Great couple of days

D

duckn66

Well-known member
For my birthday I loaded my labs up and headed west. Tuesday morning. Stopped and hunted the spot I hunted opening day. It was windy, cold, and snowing. Never saw a bird, not even any tracks. Back in the truck and headed to Jewell county. Scouted around some but didn't see anything I liked so loaded up and continued west. Stopped just east of final destination and hunted a public hunting area. Saw lots of birds and ended up with one rooster. They were still getting up out range. Flushed two coveys of quail but didn't shoot or pursue them due to the cold weather.

Packed up and headed further west. Checked in to motel. Got up in the morning and headed out. First field not a bird. Second draw had some nice loafing areas and i walked it to where it ended at a cut corn field. All hell broke loose. Probably 50 phez flushed in all directions. Labs were going crazy. Dropped two roosters. I marked the first one down and she picked up the second one and I sent her for the first and got it. I could have easily taken my limit but it was only 10am. Went to second spot. 40 bird flush mostly hens.

Walk another 50 yards and I swear 100 birds came out. Lots of rooster. Shot one because again what to do the rest of the day. Walked a weedy fence line and picked up my 4th. And the last spot I got two
Quail along with another bunch of phez flushing. Ended the trip and headed home. Not a bad day and a half.

Lots of birds and they were concentrated. When you were in them you were in them! Dead sunflowers and some other kind of weed, kind of like big Tumble weeds but don't think that's what hey were.

Now it's on to some mallards for the weekend!
 
Been a very long time since I'd seen flushes like that! My young lab who I run hunt tests with and duck hunt with wasn't sure what to think about the phez but she is well on her way now!
 
Well we are holding out hope that that’s why we didn’t see much today. Just saw a few hunting private property that has been holding birds. Very dry.
 
It was fun. Been a very long time since I've seen birds like that. When I was in high school there was an intersection west of Mayetta Ks that in one ditch there were always about 20 pheasants in when it got cold. We'd hit that spot a couple times a year and always take a couple of roosters home. Sadly those roads are paved now and homes built there
 
You must know where to look cuz no one in the KS forum has reported anything like what you got into. Fantastic!
 
I just found the spots they wanted to be in for loafing. Stayed out of the big fields and only hunted the small, high percentage spots that had a natural blocking spot to pin them down. Park of sight, don't
Slam the truck door, and make my approach out of sight. Absolutely NO yelling at the dogs, quiet as a church mouse. Just me and two labs. Lots of times I'd have them at heel, those birds know the gig is up as soon as they see you. They start running ahead but run out of real estate that has cover so at the end they gamble that I'll keep on going. That's when I sent the labs in to root them out.

Big crp fields and just big field in general are better suited to big parties on opening weekend. It's no place to be with one guy and a couple of dogs.

Hunt quiet, if you can approach without being seen and have dogs that aren't "needy" with commands.

The cover I mentioned is was what I called "high percentage" spots. Passed up all sorts of other good looking cover just due to the fact that I'd found so many birds in this other stuff.
 
BritChaser said:
You must know where to look cuz no one in the KS forum has reported anything like what you got into. Fantastic!
Click to expand...

I can guarantee you people are getting into birds, but they are afraid to report such due to hunters swarming all over the area. If you've been on here long enough it ain't hard to figure out what general area people are hunting. I have a buddy that sent me a pic yesterday, he and another guy with one dog moved 17 coveys. They shot a 2 man limit of quail and was one rooster short of a 2 man limit for that as well. Of course when you say that the first thing people want to know is "where at?" I can also tell you that the past two days my 3 buddies and myself tried a new area walking half public and half private and shot 30 roosters in the past two days. What duck said about when you were in them you were in them was the truth! Had some fields that were plum loaded with birds and they held really well! Lots of driving and walking though and cold as all heck, most don't want to put in the work to find them.
 
Super cool...when you are in the birds it’s fun!
 
BritChaser said:
You must know where to look cuz no one in the KS forum has reported anything like what you got into. Fantastic!
Click to expand...

A lot of us are doing quite well. I for one decided not to post how I am doing do to all the negative responses I get. I have shot limits of quail and pheasant several days I have hunted. I am headed back out to hunt Wed thru Sunday. I hope to hunt at least half the days in January, it's my favorite time of the year to hunt birds, especially pheasant.
 
Well we goose hunted this afternoon and got skunked. Saw plenty of geese which were using the field but for whatever reason they went to the other end of it.

Headed back west next weekend to try to get back on some pheasants.
 
I hope my birthday hunt this weekend goes well like yours. My first weekends out hunting were just volunteering for kids hunts which is definitely enjoyable.
 
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