Opening Weekend in Kansas

My brother in law and I shot 8 over 2 days. Mostly out of some standing feed corners. Saw easily a hundred birds a day but we were pushing them around between corners and flushing them again so 60 is probably a more accurate count. It was fun though. Having a couple of 15 or 20 bird flushes on each end of a corner made for exciting weekend. My pup got a ton of bird exposure and made some nice retrieves , left the big dog in the truck unless we were hunting crp. Dang there were a bunch of sand burrs though though the pups feet are gonna be sore awhile
Great exposure for a young dog...
 
Spent opening weekend hunting WIHA's in Cowley, Elk, Chautauqua and Wilson counties for quail. Saw one other bird hunter in all of the places and miles I covered. Didn't see a single quail or ditch parrot the entire two days. Thinking quail may be a fictitious game animal just to collect license revenues. Not gonna give up. Need to do more home work it sounds like.
 
Spent opening weekend hunting WIHA's in Cowley, Elk, Chautauqua and Wilson counties for quail. Saw one other bird hunter in all of the places and miles I covered. Didn't see a single quail or ditch parrot the entire two days. Thinking quail may be a fictitious game animal just to collect license revenues. Not gonna give up. Need to do more home work it sounds like.
Just dont hunt SE ks if it's public - could be wrong - but their hunting for quail went down the sewer late 90s early 00s - I keep seeing bs online about it coming back but I doubt it - garbage soybeans everywhere - farm fence row to fence row, cool season grasses everywhere, intensive grazing and on top of that big ag's Chemicals and GMO's everyone has been brainwashed into using - a recipe for no Quail.
 
Just dont hunt SE ks if it's public - could be wrong - but their hunting for quail went down the sewer late 90s early 00s - I keep seeing bs online about it coming back but I doubt it - garbage soybeans everywhere - farm fence row to fence row, cool season grasses everywhere, intensive grazing and on top of that big ag's Chemicals and GMO's everyone has been brainwashed into using - a recipe for no Quail.
It went down the sewer in the late 80's. Last good year was 1988.
 
It went down the sewer in the late 80's. Last good year was 1988.
I cant imagine what it was like in the 80s - I got in as a teenager on 2 or 3 hunts with family about 93-95 and holy cow - the only thing I've experienced that was close to how many birds we saw was a hunt in Oklahoma in 2015 or 2016 when they had their banner year.
 
Yea 2015-16 in Oklahoma panhandle gave folks a taste of what the good old days were like anywhere at anytime in the country.
 
Spent opening weekend hunting WIHA's in Cowley, Elk, Chautauqua and Wilson counties for quail. Saw one other bird hunter in all of the places and miles I covered. Didn't see a single quail or ditch parrot the entire two days. Thinking quail may be a fictitious game animal just to collect license revenues. Not gonna give up. Need to do more home work it sounds like.
I’m sorry to hear that. I saw several good sized coveys while deer hunting this weekend in Chautauqua County . There are quail in southeast Kansas, and good numbers of them in many areas. We don’t have much public hunting down this way though, and what little we do have gets run out in pretty short order.
 
In my part of SEK there are very few quail. ( Wilson county) I hunted most of the day Saturday and never seen a bird. And I was on all private ground. I don't think we will ever see the 80's and early 90's quail numbers again.
 
I've never seen so many birdhunters like I saw this weekend. We put alot of miles on the truck trying to elude hunters and find ditchparrots.
2 of us with 3 shorthairs on public land, 2 mornings and 2 evenings in a 3 day period-put up 20 roosters, 30+ hens, and 3 big covies of quail. We finished with 5 roosters each and a handful of quail out of the deal. Gonna wait a couple of weeks, Hopefully it settles down a bit before we go back.
 
KDWP used to always put out harvest numbers for upland birds. Now only a forcast to keep people coming. They hide the truth .Last one I recall was 2018 where somewhere around 300,000 pheasant were shot. Wasn't that long ago where that number was close to a million. I have no idea on quail. I assume under 100,000. That number was 4-5 million in the 70's and 80's. I read that Kansas meadowlark numbers were down 70%. All boils down to habitat. Regardless of weather and hatch, numbers will never rebound without habitat.
 
Spent opening weekend hunting WIHA's in Cowley, Elk, Chautauqua and Wilson counties for quail. Saw one other bird hunter in all of the places and miles I covered. Didn't see a single quail or ditch parrot the entire two days. Thinking quail may be a fictitious game animal just to collect license revenues. Not gonna give up. Need to do more home work it sounds like.
I grew up in Wilson County, Dad still lives there. He hasn't kept a bird dog in over 20 years, and there wasn't anybody that loved to quail hunt more than him. Used to know of 10+ coveys there on our home place when I was growing up in the 90's. More when he was growing up in the 60's. There might be 1 there now.
 
I grew up in Wilson County, Dad still lives there. He hasn't kept a bird dog in over 20 years, and there wasn't anybody that loved to quail hunt more than him. Used to know of 10+ coveys there on our home place when I was growing up in the 90's. More when he was growing up in the 60's. There might be 1 there now.
That's the norm. No grasses, no hedge rows, no old homesteads. The landscape looks totally different than it was 40-50 years ago.
 
I had some great hunts in eastern Elk county/western Wilson county in the 80s and into the very early 90s. My dad had developed a few relationships by knocking on doors. Times change.
 
That's the norm. No grasses, no hedge rows, no old homesteads. The landscape looks totally different than it was 40-50 years ago.
Along with that there are trees where there never used to be. My grandparents farm north of Fall River is covered up in trees and scrub bush. Not much pasture left. We used to find several coveys of birds on it back in the 70s and 80s. They sold it and the last time I was down there it looks totally different
 
I’ve been reading that the pheasants are doing better in Iowa. Anyone know why that is? Since CRP is nationwide, what is different in Iowa that seems to be turning things around?
 
I’ve been reading that the pheasants are doing better in Iowa. Anyone know why that is? Since CRP is nationwide, what is different in Iowa that seems to be turning things around?
I don't know but I am leaving for Iowa on Monday and be back on Saturday. I do know that their state has made an effort to work with landowners to set aside land for habitat.
 
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