Feature
October 07

Pheasant Guns and Shooting
with Gene Hill

ne of the foremost outdoor essayists and shotgunning authorities in the world was my friend the late Gene Hill. I originally did this interview with him in November of 1992 in Iowa on a pheasant hunt with the also late Dave Meisner. I published it in Game & Gun magazine’s March/April 1993 issue.

Hill’s experience with pheasants spanned the gamut: European driven shooting, walking them up with flushing dogs, over pointing breeds, and as a gun for field trials. His views are as valid today as they were then because, as you know, our sport changes little over the years – SS.

G&G: Pheasants can, at times, be big, lumbering targets seemingly impossible to miss, yet we do. Why do you feel most shooters who miss pheasants do so?

Hill: Probably because they’re so big and slow-looking, we forget they’re half tail. With pheasants, you have to be “head-conscious,” aware that your target is the head, just as you would with waterfowl. The other reason, one I’m inclined to look at more and more, is poor gun-mount. Poor gun-mount has lately been my pet peeve concerning poor shooting. I mean, take an extra particle of a second to make sure the gun is where it belongs on your shoulder, that your face is down. Even on a gun that fits poorly, good gun-mounting can still help. When I miss, usually it’s because the stock is way off onto my shoulder out of the pocket or it’s down on my arm, or I don’t have the stock cheeked. A pheasant makes a lot of noise when he comes up, and some shooters get startled and almost panicked into poor gun-mounting.

Guns for pheasants – 12-gauge universally?

Yes. Day in and day out, it’s the only bore with the authority to make all the shots you’d dare chance, not to mention the variety of loads.

 Stock fit – your views?

A little high – ideally, you can see the bird, either a high flushing bird or a crosser. You need to be able to see what you’re shooting at, and the high-stocked gun allows that to happen, rather than guessing where the bird is. I’d say half a pattern high at 40 yards, a 50-50 pattern is about right for me.

 What about shot size and load for American shooting?

Big shot – 5s make a fine of a load, or 6s – the normal old duck load we used to shoot at mallards over decoys. You just need big shot and a lot of it – 1¼ ounces, maximum charge.

Chokes?

Part of my changing viewpoint on pheasant guns is for stronger chokes, modified and full or tight improved cylinder and full. In a double, 50 percent and 70 percent are good, maybe even tighter than 50 percent in the first barrel, depending on where you hunt.

 Since pheasants in this country are universally hunted with a dog if they are to be hunted successfully, do you use different guns or chokes over your Labs compared with pointing breeds?

Probably not – the pheasant runs, so it’s probably best if you err on the bad side, plan for things to go badly. The pointing dog isn’t going to hold everything, and there are wild flushes no matter what you do. With flushing dogs, of course, there really is no alternative – you have to plan for long shots.

In England and on the Continent, what has been your experience with pheasant shooting in terms of what we here can learn?

Theirs is so much different because it’s almost all driven shooting, which is entirely different than we have. It’s a different shot, the birds are coming at you, and so they use lighter loads and more open chokes. British walkup shooting is like ours, and so we can apply what we know to that.

Any advice for the first-timer going over there?

The shots are foreign to most of us the first time because they are high incomers or high incoming crossers. The best thing to do is to practice on a sporting clays course that has a high tower, because 90 percent of the shots you’ll get will be high incomers. If you have a high tower, just walk around it, practicing the varying angles of crossers and incomers. Hopefully, get a coach to help you because this shot is hard to evaluate when we miss it. It always looks higher than it really is. Look at a high tree – say a 60-foot tree. There’s a boy scout trick about judging the height of a tree by using your thumb or something – if you find it, let me know so I can use it. If you pointed at that tree and asked the average American if a pheasant going over that tree would be out of range, he’d probably say it is, but the tree may be only 60 feet high, which is 20 yards. This high incomer is very deceiving.

What are the mistakes Americans seem to make – the embarrassing glitches that rear their ugly heads to spoil a day or a trip for Americans doing their first shooting abroad for driven pheasants?

Unfortunately, inexperienced Americans have a tendency to hog someone else’s shooting. When you are in the line, waiting for the beaters to drive the birds over, see what your cone of shooting is and don’t violate it. No one will be angry if you let a bird go by that could have been yours or could have been somebody else’s, but if you steal a bird, they’ll remember it.

Americans tend to be a little more aggressive in the field and this can lead to safety problems. We also tend to be more scorekeepers than the British. And, we talk too much walking and on stands. Even though the birds may not be close, they can still hear, and talking produces strange flight patterns and makes the birds difficult for the beaters to control and drive. We also feel like, as Americans, we’re naturally fine shots and will come in and perform beautifully on this type of shooting. We tend to forget that the British are superb at it, they practice and take lessons each fall like we take golf lessons in the spring. They will go to a shooting school and hire a coach and work on faults. Just watch a really fine British game shot – there’s no one like him. Don’t expect to wipe his eye – this is his game. A classic British wingshot is something to see.