There are two good times to pluck birds. First, when the bird is still warm.The second best time is about a week later. If the bird was shot in hot weather, you need to draw it out and put it on ice as soon as possible (within 1-2 hours). If the thermometer is down to jacket weather you can handle the bird more leisurely. Of course for transporting it home in a heated vehicle, draw or whole,  put it on ice.

Once home, place the bird, whole, in a plastic bag in the bottom of the refrigerator for 5-7 days. Then the feathers will come easily. If you need to wrap and freeze the bird before this, you are best off skinning rather than plucking. And if you are hunting land that has been farmed-  with herbicides, pesticides, anhydrous ammonia,  and the rest- it's best to skin most or all of your upland birds anyway. If the birds live among those chemicals, they be stored in the fat-  and filtered through liver. While we do not eat livers, be careful to keep your bird dog from scarfing up any entrails as a snack in the field. You may end up with a big vet bill.

After you have cooled your game birds in the field and aged them in the refrigerator, double wrap them  for the freezer and you will eat birds all year. Take a deep breath, and the next thought will be, " What's the best way to cook all these wonderful creatures?"  Unless you are incredibly unlucky, 70-90 percent of the birds you shot are young of the year. Cooking methods depend on the bird involved. Mountain grouse tend to be tender all over; other birds tender in the breast, tougher in the leg. Young pheasant (you can tell they're young if the beak bends and the spur is rounded) are less tough in the leg than sage or sharptail grouse- birds that make their living in the big open. Sharptail and sage grouse also are among the most "distinctly" flavored, and can be impreoved with overnight milk bath if that flavor offends,. Tough birds, or tough legs, can be water-smoked or cooked in an oven bag and made quite tender, or ground and turned into sausage. And, yes you can use a plastic oven bag in the barbecue. Just be sure you don't cook much hotter than 350F.