How To Aim For The Right Pheasant Hunting Lodges

By Jerri Perry


People who expect a rough outdoor experience at pheasant hunting lodges are in for a big surprise. This is not the kind of place where one camps out in tents or sleeping bags around a campfire, cooking the day's catch complemented with canned food. These are luxury lodges with well-equipped and spacious cottages, chefs to prepare sumptuous meals, and guides to help guests on the hunt.

But not all lodges are the same, and each one offers a different kind of hunting or shooting experience. Some will have pens of doves, pheasants, chukar and quails, and release the birds timed to help hunters who simply want to aim and shoot. There's no tracking or flushing involved, and all the shooter has to do is lock and load, wait for a flock of birds to be released, and then fire into them.

It's an easy sport and guarantees a good catch. Of course, it's not really what one would call a bird hunt. It's more like target practice, with no pointers sniffing out birds in the wild and no call to flush out a covey, aim and shoot quickly before they fly out of range. A lodge that can offer such a wild bird hunt is the most desired choice among hunters.

Most lodges have the same luxury cottages and provide all the same modern comforts, meals and amenities that guests are used to in upscale hotels. Many will even provide all the hunting gear and training too, if required. Some will also offer to handle the permits and licenses required for hunters to be in compliance with local regulations.

However, the real deal that sets a lodge apart from the rest of the crowd is the kind of land it has and the wild birds it attracts. It must have natural advantages that local and migratory birds need, such as woodlands, marshes, ponds, rovers, lakes, brooks and streams. If the land is blessed with such resources, groups of hunters can easily hit their bag limits in no time.

The location also affects the topography, which in turn makes a big difference for bird hunts. Some lodges are set in the vast openness of prairie grasslands, while others are surrounded by mountainous foothills and rocky ridges. Those aiming for migratory birds will do well to look for a place close to the coast where there are plenty of marshlands.

The holiday or bird hunt package also has quite a big impact. The most popular options are high-end 3-5 day luxury packages and affordable weekend packages. Regardless of package choice, all guests can forget about the usual holiday hassles and focus on what they came for, which is the pleasure of the hunt.

The adrenaline rush and thrill of the hunt is no doubt the most memorable part of the trip, but the second best thing about a stay at pheasant hunting lodges is meal time. First up, there's the extreme satisfaction of literally putting food on the table. What makes it a perfect situation is that an expert chef turns the fresh catch into an extremely tasty dish that tastes far better than bird meat usually does at home.




About the Author: