Poker-Faced Strategies for Winning More Pheasant Never reveal your next move when playing the high card. Article and Photos By Gary Lewis
P
heasant hunting, like the game of poker, is a contest of decisionmaking in the face of incomplete information. The correct decision in any given situation is the decision that has the highest expected value. We might as well have been playing poker. Dennis Foster revealed none of his cards. The tableland turned cornfield in front of us had been harvested, except for a couple of strips of corn, in which, presumably, pheasants had taken refuge. A collection of dogs, 13 in all, mostly flushers, waited for their chance to be played, like wild cards in a deck. Dressed in canvas and oilskin, arrayed in various shades of orange, 15 hunters betrayed their anxieties, clustered in knots of twos, threes and fours. Behind us, the combines waited. Across the table waited the pheasants. I blocked at the end as the drivers pushed toward us. Pheasants rattled out of the stalks to the cries of “hen” and “rooster” that echoed down the line of standing corn. When someone shouted “rooster” it was quickly accompanied by a shotgun blast. I didn’t draw a winning card on the first hand, but on the next play, Foster slipped me an ace and put me on the wing. By the end of the first day our group of 15 hunters and 13 dogs had accounted for 25 roosters, three of which I managed to put in the game bag. That day in the cornfields and marshes taught me a few things about roosters and strategy. The hunt is like a poker game. The leader of the group is the dealer and the pheasant is the opponent that learns from every deal. Whatever cards are played depend on the habitat and the number of players at the table. After opening weekend, the roosters have learned that the slam of a pickup tailgate and a whistle means hunters and dogs are coming. While we are loading our guns, the pheasants are looking for the side door. The first rule is to make a plan. To draw to a royal flush, a hunt needs drivers and blockers. If there are only two in the party, play all the cards in the fringe cover and leave the food plots to larger groups.
A rooster pheasant taken on a cold morning in a cornfield near Aberdeen, South Dakota.
22 October 2019 | SPORTSMAN’S NEWS
Mid-morning, when the sun is already high in the sky, the birds work into the thickest, densest cover they can find, lying low until late afternoon.
The second rule is to play the wind. A hunter needs the breeze in his or her face or more accurately, in the dog’s face. Working into the wind, the dog smells the bird before he flushes it. Watch the dog for the “tells” that signal he is close. To beat a pheasant at his own tricks, call the strategy before driving into the parking area. Visualize the play in advance. Here are four different approaches to take when pitted against savvy roosters.
1. Passive Aggressive Play
When there are fewer hunters and an abundance of cover, a measured, methodical, silent entry is important. Stay ten yards apart, work from one edge to the other in zigzag fashion. Move slow. Work brushy fence rows or grassy ditches. One or two drivers should bull through the tallest cover with a dog, searching a slow back and
Dennis Foster and Casey Weismantel admire a hard-won rooster flushed from the edge of a cat tail swamp.
