Washington County Pheasants, Quail Forever hold inaugural Women’s Hunt

On Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019, Washington County Pheasants and Quail Forever held their very annual Women's Hunt at Highland Hunting in Riverside.

Mark Shelton, Chapter President, states, 'we had a full house, and the ladies all had a great experience.”

The event started off with a briefing by Iowa DNR Officer Terry Nims on Iowa hunting rules, regulations and field safety. 'Safety is of paramount importance while hunting” details Nims. 'As many of the event participants were novice hunters, we emphasized safe handling of firearms and safe hunting procedures in the field.”

This was followed by a presentation by Taylor Shirley, Graduate Research Assistant at Iowa State University, on her thesis project of researching the use of cover crops for nesting cover by pheasants and quail. Participants relate that they learned more about pheasant and quail life cycles, habits and about building sustainable populations of these wildlife than they had ever been informed about before.

Afterward, the group adjourned to the clay target course for some additional instruction on handling and actual experience in shooting shotguns. Within just a matter of minutes all the women were breaking clay targets on the fly! Many had never even fired a shotgun before. The instructors from Highland were top notch coaches in helping the women find their targets and in learning how to point the shotgun to begin breaking them.

Then the ladies were divided up into small groups and teamed with a professional hunting guide and experienced hunting dogs for a two hour hunt on live pheasants. The Highland grounds have excellently managed habitat providing necessary cover for the early release birds, and the birds behave very much like wild birds. The hunting piece was a successful experience even though high winds made the birds want to run rather than fly, and several birds were harvested.

Lunch completed the event, with grilled pheasant breast available for all to sample, completing the connection to this example of where our food comes from.

The 2020 event is already in planning and our Chapter of PF is looking for women who are eager to get involved in the planning and execution of our Women's Hunt next year, as well as those who wish to participate. Next years event will be bigger and even more fun and informative.

Contact Kathy Brookhart, Event Co-Chair at 319-461-3840 or kathyabrookhart@gmail.com.