Public Domain, Wellington

Public Domain

Wellington

By Rob Hilliard

I honestly believe I have made more lasting friends over the years through hunting than through any other activity.

This thought seemed odd to me at first, considering that hunting is often a solitary pursuit or, at the very least, frequently requires the kind of stealth that doesn’t exactly encourage conversation. But the fact remains that hunters just seem to stick together.

Why is it, for example, any reference to hunting at a party can ignite the kind of lengthy conversation that ends only when the two hunters are pried apart by their bleary-eyed spouses begging to go home?

The only conclusion I’ve come to is that hunting is, for most people, an all-or-nothing endeavor. While you might meet someone who is a somewhat of a baseball fan or an occasional angler, you’ll never hear anyone describe themselves as a “casual hunter.”

They’re either in or they’re out.

Other hunters understand this and it provides an instant spark of connection -- one that usually only requires a couple of free minutes and a beer or two to be fanned into a full-fledged bonfire of hunting talk. To look at it another way, not every football fan is prepared to discuss the weaknesses of the Cover 2 defense against the run (as I’ve often discovered when people run screaming from my presence during a Super Bowl party), but all hunters are right there with you to commiserate over that missed buck.

Such was the case a couple of summers ago when I met Jim Burrill, of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, for the first time.

When my father-in-law, Gene Gibbens, invited me to spend the weekend walleye fishing with him, my brother-in-law and nephew, and Jim, I wasn’t sure at first if I was up for it. I am, after all, only a casual fisherman.

But as we soaked up the atmosphere (and our share of the drinks) at Middle Bass Island’s two bars that night, Jim happened to mention that after he puts up his boat for the winter, he heads off for deer camp.

That was all it took. The rest of the evening was spent in a running discussion of bucks, birds, and bunnies.

Sometime between the fifth pitcher of beer and the second shot of whiskey, I promised Jim that we’d get together that fall and go pheasant hunting. To sweeten the deal, I told him we’d be hunting over my Weimaraner, Hunter.

This hit home with Jim, who’d had a Weim years ago, but was currently without a gray dog.

Although it took more than a year, I finally made good on my promise. The date would be the opening weekend of pheasant season. The place . . . Wellington Wildlife Management Area in Lorain County.

Now by some standards, Wellington WMA isn’t much of a destination. With just 200 acres, most of which are open fields, it’s not a place for all seasons. But, as ODNR Wildlife Research Technician Jeff Westerfield pointed out to me, “Pheasant season is the biggest thing that happens out there.”

In fairness, there are some other opportunities at Wellington. There is a solid deer population in the area, and there is a designated Dove Management Area near the northwestern edge of the WMA.

In addition, Westerfield says Wellington has “decent habitat for rabbits” and is “moderate” for squirrels. But the parking lot didn’t fill up with cars that November morning for the squirrel hunting.

Due to the usual early morning delays, we got to Wellington a little later than intended. I knew that ODNR had stocked 100 birds here just a couple of days ago, but with the fields crowded with orange vests, and gunshots greeting us as we finally found a place to park, I started to worry that there might be none left.

With no real plan of attack other than not walking in front of another hunter’s gun, we headed into one of the unpicked cornfields near the northeastern corner of the WMA.

We passed two groups leaving this same spot on our way in so we knew it had already been hit hard, but we had to start somewhere. Besides, I figured it might give Hunter a chance to burn off a little steam after a couple of hours in the car -- then we could look for a more promising spot.

This thinking lasted for, oh, maybe five minutes (which, I should point out, is far longer than it normally takes for one of my theories to be proven wrong). We had walked less than 75 yards into the field when Hunter’s bell stopped jingling on my right. I peered as best I could through the cornstalks, but could only make out about a 4-inch patch of gray rump.

I glanced toward Jim on my left and opened my mouth to say, “Jim, we’ve got a point here.”

Why those words didn’t come out, I still don’t know. Instead, breaking one of my own cardinal rules of bird hunting (i.e., Trust your dog, knucklehead), I opted to get a closer look before announcing the point. This had predictably bad results.

I took a couple of steps toward that gray backside when the cackling and wingbeats erupted. As I swung the gun up, my mind processed the fact that Hunter had indeed been pointing the cockbird, which he had pinned in a small cluster of weeds between the cornrows.

With no time to regret my poor decision, I swung to my right, turning a full 180 degrees before firing. Then firing again. Then yelling, “Jim, here he comes!” as the ringneck sailed directly behind him. Then watching Jim shoot . . . and shoot again. Then watching the bird drift off unharmed across the next field.

Now there was plenty of time to regret my decision. After employing one of my tried and true strategies for deflecting blame -- “C’mon, Jim,” I hollered, “I shot behind him to push him right to you!” -- I began dishing out the mental kicks in the backside that I so richly deserved.

Had Jim known then what the rest of the hunt had in store, he might have given me more than a psychological boot in the pants.

After the thrill of shooting at a bird over a perfect point just a few minutes into our hunt, we didn’t see another for the rest of the morning.

We pushed through standing corn, corn stubble, goldenrod fields, an overgrown drainage ditch, and brambly hedge rows (OK, we let Hunter push through those), with nothing to show for it but tired legs and burrs on our sleeves.

Apparently we weren’t the only ones either, because none of the hunters we ran into after that had gotten birds, and we only heard two or three more shots.

As we were packing to leave around midday, we struck up a conversation with the hunter parked next to us (see what I mean?). He said he regularly makes the one-hour drive from Cleveland to Wellington to hunt pheasants, but had been disappointed at the lack of birds this year.

Still, he planned to come back during the week when there would be fewer hunters. “You never know where there might be a bird hiding,” he concluded optimistically.

ODNR’s Westerfield agrees with this approach. Although there were more than 400 birds stocked at Wellington last fall, they were concentrated in three batches: opening weekend, the second weekend, and Thanksgiving. Westerfield recommends trying the “in-between hunt weekends” when there are fewer people, but still a good chance of finding birds.

Jim, Hunter, and I, though, had had enough for the day. Despite my growling stomach, we bypassed a number of restaurants in the town of Wellington and headed north again to Sheffield Lake.

I would eventually be rescued from my malnourishment with soup and sandwiches from Jim’s wife Kathy back in the Burrill kitchen. But before that, we made a stop at Jim’s weekday morning hangout, the Erie Outfitters tackle shop.

There I got a crash course in fly fishing from owner Craig Lewis and a couple of the other shop denizens in return for reports on our hunt.

Too soon, though, I was headed back down the highway. Although I hated to tear myself away from the Burrill kitchen, I knew that Jim and I would eventually hunt together again. We had connected through our enjoyment of upland birds and gray dogs, through our devotion to hunting.

It’s a bond that most of us have known, and one that I look forward to experiencing again and again.