My guide, Steve, and I had barely gone 100 yards down the old woods road when Dexter’s collar started to beep.

“He’s on a bird, get ready.”

Both dogs were frozen into points behind a stone wall just off the right side of the trail. I raised my shotgun, index finger poised on the safety anticipating the flush. The next instant the ringneck racketed into flight, sailing straight down the alley formed by the maples on either side of the old roadway. I swung the 12 gauge semi-auto into alignment with the escaping pheasant and squeezed the trigger.

“Nice shot” Steve slapped me on the shoulder as his two Brittany’s chased down the road to recover the mortally wounded bird.

To be honest, no one could have been more surprised at what had just transpired than I. Earlier in the warming hut, I had explained to Steve that I had only killed one pheasant before in my life and that was when I was a teenager. Furthermore, my Remington 1100 had not been shot more than a dozen times in the last 20 years. I had purchased it when I shot a skeet league back in the seventies but seldom had it out of the closet since then.

With one rooster down I was beaming and this was just the beginning of what turned out to be a morning full of shooting, fun and excitement. It was November second, the sun was out and although the day started with temperatures around freezing, it would turn out to be another of those uncharacteristically mild days we experienced last fall. I was hunting as a guest of Glenn & Judy Symon on their Peaceable Hill Pheasant Hunting Preserve located in the lower Champlain Valley town of Shoreham. Due to our harsh winters coupled with widespread populations of predators like fox and coyotes, Vermont does not have a measurable native pheasant population. The Symon’s preserve is actually an off-shoot of their substantial hatchery business. Since moving to their hilltop farm seventeen years ago Glenn & Judy have been raising pheasants which are sold to other preserves, game clubs and state wildlife agencies throughout the east. Each year they ship many thousands of incubated eggs, day old chicks, immature pheasants as well as adults and have an established reputation for the hardiness and overall quality of their birds.

The fields, river bottoms and forest land surrounding the hilltop farm have been managed and cultivated to render ideal habitat for pheasant hunts. Tracts of corn and field grains are interspersed with fallow swale grass, juniper thickets and hardwood edges. While the lay of the land is generally open, the carefully planned proximity of good cover provides an ideal environment for working bird dogs as was evidenced by my guide as he worked his two spaniels, Dexter and Sadie from one flush to another all morning.

This was also a new and dynamic aspect of my experience at Peaceable Hill. I had hunted rabbits a few times with beagles in my younger days but never had I been exposed to the thrill of hunting over well trained bird dogs fitted with electronic collars. Steve was actually explaining to me how the collars worked when that first rooster flushed.

“The collars have several functions; if the dogs get to far out and do not respond to my whistle, I send a mild shock to get their attention. The most important feature however is the point alert.”

He went on to explain that while the dogs are working they are in constant motion following their noses and traversing as a team, back and forth through the cover. As soon as they go on point over a stationary bird, the collar emits a subtle beeping sound triggered by the lack of movement. It’s hard to imagine but I believe the dogs were actually enjoying themselves as much as I was and by the time we started making our way back toward the truck, they had flushed 7 different birds of which 4 were going home with me.

Two elements of this sport that heighten its appeal are that the preserve is open from early fall right through the winter into early spring and a day’s outing is very affordable. To insure optimum hunter/bird contact, pheasants are released prior to the commencement of each group’s hunt. These newly introduced birds compliment the scores that are already in the brush, most left over from previous releases. A six bird package with a professional handler and dogs is $185. While six fresh birds will be released you may have as many as 10 or more flushes but you are limited to only 6 kills. I shot up almost an entire box of shells the morning I went.

This is an ideal situation for husbands and wives that enjoy hunting together, parents and youngsters just getting started in the sport and the Symon’s have custom packages for corporate events. You can also hunt over your own dogs or bring a pup in training to work with the preserve’s professional pointers & flushers. Glenn is quick to point out that the vast majority of their clientele book multiple outings per year with most returning year after year. It’s no wonder really. The fact is that as I rested on one of the benches basking in the noontime sun, all the while watching another group on hunters on an adjacent hill blasting away at cackling cock pheasants taking wing, I was already thinking about a return trip of my own.