About that pheasant stamp

Dear Disgruntled Hunters,

I listened while you spat your disgust with the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s decision to require hunters to buy an additional stamp for pheasant hunting. I withheld my thoughts, although it did make me think about the way prices for things had changed during the past several decades.

I wanted to let you know that I was able to venture afield for pheasants a couple times during the last few weeks. I took along one of my best friends, a German shorthaired pointer named Jamie. We went to the state game lands over by Tuscarora State Park. We’ve gone three times now and have had a lot of fun.

You wouldn’t believe how much work has been done on those game lands. The strips of sorghum are impressive, to say the least.

Those gnarly, nearly-impenetrable brush rows of multiflora rose have been removed. They’ve had a timber harvest and planted the resulting fields in a variety of crops, including corn, buckwheat and switchgrass.

The area is absolutely gorgeous. It would be hard to take a bad picture anywhere.

The first time we went, Jamie and I headed to a low area, planted in straggly switchgrass. He worked the field and then expanded into the woods. I could hear that he’d stopped moving so cautiously, my thumb on my safety, I stepped towards the last place I’d heard him.

The wind had picked up and oak leaves were falling thickly. It felt like I was in one of those snow globe things, but with leaves. In the gusty wind, sometimes the leaves hit my shoulders with a touch as strong as a finger tap. You know how for me, a lot of hunting feels spiritual – I felt the touches as reminders of seasons passing, in this year, and in our lives.

It was like stepping into an impressionistic painting where the artist had used only muted shades of brown and gray, with a little faded orange. On the other side of a fallen pine tree I spotted Jamie’s blaze orange collar. He’d pointed awkwardly; his front legs were crossed, and his chest was low. As our eyes met he communicated a message, by shifting his eyes – careful.

So I froze for a few moments, and it was like the pheasant lost its nerve and flushed. I stayed on it, conscious of tree trunks, and somehow squeezed off a shot in an opening. But it had been a long shot.

I looked at Jamie, who was leaning so far in the direction the bird had flown that he was in danger of falling. Fetch, I told him, and he jetted out of there. He was gone for long moments but came back with the bird. He let me take it and then did the jubilant high jumps that he likes to do in celebratory fashion after retrieves.

I thought then of hunters’ complaints about the pheasant stamp. None of the hunters I’d encountered during our outings had complained about the pheasant stamp; in fact, I’d met a lot of nice people and dogs, and no one had even mentioned it. Truth be told, disgruntled hunters, I haven’t missed you or your negativity.

I don’t know how much it cost the game commission to revamp the game lands at Tuscarora (and other game lands) and raise and stock the pheasants.

All I know is, as I walked from that spot with the pheasant in my vest, Jamie leaping at my side with glee in his eyes, I’d made another memory with my four-legged friend.

You just can’t put a price on those moments.