Hey guys! New here and a newbie to pheasant hunting! I'll give a brief intro on me but the question I'm asking is in the second and third paragraph... My pup, Boomer, is a lab and the intent was to run him in AKC hunt tests, well he ended up tearing his ACL on his 1st birthday then his other 7 months later in october 2016.... Anyways with hunt tests being outta the picture he was just a house pup and we did retrieving drills, blinds and marks to keep him sharp if I ever started duck hunting. I ended up running outta things to do this fall after deer season and took my lab out to go chase some pheasants and fell in love with it. We've killed 8 birds in 5 trips out, I had two hunts we didn't limit and we should have but I whiffed on my shots....
So I'm here in PA and the birds are stocked, now the question is it's been 0-10 degrees the last 3 weeks, do most of them die off? If not then my next question is tomorrow I'm looking at going out, it's going to be 2 degrees with a wind chill of -20 degrees, 15-20MPH wind with 30MPH gusts...
Is this a terrible idea to go out? The dog is fine in the cold and as will I be but is it even worth it cuz I heard taht the birds are going to sit so tight, are they even in the grass fields or do they go find heavy cover? I haven't learned how to hunt heavy cover yet having a hard charging flushing dog, I feel when we hunt a thicket and he works it they flush the other side where I have no shot.
If it is not a terrible idea to go out, would you go right at sunrise to try and catch em feeding in the fields? Or wait until later in the day? From what I'm reading it seems they feed early on cold days and head back into thick cover to fight out the rest of the day.
Thanks guys!
T.J.
So I'm here in PA and the birds are stocked, now the question is it's been 0-10 degrees the last 3 weeks, do most of them die off? If not then my next question is tomorrow I'm looking at going out, it's going to be 2 degrees with a wind chill of -20 degrees, 15-20MPH wind with 30MPH gusts...
Is this a terrible idea to go out? The dog is fine in the cold and as will I be but is it even worth it cuz I heard taht the birds are going to sit so tight, are they even in the grass fields or do they go find heavy cover? I haven't learned how to hunt heavy cover yet having a hard charging flushing dog, I feel when we hunt a thicket and he works it they flush the other side where I have no shot.
If it is not a terrible idea to go out, would you go right at sunrise to try and catch em feeding in the fields? Or wait until later in the day? From what I'm reading it seems they feed early on cold days and head back into thick cover to fight out the rest of the day.
Thanks guys!
T.J.