November 5 , 2007

Pheasant in flight
Birds are directed to the hunters in the Euro driven hunts at the High Desert Hunt Club

DAVE STREGE
Register columnist
OUTDOORS


GORMAN - The pheasant came flying over the hillside every which way as hunters zeroed in on them from blinds made of hay, a sort of shooting gallery in the wild.
"Sometimes we call it live sporting clays," said Lisa McNamee, owner/operator of the High Desert Hunt Club.

The actual name for it is a European driven hunt, a sport born centuries ago from royalty. Peasants from the villages would line up in the fields and use sticks to beat the bushes, driving the pheasant toward a rock wall surrounding an estate.
As the birds flew over the wall, kings and lords would shoot them.
The High Desert Hunt Club is one of the few places in the west that simulates the European driven hunt, though McNamee hastens to point out, "This is a shoot not a hunt." The simulated version features up to 50 blinds about 20 yards apart in an arc around a horseshoe-shaped hill.

When the horn blows, hunters load their guns and wait for the birds to start flying.
Atop the hillside behind the scenes, the drivers — in this case they aren't beaters — direct the birds toward the hunters. Exactly what the drivers do is kept secret, but one can probably guess.

A dozen hunters, including eight from Orange County, did a mini-Euro two Saturdays ago. There were four rounds (as opposed to eight in the full Euro) with 60 pheasant released per round. Before the shooting began, McNamee discussed safety and etiquette. "It's a little like fishing," said McNamee, a Huntington Beach resident. "You can talk doing it. You don't have to be quiet. "So if a guy isn't shooting so well, give him some grief. It's totally allowed." The bantering began soon after the shooting did. Once, a pheasant flew in close, making for an easy target, but nobody hit it.

"John?" Joe Tavarez of San Juan Capistrano said with a why-didn't-you-get-that-bird tone. "What about you dad?" replied his son John Cole Tavarez, 16. "I'm saving them for you," Joe said. "I'm a giving father." Joe's brother-in-law Don Johnson of Laguna Niguel and his sons, Dylan, 16, and Parker, 14, also got in on the
ribbing, one-upmanship and erroneously taking credit for a hit.

"Three guys will shoot at the same time and, boom, you see feathers flying everywhere so everyone of the three thinks he got it," Don said. But sometimes there are no bragging rights. Like the time four pheasant flew down at once and none were hit. "That's embarrassing," Don said. Another pheasant flew sideways down the firing line. "Everyone took a shot at that one," Dylan said. And everyone missed.

One thing that makes the Euro hunt different and alluring is the variety. The birds come straight on, left to right, right to left, and high and low. "People who like to shoot, they don't want the same shot every time," McNamee said. The pheasant that fly straight in can create extra excitement. Occasionally a downed bird will force hunters to do a quick sidestep, like playing dodge ball. "It hits like a shot put," Don said. "You can't believe how much thump there is. One of them was coming right to us, shot it, and I ducked. It would've hit me right square in the head." The morning Euro ended with the hunters bagging only 33 percent of the 240 pheasant. Later, a field hunt was staged to "cleanup" the ones that got away. As photos were being taken of the boys, Joe couldn't help throw in one last zinger: "You guys like holding our birds?"