It is all what you are, or get, used to. Up until a couple years ago I was carrying two 1 series cameras around. One with a big lens and one with a more normal lens. At 73 I am still carrying my 1DX with a big heavy lens on it. Keep doing it and you will keep doing it.
I decided the 1DX was so good I really didn't need the Mk IV along so now I just carry the normal lens in a bag and the 1DX with a big lens.
Speaking of pheasants and living in Kansas, I carried a Remington Wingmaster and a camera with a big lens on it for years. Shooting with one or the other! 
Thanks for the encouragement Ernie! I do a 6 to 8 mile run three days a week to stay in shape and working on vintage ham radios that weigh far more than a 1 series with the biggest primes helps me stay fit. Hopefully I will have an opportunity to get some photos of my daughter playing college soccer in a couple of years. For this year, it looks like her only soccer activity will be some summer training from an incredible coach at another high school who asked her to train with his soccer star last summer and that invitation was just renewed for this summer.
I suspect the pheasants preferred your camera 🙂 They were mocking me again this morning with their loud calls but not breaking cover. Instead of a pheasant photo, I had to settle for a newborn robin photo after I found a nest while removing a falling limb from one of my apple trees yesterday. The mother probably didn't appreciate me nearby but the broken limb was in a dangerous location for me and it would have hit her nest on the way down in the next wind storm so although she doesn't realize it I did her a solid favor 🙂 Shot with 5DS R, EF 100 f2.8 IS L with Canon ring flash.
There wasn't really room to get a good camera position because of all of the small branches but I wasn't going to rearrange the robin's neighborhood just for a photo and I took it quickly from the tractor loader while hoping my daughter didn't move the hydraulic control lever in the wrong direction 🙂
Rodger
I carried a "Hump back" in the field for over 35 years, wingmaster and hump back great guns. Now I just carry a 5D IV, my wife will no longer clean the birds!
@ebiggs1 wrote:It is all what you are, or get, used to. Up until a couple years ago I was carrying two 1 series cameras around. One with a big lens and one with a more normal lens. At 73 I am still carrying my 1DX with a big heavy lens on it. Keep doing it and you will keep doing it.
I decided the 1DX was so good I really didn't need the Mk IV along so now I just carry the normal lens in a bag and the 1DX with a big lens.
Speaking of pheasants and living in Kansas, I carried a Remington Wingmaster and a camera with a big lens on it for years. Shooting with one or the other!
