The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

I hunted pheasants in CA as a teenager but I really got into it as I ended up living in South Dakota for 4 years where the upland bird hunting (I do not hunt waterfowl) is some of the best in the world. My wife was pretty cold on the hunting subject when we were first married. We got a lab and I worked with her and she turned out to be a fantastic upland dog. My wife saw how much the dog enjoyed doing what it was bred to do. I suggested we get another lab that my wife could train (We used Richard Wolters outstanding book Water Dog to train both dogs) and we'd see who had the best bird dog. That worked like a champ. Next thing I knew she wanted a shotgun and we were out tromping for grouse together with our great dogs. She still only likes to eat the pheasant though. The kids and I love to eat the grouse. Overcoming a hard core anti-hunting attitude is hard. I would not advise taking her out to hunt and hoping she will like it. It will probably appear pretty brutal to her and you'll weaken your position. And I agree that sneaking out is a very bad way to go. I don't know if conservation interests her, but you can find lots of info out there about the fact that many of these bird species have lost alot of natural predators and would suffer quite a bit if their numbers were allowed to grow unchecked...you might also mention pheasants are an introduced species. I'm just tossing out ideas here.