sherif to get on with it. Neither of us believed he could keep us from hunting the old road right of way. He told us to jump in the back of the pickup and he would haul us out of there. We got to the highway and there were indeed 12 of the best dressed, rich looking hunters I had ever seen lined up across the field. He dropped us off at Craig’s car still mumbling about calling the sherif, but he didn’t. We figured he likely had no right to keep us off the road right of way. He was just mad because we were interfering with his high priced hunt. We were both ready to get out of there and head for another spot to hunt. Craig tried to start the car and all we heard was click, click, click…..He had left his lights on and the battery was dead. We weren’t about to ask the guy in the pickup for help, so we raised the hood on the car and waited and waited and waited. About 2 hours later a truck came by and stopped and gave us a battery jump. Craig and I drove around a while and charged up the battery and went to the next spot. We bagged three pheasants and headed home.

 

Go get em boys, we’ve got them all stirred up for you.

 

My brother Craig cooling his heels after a hard days hunting. He still looks chapped.

Three pheasants Craig and I bagged after the ordeal with the guy in the pickup.

Thanks for reading The Pheasant Hunt,

Hawg Jaw Bill