Bill and I worked down the strip of late-season cover. The vegetation was weathered and thin where a month ago it was thick enough to make for tough walking. The first pheasant we encountered acted like a late-season bird, as well. Bill's setter, Ike, flash pointed then relocated, then moved on again. Thirty yards ahead of me the rooster took flight. I didn't even shoulder my gun.

That's why I was so surprised to hear a shot and watch the bird dump out of the sky, apparently dead. The pheasant was as far from Bill as me, but he'd elected to take the shot and connected. I don't know precisely how far a shot it was, but let's just say the far side of 40 yards.

"I'm shooting 3-inch 5s," said Bill. "This late in the year, I want all the stopping power I can muster coming out the muzzle." He certainly had plenty of "muster," but more than a little luck, as well.

In my book, a ring-necked pheasant is the hardest-to-kill game bird in the country. I'm not talking about hardest to hunt, though I've had hunts that were more akin to a Navy Seal training exercise than recreation. I'm not talking about hardest to hit. Pheasants can be tricky but don't hold a candle to a flushing snipe or ruffed grouse in an aspen patch. I'm talking hardest to kill. You need to deliver a knockout punch sufficient to ensure the bird hits the ground whacked, stacked and unable to slip off into the surrounding cover.

One of my boyhood mentors was a country veterinarian with the best pheasant-retrieving dog I ever saw. Ginny, a tiny little Brittany, could and would trail a wing-tipped pheasant into the next county, need be. I'm sure the retrieves were her favorite part of the hunt.

Doc hunted every day of the season. He'd schedule his "house calls" so the last one of the day just happened to be on a farm with plenty of cover. If close enough to peddle to on my bike, or when I could get a ride, I'd have enough time after school to join him for an hour or so many days.

Over the years, I saw scores of pheasants that appeared to be stone-cold dead in the air to have hightailed out of there by the time Ginny, Doc and I got to the spot it had fallen. In a few seconds, Ginny would sort out the smells and be off. Often the next time we'd see her she'd be heading back from the far end of the field with the "dead" pheasant clamped securely in her teeth.

Watching her taught me a lesson I still believe. "You can't kill a pheasant too dead."

Actually, you can. The next bird that flushed on Bill's side of the field was pinned solidly at the edge of a sorghum strip, probably no more than a foot from Ike's nose.

As Bill nudged in alongside the dog, the rooster burst into flight. Bill quickly shouldered his gun and bang. Feathers flew and not just puffs of them dislodged as a few pellets cut through the plumage. I could see plenty of the feathers propelled past the bird as a fair portion of the magnum load cut into the bird and onward. Again, I'm not a great judge of distance, so let's just say this shot was on the short side of 20 yards. Ginny wouldn't have found it to be a very satisfying retrieve.