Oddball Hunting Tactics for Birds

Make a pond from a tarp. Drive and block pheasant with a transistor radio. I present three here, from most to least plausible, in hopes someone will tell me they work. I have, a time or two, called to turkeys and had hens lead the way, bringing the gobbler along, but there was no back and forth “fight.” The birds came more out of curiosity than to rumble. The times I have picked fights with hens, there’s been lots of squawking back and forth, but it’s all talk. The hen is happy to stay out of sight, trade insults, then take the gobbler somewhere else. I have even seen pictures of ducks people claim to have shot over such ponds, but that means nothing. Block With a Radio: One way to stop pheasants from running, according to this least likely of oddball tactics, is to put a radio at one end of the cover, turn on the football game, then slip back around to the other end of the cover and hunt toward it. Instead, you go to one end of the field, make a lot of noise, then loop around and hunt back toward where you were. I know one person who tried this—after reading about it in an outdoor magazine, of course—but it never got any shots doing it.
Ringneck pheasant, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Can you use a radio to stop pheasants from running?

Challenge a hen. Make a pond from a tarp. Drive and block pheasant with a transistor radio.

Has anyone ever tried and succeeded with any of these oddball tactics? I’ve heard and read about them over the years, yet I’ve never known of anyone who tried them with success. They live on in magazine and web pages, and I am beginning to think they are myths, given eternal life only by writers like myself, who have heard or read about them and repeat them when they are desperate to fill space. I present three here, from most to least plausible, in hopes someone will tell me they work.

Challenge a Hen: When a tom is with hens, one approach is to pick a fight with the boss hen. When she calls, you answer back aggressively. Soon, you’re in an argument, and then, the theory goes, she comes in to fight, dragging the gobbler along with her. I have, a time or two, called to turkeys and had hens lead the way, bringing the gobbler along, but there was no back and forth “fight.” The birds came more out…

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