Where are all the deer and quail?

S

Southwind

New member
Spent the first 30+ years of my life in south-central KS. Moved to TN about 5 yrs ago and just moved back to the KC area. When I moved away, I gave half ownership of most of my dogs to my buddy who owns a shooting preserve near Cheney lake. When I have come back to see family in the past, I have just gone out there to chase birds behind my dogs on his land. We always saw birds out there, unharvested pen pheasants as well as wild roosters and quail and plenty of deer.
Fast forward to this season, and I was really excited to get a full season of chasin wild birds in some of my old honey holes. We can't find any birds. Opening day hunted near marysville and saw a handful of pheasants and zero quail. The stuff we hunted should have held at least 1 covey. Yesterday hunted both wiha and private family ground near Herington and only saw 1 rooster that flushed out too far for a shot. The wiha actually looked better than my private ground did.

I didn't expect to see many pheasants this season, but can't believe I am not seeing any quail. Hunting all kinds of cover and nothing.

On a related note, I am not seeing any deer at all. We used to see 20-30 deer a day on these trips and now we are lucky to see 1-2 a day. What happened to them?
 
Keep driving and hunting more spots. We found so many deer last weekend out there I could have had more of them with a shotgun than I killed pheasants. But they were definitely in pockets. Some grass fields, no deer, others 2 miles away we'd jump up 15-20 out of a quarter section. Where there were trees and a ditch, there were deer.
 
Southwind said:
Spent the first 30+ years of my life in south-central KS. Moved to TN about 5 yrs ago and just moved back to the KC area. When I moved away, I gave half ownership of most of my dogs to my buddy who owns a shooting preserve near Cheney lake. When I have come back to see family in the past, I have just gone out there to chase birds behind my dogs on his land. We always saw birds out there, unharvested pen pheasants as well as wild roosters and quail and plenty of deer.
Fast forward to this season, and I was really excited to get a full season of chasin wild birds in some of my old honey holes. We can't find any birds. Opening day hunted near marysville and saw a handful of pheasants and zero quail. The stuff we hunted should have held at least 1 covey. Yesterday hunted both wiha and private family ground near Herington and only saw 1 rooster that flushed out too far for a shot. The wiha actually looked better than my private ground did.

I didn't expect to see many pheasants this season, but can't believe I am not seeing any quail. Hunting all kinds of cover and nothing.

On a related note, I am not seeing any deer at all. We used to see 20-30 deer a day on these trips and now we are lucky to see 1-2 a day. What happened to them?
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Well it's rifle season - they're laying low as far as deer and they were decimated hardily by hunting and the drought - They needed their #'s somewhat knocked back though. (White tails)


For quail - if you're not finding any you need a dog upgrade or the dogs need more experience. Pheasants not as many around - change in farming practices and the tear out the CRP land rush that was created during the commodity boom starting at the end of 2009 or 2010 or so is responsible for that.
 
Yeah, I don't get it. Have 2 experienced dogs and 1 pup. Only thing I can think of is my hunting party has just been myself and my uncle, and maybe we are hunting too big of areas to find the birds. But, we have hunted smaller draws too with no luck. I guess we'll keep trying. Beats sitting at home anyway!
 
Too much south wind this fall. Another kansas thread reports the same experiences you have been having. Precip and north winds will change things somewhat. Lots of heavy cover this year.
 
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