More Birds Than Last Year

hunter94 said:
agree, no need to get defensive or offensive for that matter.......it has been a down season and a bit frustrating for many who hunt the Daks...weather has not been helpful either.
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A down season? Says who? I checked at week 6 and we were up 25% in an area that said we were down 20%. Who should I believe? Our groups have harvested 322 birds thru week 6 compared to 249 last year at this time.

Weeks 6 and 7 groups harvested about 30 birds each. Same as last year. Week 8 is on track to harvest 70. About the same as last year. These are same size groups.

I am learning that "seeing alot of hens" does not always mean a high hen to rooster ratio or a state of over harvesting but can mean more novice hunting skills result in seeing more hens and less roosters. Hens have learned they do not get shoot at and roosters do.

For profit or not it takes cash flow to create optimal pheasant habitat. And oh by the way....everyone pays to hunt.
 
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UGUIDE said:
A down season? Says who? I checked at week 6 and we were up 25% in an area that said we were down 20%. Who should I believe? Our groups have harvested 322 birds thru week 6 compared to 249 last year at this time.
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How can you be sure they are not just picking up the day befores cripples?:)
 
question

Uguide, Do you mind if I ask how much property you have in your business? Do you ever do like a bird or bird harvested per acre type ratio? I'd be interested to know. I'm starting to work on some family land and would like to get an idea of what to shoot for. And an idea on cost for prime habitat. DOnt know why lthis posted twice can someone help me out?
 
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I hunted a ranch that did bird estimates and had bilogist along with dU assist in setting up habitat. He averaged 2 plus birds per acre. Best I have ever seen. You
 
Uguide has a goal of 750 roosters for the season on 700 acres of land at Pheasant camp log. This is simply amazing! If my math is correct Pheasant camp lodge has killed over 400 rooters after week 8.

This is simply amazing to produce that many wild roosters on 700 acres. Especially as wild as they get by seasons end. In my experience near Winner, the farm had about 5000 acres and would shoot about 1000 roosters per year. This time of year you would still see 1000's of hens in 3 days of hunting and maybe 200 to 300 roosters. Out of those 200 to 300 roosters you worked your ass off to get 40 to 50 of them.

If that farm by Winner could produce pheasants like Uguide can they would harvest over 5000 roosters per year!

My dad used to always tell me "if its too good to be true, it probably is" but not in this case. :cheers:
 
PheasantWhisperer said:
Uguide, Do you mind if I ask how much property you have in your business? Do you ever do like a bird or bird harvested per acre type ratio? I'd be interested to know. I'm starting to work on some family land and would like to get an idea of what to shoot for. And an idea on cost for prime habitat. DOnt know why lthis posted twice can someone help me out?
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PW, all our acres in gross are listed on the uguide website. It's important to note that I do not lease up any acres. I partner with other landwoers and they retain all the rights and manage accordingly. I believe I have one of the smallest properties with 600 huntable acres. New group from Texas (quail hunters) said they would get through that in a day since they hunt about 1500 acres a day. You should have seen them and their dogs on day 3:).

Right now 1 rooster harvested per 1 acre of habitat is about the rough score. Would like to achieve 2 to 1 which could very well be already assuming real world lost and cripples.
 
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Noplclkneb1 said:
Uguide has a goal of 750 roosters for the season on 700 acres of land at Pheasant camp log. This is simply amazing! If my math is correct Pheasant camp lodge has killed over 400 rooters after week 8.

This is simply amazing to produce that many wild roosters on 700 acres. Especially as wild as they get by seasons end. In my experience near Winner, the farm had about 5000 acres and would shoot about 1000 roosters per year. This time of year you would still see 1000's of hens in 3 days of hunting and maybe 200 to 300 roosters. Out of those 200 to 300 roosters you worked your ass off to get 40 to 50 of them.

If that farm by Winner could produce pheasants like Uguide can they would harvest over 5000 roosters per year!

My dad used to always tell me "if its too good to be true, it probably is" but not in this case. :cheers:
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We are at about 415 harvested after week 8. That's in the game bag. Now add in cripples, lost, natural mortality, predators, etc.......The week 8 guys said they had one of their best days ever in the middle of thier hunt. I still don't think we have had the optimal hatch weather to go with the habitat to make the place max out. Bottom line is that the habitat investment and optimization works and produces beyond expectation. I have reps from DOW, Millborn Seed and Pheasants Forever hunting with me on Dec. 17 to inspect habitat via shotgun and dog. My own group is here this weekend (15 guys) and sons group after that and then another group of 12 last week of season.

Also 100 of the 700 is crop ground so I don't count that as huntable acres.
 
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Congrats Chris, and those like you that work with the farmers (and those that are farmers) to create/maintain/enhance pheasant sustaining habitat. We need those efforts more than ever, and before it's too late (see Northern Illinois pheasant harvest...........PS good luck finding any stats on it).
 
Thanks BH,

We have 15 people at camp this week. Basically my group of friends family and business associates. This is our third year as a group. First year we averaged 1 bird per person, 2nd 2 and this year group is determined to set highest weekly harvest number of any group.

Winds today are 25-35 with windchill down to -15. Temps in single digits. Should be fun.:cheers::cool::confused:
 
and to think we were hunting in tees just one month ago..........those conditions will make for some tough hunting....winter has arrived!....good luck achieving your goal, that first shot will be crucial in those winds!
 
We went 12-30-12 for 54 total.

So far that puts us about 469 harvest thru week 9.

Difference on the days efforts was we had 4 good dogs the middle day and only 2 1st and last days.

We found them in the tall grass and cattails.
 
Our group has hunted one of the other Uguide properties for several years and can attest that if you farm for pheasants they will be there. If you have food plots, sorghum or milo is best, then you will have birds. If you have the grass fields of CRP + food plots then you will really have birds.
I think that we all can agree the loss of CRP, fence rows, burning/ mowing down the cattail sloughs, and round up ready crops have dramatically hurt the pheasant population in the last 7 or so years. Will we ever see the return to the glory years like the early 2000's ?
This year we hunted in early November in very very tough conditions temps in the 60-70's, no rain for several months, and very windy. We lost more birds this year than in almost all previous years combined. The dogs really struggled to locate a downed bird if they didn't physically see the bird go down.
 
The verdict is finally in on the Howard/Ramona area. Hunted public land & ditches(cattails) w/ my buddy & our 2 springers both Saturday & Sunday in some pretty absurd weather. The birds are FINALLY bunched up & "spooky" was the word for the weekend (& probably until the season ends). There's also not enough snow around (in general) to eliminate or even minimize the "running little SOBs" factor, even amidst the cattails. We hunted in relatively short spurts separated by plenty of coffee & treat time in the warm truck. (allow me to also tout Musher's Secret again - great stuff) Got our 6 Saturday and 3 yesterday. It felt like we worked hard for them because of the weather, but the reality is that we really didn't. Yesterday we definitely SAW them - just couldn't get close to them. Our stealthy tricks just weren't stealthy or tricky enough. So the answer to how bird numbers are in this area??? They are definitely........UP!! Up a bit compared to last year & probably up compared to the last 4-5 years. And I'd say we saw a higher rooster/hen ratio than usual. I suppose that would be attributed to a noticeably larger-than-usual overall population & somewhat difficult hunting conditions throughout the season to date. So there you go. It may not be the most pheasanty place in the state, but plenty of birds for me.
 
We have a group of guys driving from international falls and hunting fri/sat. Blowing like crazy right now but looks like high of 45 on Fri and 30 on Sat. i told them they hit the jackpot on weather. Ground is rested for s few days and will see if we can find some birds.

Should be about 13-17 in the group. 4-6 dogs.

Fri heat should take care of remaining snow.
 
UGUIDE said:
We have a group of guys driving from international falls and hunting fri/sat. Blowing like crazy right now but looks like high of 45 on Fri and 30 on Sat. i told them they hit the jackpot on weather. Ground is rested for s few days and will see if we can find some birds.

Should be about 13-17 in the group. 4-6 dogs.

Fri heat should take care of remaining snow.
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Well the season is a wrap. Pretty close to the 500 birds harvested at my farm like the last couple years.

The roosters are slim pickens the last few weeks of the season. I would say the rooster to hen ratio is about 1/20 but I also know the roosters are no where near as visible as the hens this late in the year.

Lots of hens around right now and I am sure there will be plenty of roosters around to cover the hens.

Another good season is in the books for 2016. Time to formulate the habitat project list for 2017.

:cheers:
 
Back home after 5 days of really good hunting, which started in the Monday "windstorm". I don't think I've ever pheasant hunted in stronger sustained winds. Three of us covered a lot of ground and put up a lot of birds, probably 3 or 4 hens for every rooster. This was good to see after our early November trip ratio was opposite this trip. We managed our limit every day, and hunting pressure from other hunters was light:cheers:
We saw 4 coyotes but not close enough for shots:mad:
Never saw a jackrabbit this trip, wonder if the coyotes are the reason. Saw a lot of coyote tracks and scat, hope the predator hunters out there can thin the numbers. Seems to me coyote numbers are strong last year and this year.
Clearly the rain storm before our arrival froze, covering stretches of road, and put a crust on the snow. Fortunately the Daily temps allowed for melting, and the first day of hunting crust was basically gone the rest of the trip. With no snow during the week, the snow cover kept shrinking......unlike last winter, which had all but the heaviest cover completely buried. Made an out of the way trip for a beer and burger at the Turtle Creek Saloon in Miller, after reading the restaurant posts on this site. Well worth the trip. You never know what the conditions will be like for these late season hunts, but when conditions are right, the hunting can be awesome. My son and Buddy each shot a double from the same flush. That's exciting! Always a great trip to South Dakota, thanks to all the good folks out there.
Red dog - sure enjoyed that granddaughter pic, and reading about your garage, fishing, and hunting posts! Congrats
I wish all of you a healthy and prosperous New Year!
 
Nice report, wished my son and I were able to make it out, but mother nature was not kind for our travels. Hope you have a great new year.
 
A couple buddies and I made it out for our last trip of the season last week tues-fri. Hunted some new ground and a completely different area than where we normally go. Hunted the south east part of the state. First day was tough got out around noon and walked some stuff that had already been hunted that day. Only shot 1 the first day but did see a good number of hens. 2nd day we hunted some private land I have permission on north of Mitchell we saw plenty of birds and came up 1 short of our 3 man limit but we did loose 1 so that would have been our limit. 3rd day we hit a public spot about 15 mins from where we were staying and limited in a hour could have been 45 mins but we lost two that we thought for sure were dead and never could find them. Last day we shot 3 in the morning at the same piece of public we shot our limit the day before, moved on after that to another piece of public and only saw hens and finished up at a piece of crep that we scouted the previous day. walked 45 mins and shot our last 6 which also included one of the dogs getting sprayed by a skunk. Overall it was a great trip saw a ton of birds and from the looks of it it'll be a good year next year if the winter holds out and they have a good spring. We didn't see any dead birds from the freezing rain and the cover looked good almost everywhere we went. With 1 week left in iowa to hunt the group of guys I hunt with and myself have shot 178 birds in 3 states, MN, SD and IA so I would call it a successful year. Best part is my 1yr old lab had the light bulb turn on with this last trip which really makes me look forward to next season!! Hope everyone had a great season!
 
Buzz & I wrapped up our season Sunday. We hunted 24 times, all public land, all within 1.5 hrs of Sioux Falls (usually closer) - mostly west & northwest. The last month was pretty difficult conditions, but we still ended the season with a 2.08 bird/trip average, which is pretty good. I'd say we didn't work terribly hard for them this year, particularly up until Dec. 1 or so. By far the highlight of my year was Buzz going from a "finder" to a legitimate retriever. After that first weekend & my "throw it in the lake" game, he REALLY did a nice job. Here he is, with the last birds of the season. So proud! :D
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