NJ pheasant hunting on Thanksgiving Day, has been a long time tradition that my good friend Curt Ryder and I have enjoyed doing for quite a few years. Heck come to think about it, we`ve probably been doing this a good fifteen years or more. There are always a lot more pheasants stocked on Thanksgiving eve as compared
to the regular, weekly stocking days, so there`s plenty of action!
We met at our usual spot on Rte. 46 this past Thursday and made our way north into Sussex county to have a go at some early morning “birds” at sunrise.
As we got out across the first field, it wasn`t long before a very excited Jake bumped the first bird! Then he settled down and hunted great the rest of the morning.
Here is the Video I shot of our NJ Pheasant Hunting Turkey Day Adventure last Thursday;
A good day of NJ Pheasant Hunting on Turkey Day indeed!
I`m 51 years old & I still get as excited about the first day of NJ Small Game Hunting Season as much as when I was nine years old & Dad let me actually hunt with him carrying my trusty single-shot .410 shotgun on that Opening Day long ago.
(Yes yes……. I know…….. legally you can`t be a licensed hunter in NJ until you are ten years old……… All I can say is that things were very different back then. Hell I`d been walking alongside my Dad rabbit hunting since I was six years old. Nowadays you wouldn`t think about
letting a kid hunt without having a NJ Hunting License………yea……. like I said folks, it was just a different time way back when)
So on Saturday I met my best friend Curt Ryder & his dog “Jake” at our usual meeting place,… the Quick Check on 46.When Curt pulled into the Quick Check, I grabbed my gun & hunting gear & as I jumped in his truck he joked sayin`, “Geez………. What the hell is goin` on here???
Ken Beam is actually on time! For that matter he`s even early!“…… ha! ha!
Our Hunting destination was about a little over an hour away.
We planned on hunting the Walpack Cemetary as we usually do very well there on Opening Day of Small Game Hunting. The weather was perfect. It was a nice, cool, sunny Autumn morning to hunt.Curt had this new GPS-tracking collar on Jake & it was really pretty exciting because it actually tells you how far away he is & and when he`s on “point”! As you walk towards the dog, it shows your getting closer on the GPS screen.
By 11am we each had our limit of two Pheasants. It was definitely a great morning to start the NJ Small Game Hunting Season of 2014!
