Some years ago, four of us had been invited to a game farm, one of sprawling acreage that had failed with the regular crop. In an effort to stave off starvation and pay taxes, such farms often become game farms.
These provide in-season pheasant and quail hunting for well-heeled hunters seeking a bit more than an even-up chance at taking home a bird and fielding a good day with dogs.
The farms raise birds, turning them loose ? from a few days to a few hours ? before hunters arrive. A car-caged or farm-resident setter or pointer finds the birds and in the case of pheasants, tries to kick them up.
For stock files for hunting magazines, we wanted photos of hunting scenes, hunters with shot birds, dogs retrieving, dogs gently handing the bird to their masters, birds on the wing, dogs pointing, photos from behind hunters as shot powders a bird into a puff of feathers right before it falls to the ground, stone dead.
We had taken all the photos above, using the morning for set-up situations to get the good stuff required by magazines. Others would mistakenly call this faking. We in the trade call it re-enactments. (You didn?t actually think that all those action shots of jumping bass, shot birds that have not yet fallen, leaping trout and such were taken as they really happened, did you?)
We were now into the carefully framed and blocked-out session of being in front of the hunter as he swings on a bird flushing in front of him. You have to do this several times, even with a motor-drive camera, since no one can predict the flight course of pheasants.
Make no mistake about this ? this is only done by experts with a safe, unloaded gun, the flushed bird and a shotgun-swinging “hunter” making the picture, even if the bird happily flies away. Without shells, you can?t shoot the bird and better still, can?t endanger the photographer.
Do not try this at home. In fact, do not try this at all. The photographer is in front of a gun, albeit one safe and unloaded with no shells ? no more dangerous than a baseball bat. But you don?t ever do it casually or with no thought to safety.
Another writer was chosen as the “hunter,” the rest of us positioned in front of him for photos of the pheasant against a clear sky. The bird is released by a handler lying low and hidden in the corn stalks.
The first bird was released, flying upward but at an awkward angle. The “hunter” swung his shotgun convincingly. It looked real and the bird flew away. We tried it again with better results. We knew our timing better now, and the bird flew better to create more attractive photos.
With a third try, we all thought that we would have it down and get some good ? maybe great ? file photos. The bird was released, flew up at a picture-perfect angle, the colorful cock pheasant showing clearly against the sky.
Motor-drives whirred. The “hunter” swung ? convincingly ? at just the right time. A great photo. Then, boom! The pheasant fell dead at our feet.
“What the [fill in the blank here] are you doing?” we asked almost in unison, simultaneously checking our bodies for pain and our hunting jackets for holes. Fortunately, we were fine. Our “hunter” broke open his 12-gauge, ejecting the empty shell from his “unloaded” gun.
“Well, I knew where you all were,” was his limp and inexcusable comment. “I had some shells in my hunting jacket and chambered one while you all were working out the details of the release. I figured there was no point in letting another pheasant fly away.”
We figured otherwise. Still do.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting and the outdoors. He can be reached at [email protected]
