Me and three of my cousins packed up my truck, hooked up the trailer and headed out to do some pheasant hunting near I-5 and 505 this weekend.

4 big guys, three in the front cab, and one in the back of the truck under the camper shell. Makes me only dream of a mega cab on my truck (wish I had it).

One reason I'm bringing all this up is because I'm so impressed with all the new power the truck has. All this new power came from a simple lift pump change. All the mods I put into my truck were good, but it all came together when I placed in a new lift pump. It was nice!!

There are a couple hills on my drive and the truck went up them at normal highway speeds, and even passed a couple fords on my way. Before LP there was loss of power.

It's really amazing how fuel going up to the IP has such a dramatic effect in top end power and hwy speeds.

I still have my diaphragm lift pump in storage and will take it all apart and post picks some day soon. There's got to be some visuals in its failure.

The trip there was all going fine till we hit 80 east from 680.

The traffic was a little heavy at 5pm heading east.

I was driving around 60 in the third lane on a 5-lane hwy.

There was a car up ahead of me (10 car lengths) that showed right blinker and break lights.

I slowed down,

Then the driver started to panic because there was no opening to turn right because of traffic in that right lane and these idiots will not open up a spot.

Then the driver came to an abrupt and complete tire-smoking stop in my lane. (8) or less car lengths) in order to find a spot to turn into to the right hand lane.

Steady traffic going at least 65 blocked the lane to my left.

I looked and saw no opening at that second

The driver stopped so quickly that I would have possibly lost control of my truck and trailer even with the antilock in order to stop safely. So I was forced to continue my speed 45 +- after braking twice before antilock.

The driver took up 2/3 of my lane, forced me into the lane to the left that had in it self fast traffic.

I had to stay at that point where I was to avoid a bad collision. But because of my breach into the other lane I felt I could have hit another vehicle and fortunately that did not happen. I believe the other driver was aware and moved over for me. This is why being aware is so critical while driving.

This kind of makes me think of a couple things,

Maybe being too safe creates another to take a risk.

The timing in this situation was very fast. I came within centimeters of sideswiping the crazy woman coming to a complete stop in my lane from the second lane from the right on a 5-lane hwy.

After this very close call, all my cousins cheered even the one in the back who at that time had his head looking out the back dividers talking to us. We just avoided a bad accident!

But in my side mirrors there was a different situation. The car behind her and the car behind me hit her sending a couple cars spinning. I hope nobody got hurt in that.

I thought for sure I was going to get every bit of the side of her car while driving past her.

It was a real shocker for the rest of the ride.

But when we drove to the club nestled up against the soft rolling dry grassy hills of Dunnigan all seemed to fade only into memory.

The club has a great spot to place a trailer, or about 50... and we were the only ones there that night other than two other friends.

We Jumped out of the truck and grabbed the shotguns and went out hunting a free late afternoon hunt pass and came out with a rooster and a hen before time limits.

The quick get away was only a one nighter but between 6 of us we got a total of 21 birds. (6 chucker, and 15 Pheasant)= 21 birds

The drive home was allot better and with less rain.

My powerstroke cousin was impressed by how little throttle I used when going up hills. I showed him how much throttle I had by my turbo whistle and boost gauge. He thought I was @ WOT it but was only around 1/2. And that goes up hwy 17 south where the speed is average 50.

The only other problems was my waist of two new gallons of castro 15-40 on my concrete drive way, + 20lb bag of drysweep, and two new gallons of 15-40. I will not tell you that story, sorry but it belongs on the stupid mistake section. But thought I would leave you with something to poke fun at in the future.

Now, it is time to prepare some pheasant.
The skin is on these; I would love to hear of some good recipes. Do you have a couple? If not, than I'll go about placing them in an oven with my own recipe.

Thanks for reading my long post rant..

Thank God we got out of that one in good condition.

 

Back when I used to hunt pheasant,quail,and grouse a little cream of mushroom soup and cream of celery soup and bake in the oven.I miss hunting those birds,some of the best times I had with my dad. marc

 

What a Good way to cook and what good memories.
So far a little cream of mushroom soup and cream of celery soup in the oven sounds superb. Especially with skin.

 

Cool story...the quail are not so good here in Texas this year. We had a couple of canned chucker hunts last year. That was kinda fun...like shooting chickens. Those birds are bigger than i am used to.

 

If you think Chukar are big, you have to do pheasants. After hunting wild quail, pheasants are like shooting flying pumpkins.

 

I think they call it "lane discipline" - being in the lane you are supposed to be in for whatever reason and staying there. Some people just don't get it. You have the ones like you almost took out. There's the ones that like to make right turns from the left lane and vice verse. We've all enjoyed following the left lane drivers doing well below the speed limit. And of course, don't forget the weavers and bobbers that are just all over the place dodging in and out trying to get 10 seconds further ahead in heavy traffic.

Glad you came through it OK.

 

It's always fun when your walking a field and you step on the birds{quail especially}they take off and your changing your shorts marc

 

Glad your story ended well. I've never had pheasant, does it taste like chicken?

 

Don't know how it would be with the skin on but... a buddy of mine chops the meat up into bite size chunks and puts them in catfish batter with his own blend of seasonings. Deep fat fry and you've got some VERY tasty popcorn pheasant!

EDIT: yes it tastes a lot like chicken

 

Dang, that sounds good! Popcorn Pheasant.

This will be the first in keeping the skin on.
We usually keep the skin on ducks and use the rotisserie and the meat tastes like prime rib.

I think I may have shot the mother chucker... or should I say, hen chucker because it was a rather large bird. Mmmm tasty... like chicken.

 

A little bit. But pheasant has its own unique flavors.
Thanks for your post.