A5 Sweet 16
Well-known member
Is it October yet?!?
So yesterday, as many of you know, was W-I-N-D-Y!!!! With that & all the snow, I wasn't up for a long, drawn-out, all-dayer. So Ace & I hit little stretches of cattail ditches from about 11:00 to 1:30. We saw what I'd call "lots" of birds & pretty much all over the place. Just very wild & uncooperative. Then, of course, feeding time kicked in, so we just drove around. We saw "tons" of them out feeding. But for the last day, I knew I wanted to get out in at least 1 spot & do a "normal" hunt, as tough as it might be. I chose one of my favorite little, bitty WPA's that I hadn't been to in a while. Then, as if the weather gods realized they'd been unusually brutal all season long, the wind somehow went from 35 mph to about 5 mph, with as much sun as you can ask for at 4:00 in January. I was happy to be able to ditch the jacket & get by with my light gloves. And....I took my Sweet 16 to be certain there were no "I'm not used to this gun" issues. They were in there. Hen's were real dug in. Roosters a bit wilder, but Ace managed to flush 3 well within range. That was all it took. We came in about 15 minutes under the buzzer. It turned out to be probably the most enjoyable hour of the entire season. All-in-all, I saw more birds yesterday than I'd seen in any day in several years.
I typically concentrate on about 3 geographic areas (not just 3 spots) throughout the season, each roughly separated by maybe 30 miles. I'd say 1 area had about the same number of birds as usual. 1 area I'm pretty certain was up significantly this year. I'll throw out a number & guess 40%. The 3rd area, I don't know what to think about. I hunted out there the 1st couple weekends, because it's typically the best early on. I have a feeling the birds were around somewhere, but I sure couldn't find many. There was virtually no corn or beans planted in the area. Obviously, that means things were really wet. But I really don't believe it had a catastrophic effect on the hatch or brood survival. I really think that as "summer" food sources disappeared with the onset of fall/winter, the pheasants moved (much further than I'd previously thought they would) in order to find grain or other easy winter food sources. Neither pheasants nor hunters have ever really had to deal with that before (that I recall). I could be wrong, but that's my best guess. Anyway, after about the 3rd weekend, I left that area & only returned once after we had some snow. Only saw a handful of hens.
So I had a 5-1/2 month old puppy & was hunting an area void of roosters, so my season started off pretty slow. But Ace picked it up VERY quickly, especially after I switched to areas where there were more findable birds. Then the corn/bean harvest picked up pace. So just about the time my birds per trip average usually starts to fall off a bit, it actually started to increase, & the trend continued until the season closed. All-in-all, Ace & I had a pretty good year. Tons of fun. Roosterwise, it ended up pretty much just like any other "good" year. Not great. Definitely better than fair.
View attachment 9696
So yesterday, as many of you know, was W-I-N-D-Y!!!! With that & all the snow, I wasn't up for a long, drawn-out, all-dayer. So Ace & I hit little stretches of cattail ditches from about 11:00 to 1:30. We saw what I'd call "lots" of birds & pretty much all over the place. Just very wild & uncooperative. Then, of course, feeding time kicked in, so we just drove around. We saw "tons" of them out feeding. But for the last day, I knew I wanted to get out in at least 1 spot & do a "normal" hunt, as tough as it might be. I chose one of my favorite little, bitty WPA's that I hadn't been to in a while. Then, as if the weather gods realized they'd been unusually brutal all season long, the wind somehow went from 35 mph to about 5 mph, with as much sun as you can ask for at 4:00 in January. I was happy to be able to ditch the jacket & get by with my light gloves. And....I took my Sweet 16 to be certain there were no "I'm not used to this gun" issues. They were in there. Hen's were real dug in. Roosters a bit wilder, but Ace managed to flush 3 well within range. That was all it took. We came in about 15 minutes under the buzzer. It turned out to be probably the most enjoyable hour of the entire season. All-in-all, I saw more birds yesterday than I'd seen in any day in several years.
I typically concentrate on about 3 geographic areas (not just 3 spots) throughout the season, each roughly separated by maybe 30 miles. I'd say 1 area had about the same number of birds as usual. 1 area I'm pretty certain was up significantly this year. I'll throw out a number & guess 40%. The 3rd area, I don't know what to think about. I hunted out there the 1st couple weekends, because it's typically the best early on. I have a feeling the birds were around somewhere, but I sure couldn't find many. There was virtually no corn or beans planted in the area. Obviously, that means things were really wet. But I really don't believe it had a catastrophic effect on the hatch or brood survival. I really think that as "summer" food sources disappeared with the onset of fall/winter, the pheasants moved (much further than I'd previously thought they would) in order to find grain or other easy winter food sources. Neither pheasants nor hunters have ever really had to deal with that before (that I recall). I could be wrong, but that's my best guess. Anyway, after about the 3rd weekend, I left that area & only returned once after we had some snow. Only saw a handful of hens.
So I had a 5-1/2 month old puppy & was hunting an area void of roosters, so my season started off pretty slow. But Ace picked it up VERY quickly, especially after I switched to areas where there were more findable birds. Then the corn/bean harvest picked up pace. So just about the time my birds per trip average usually starts to fall off a bit, it actually started to increase, & the trend continued until the season closed. All-in-all, Ace & I had a pretty good year. Tons of fun. Roosterwise, it ended up pretty much just like any other "good" year. Not great. Definitely better than fair.
View attachment 9696
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