Pheasants Forever Veteran Hunt

[H20fwler]

This past weekend our local Pheasants Forever chapter sponsored a youth hunt on Saturday and a Veteran hunt on Sunday. (They have a few of these hunts around the state and I'm pretty sure they do the same in most states that have active PF chapters.) They had around sixty kids Saturday participate and 47 Veterans Sunday. When filling out the form you could choose the group you wanted to hunt with if you had friends or guys you served with attending. There were a few guys from out of state and a few that had driven across the state to hunt with military buddies. This is the first year that I have participated in the Veterans hunt, our group of five was all Army guys and it was a hoot! When we signed in they gave us a little swag and thanked us for our service, we each received a nice PF Veteran key ring and a shell bag along with the free hunt and breakfast & lunch.
There ended up being ten groups that went out to different locations in the county, the landowner we hunted on was great and had a quick sense of humor and was cracking us up all morning. He also had a beautiful two year old female GSP that he guides with and after just a little talking before the hunt insisted that I call my wife and have her bring Darcy over to hunt with us..being fifteen miles from our house she agreed and we hung around BSing and talking hunting while she brought the dog.
The dogs worked great together both honor pointing each other and we took turns when the dogs pointed walking up two at a time to flush the birds, plenty of joking and teasing each other and some good Army talk while we took our time enjoying the morning. The landowner and I talked quite a bit about habitat work and projects we have done with our properties.
Everyone got birds, was fed well, could clean birds themselves or have it done for them and had plenty of time to socialize. I had a chance to talk with some people I hadn't seen in years and made quite a few new friends, the guy we hunted on and I exchanged numbers and we will be getting together soon. It was a very well prepared and planned event, I'm looking forward to next years hunt already.

 

[Bill]

Sounds like fun!

 

[hillrunner]

That sounds really cool. How many acres does this happen on? All private ground?

 

[H20fwler]

That sounds really cool. How many acres does this happen on? All private ground?

It's all on private ground. One of the big local farms hosted the meeting place and meals at their farm, then groups split off to hunt private ground on four or five different landowners properties that have big CRP or WRP fields most were between thirty and eighty acres. They also had bird and dog handlers to go along and to plant birds and people to help with kids or any disabled veterans, observers were also welcome. They were even able to supply guns and shells to anyone that needed them, the form that was filled out to hunt asked if hunter needed assistance or gun so they could get an idea of needs before hand.
The participants didn't even have to be members of PF it's just a two day event to get kids involved in hunting and to thank veterans for their service.
I was asked if I would be interested in hosting a group of hunters or two on our property for the hunt part next year and I think that I might.
They did a really good job putting it on with all of the logistics involved and everyone sure looked like they had fun with it. For anyone interested they can contact their local PF chapter to see if a similar event is anywhere close to where you live that you could attend next fall....if you don't have anything close your sure welcome to come to ours!

 

[OakSeeds]

class act all the way; thanks for the report