It was a crisp November morning in Colorado, and my hunting party was ready to take on the challenge of pheasant hunting at a ranch near Yuma. The rules were clear: no hens were to be shot, and each hunter could bag three roosters per day, with a total possession limit of six birds in three days.

Our party consisted of my son Mark, son-in-law Bill, and myself. Mark and Bill were to flush the birds out, while I positioned myself as the “blocker” downwind to take any stray birds my companions might miss.

We started abruptly at 7:00 a.m., an hour after sunrise, with our 12-gauge shotguns and six-chil size shells. Louis, the owner of the ranch, assured us that we could find some birds in the grass and fire-weed right adjacent to his barn and stock-yard lot near his house.

Mark and Bill quickly kicked up a big rooster and a hen, but they missed their shots. The big old rooster then flew straight at me, and I downed it with one shot. It was the easiest shot I could have hoped for.

As we moved through a corn-stubble field, three more pheasants rose up cackling out of the field off to my right, and I was lucky to down another rooster. This time, Mark and Bill didn’t even get a chance to shoot because they were too close and would have been firing directly at me.

Next, we moved on to a wheat stubble field with Russian thistles and ragweed, providing heavy cover for the birds. Mark and Bill flushed a flock of pheasants, but they jumped up too far ahead of them, and they missed their shots. As the blocker, I was able to knock my third pheasant out of the sky and bag it.

This time, however, the bird almost got away. It had been farther away when my pellets hit it and was still flopping on the ground when I got to it. I had to put it out of its misery with a quick break of its neck, a tough experience for any hunter.

Yet, what a glorious sky it was that morning when I was privileged to bag my limit within an hour of starting the hunt. It turned out to be the best hunting experience of my life, and I am eternally thankful for it.