I slogged down through the boot-sucking muck in the creek bottom and up into the mud flats on the other side. I’d seen a cock pheasant fly this way and wanted to get another crack at him.
I tromped around through the tall grass on the slope and pushed to the end of some low weeds that didn’t look tall enough to conceal a grasshopper.
The big rooster pheasant leapt from the ground about 10 feet in front of me, crowned 10 feet up and flew like a rocket to the cover of some 12 foot reeds a quarter of a mile away. The two shots I took fell harmlessly short.