What do we do with the Pheasants after we shoot them?

After the shoot in 2013 the distinguished fellow Keith Lane displays two of his share of 11 pheasants.  Keith oft times shoots an older side by side 12 ga with great effectiveness.

What happens after we shoot the pheasants?  Fifteen pheasants are released during the shoot for each gun and  the birds are retrieved in the field by the dogs and dog handlers.  They are picked up taken back to the cleaning shed where high school kids start breasting them out and dividing them so that each shooter takes home an equal share.  While this is going on a nice Barbecue is served in the main bunkhouse and by the time that is over we pick up our birds and head out.  Over the past three years our shares have varied from 11 to 13 each which is not too bad.

When our esteemed fellow shooter Charles Hosch, who does a good job with his side by side 20 ga., was describing the program to his father, his dad said, “Let me get this straight.  You are driven out to the shooting area and assigned a shooting station and then the pheasants are released to fly over you and you stay in one place and shoot them out of the sky.  Then dogs and handlers retrieve the pheasants and local lads clean them.  At the end of a prepared meal you walk over and pick up clean bags of cleaned pheasant breasts and come on home.”  When Charles replied that is exactly what we do his dad then added. “Sounds more like something the Prince of Wales would do than something that happens in Oklahoma.”  And he was right.