Recovering Downed Birds Without A Dog
Hunting behind a good bird dog can be a lot of fun and generally a lot more productive than hunting without one.
Fortunately, I discovered that I could still hunt successfully even without a dog. Bird flushes are usually less frequent while hunting alone, so recovering a bird, especially an injured one, takes on more importance especially when you enjoy the feeling of coming home with table fare.
Over the years I got lots of practice firing my shotgun, especially on plentiful birds such as dove, quail or ducks. When bird hunting opportunities were scarce, trap shooting continued to develop my shooter’s eye. Practice with live bird flushes helped me slow down and forced me to pay more attention to my shot. When two or more birds rose at once, experience taught me to select a target and ignore the rest. Carefully locking my swing onto its flight, I fired only when I felt my gun was dead on target. Once the bird was hit, I noted whether its head was up, signaling a cripple, or if I had made a clean kill. When I saw that I only wounded the bird, I took a second shot, even if it was already coming down with a broken wing. Successfully recovering a crippled rooster in tall grass is a long shot. Hitting it with a second round often will finish the job plus gives me a warm feeling about my shooting ability. Only when my first bird is noted as a clean kill and marked, do other birds from the flush get attention.
Marking a downed bird accurately in relatively heavy cover is essential for success, but getting good at it takes practice. First, I note a bush of landmark near where the bird has tumbled. It is studied to make sure I can identify that bush from all others around it. I take time to memorize the location and the route that I will take to get there, before I even start walking. Once arriving at my marked bush, if I fail to see the bird at once, I remove a hat or other visible marker that I carry in my game pouch and place it on the bush for reference. Only then do I start circling my marker looking for feathers or other signs the bird may have left. Doves, ducks and grouse generally don’t go far from where they tumbled. If they are still alive, they often give themselves away by panicking and trying to escape, even with a broken wing. Feathers define where the bird landed and define the direction to look, based on its flight path. Subsequent feathers indicate a cripple running, and help me plot its direction. I select nearby heavy cover to search as this is probably where the bird has hidden. Often it will try to bury itself under a bush or grass to avoid detection. I walk slowly and pay attention to the feel of the ground in grass, as I may step on my bird. I have done this several times, especially in thick, grassy ditches. If the cover is very heavy and my mark good, I start matting down grass in the area where I feel the bird should be hiding until I am comfortable that I have searched my marked area well.
I always watch birds that fly away after I suspect that I may have hit them. Even after they have flown out of shooting range, I watch. On several occasions I have seen the bird simply collapse in flight and tumble to the ground. Shot causes blood clots in birds and their panic and heavy exertion while trying to escape often causes heart stoppage. Invariably the bird that collapses in this manner is quite dead. It is always worth the walk once you see them drop. I have visually followed chukar flight from the top of a tall hill to a ravine below as far as ¼ mile when its flight indicated injury. After its collapse I simply walked down to pick it up. It’s amazing how much satisfaction there is in that type of recovery.
I also make a habit of carrying chunks of pink survey tape with me and use it to mark the spot where I have lost a downed bird. After a diligent search, if I have not located the bird, I may decide to continue my hunt and return for a second look later. Surprisingly, I found birds this way that were totally dead, where my previous search was obscured. Often a different angle makes the bird visible. Crippled birds also may have come out of hiding during my second look and show themselves at my delayed approach. Duck hunting, especially jump shooting near ponds, requires planning and discipline. I now remember to bring waders after a few sessions of taking off hiking boots and pants to retrieve a duck, especially when the water is cold. I also bring a cheap close bail reel, two bobbers, two ¼-1/2-ounce sinkers, several small eye-screws, and small knife all in a plastic zip lock bag. With my tools I fashion a fishing rod from willow or cattail and cast my sinker/bobber setup over a bird and reel it in. The bobber keeps the sinker off the bottom. Perhaps the best retrieval tip is to wait to shoot until ducks clear the cattails and are over land. Good advice but it takes discipline (and a few dips in cold water) to perfect the technique.
On one memorable occasion I returned to my car to see my friends only to note that I was a grouse short of what I had put in my game bag. Thinking that I knew where I may have dropped the bird while attempting to put it in my game pouch, I left my gun at the car and walked back into the brush. Not only did I find my original bird, but I found that I my shot had taken a second grouse from the covey and it was dead, but still warm. Needless to say my friends were impressed when I returned with two grouse without firing a shot. Spending that extra time looking paid off double on that trip.
One of my more interesting recoveries happened on a pheasant hunt in eastern Washington. I hunted by myself for most of the day following irrigation canals and thickets and had not seen a bird or fired a shot. Suddenly a rooster erupted from the thick cover and angled in front of me. My shot was true and the bird tumbled, but landed in the center of a pond. It splashed around for a minute and then sank! I was speechless. I had never seen a bird sink. With a whole day’s effort into my hunt, I wasn’t going to quit without an effort, so I stripped down and waded chest deep into the clear pond water with muddy bottom. My marking was good. Tail feathers that rose from the bottom were hoisted to the surface and attached, my bird. At nearly 5 pounds this pheasant was almost twice the size of any other I have shot.
Shooting crippled birds at close range doesn’t do much for table fare unless you get good enough with your aim to shoot off the head. Usually I run faster than most birds can run (chukar uphill excluded), so unless the cover makes me nervous about recovery, I will attempt to run them down. There have been lots of huffing and puffing during those chases as I age, but lots of good eating as the reward. When others were hunting nearby, I once overheard “send over our dog to help that man, he seems to be tiring”. On another such chase, I had taken my elderly father with me but left him behind as I got in heavy cover. When a pheasant flushed, I missed with the first shot but broke its wing with the second. Proud to have recovered the bird after a brisk run down I returned to meet my father. His comment: “I heard two shots. Where is the other one”? He was both perfectionist and fun loving to the end.
Reflecting back on my many years of successful bird hunting, my favorite hunts are not necessarily those that produced the biggest pile of birds. Quite often, recovering a bird presumed to be lost is what gave me the most lasting satisfaction of my hunt. During those times I remember of a comment made to me during my youth:
