Opening day of pheasant hunting’s celebratory mood turned as dark as an Edgar Allan Poe poem not long after the season’s first shot shells were chambered. Cinematically, it had the aura of a pheasant-hunting horror show whose lead characters – the shooter and he who was shot – won’t soon forget.
I spent six glorious autumns in Aberdeen, South Dakota, covering the outdoors and never once hunted the pheasant opener. Opening days were reserved for riding shotgun with local game wardens, then writing a story from of what we’d observed.
To err is human, but avoiding these mistakes will bag you more pheasants
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