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NW KS the last two days. A good portion of the spots we have seen birds past years are literally bare dirt. We do not hunt terribly hard by this forum's standards, 12 miles in 2 days. Saw exactly 1 rooster that flushed wild. 3 hens in the 1 standby spot that still had decent grass. 4...

However, quail were a different story....definitely saw more quail on the public land this year, and bigger coveys. Not sure if that is more birds, or simply hunting smarter. Either way we saw way more quail this year vs last WIHA vs WIHA. The biggest issue is they were invariably at the back...

Seemed like numbers were down at least 25%, but maybe more. Hard to tell exactly because we hunted a couple really good private tracts last year with a lot of birds. This year almost all WIHA. The birds seemed way more spooky this year, so it could also be simply not seeing them but they were...

Just finishing up our annual hunt. This year we could not get access to the private land we had access to the last two years (health issues with the owner) so hunted WIHA with one private tract we could get on. Conditions were difficult. None of the dogs performed well. I assume the very dry...

We only checked a couple of our birds, but didn't find any grasshoppers in the birds we shot. There were certainly areas that held a LOT of grasshoppers. We did see some birds going into and out of cut wheat so they may be transitioning off of grasshoppers at this time.

Just back from 4 days in ND chasing sharpies and huns. Hunted NW this year, and that was a big mistake. Found one field with a mix of grass, snowberries, and cut wheat that was good. Saw a decent number of sharpies and a big covey of huns there and killed a few. Mix of snowberry leaves (? I...

Young of the year birds we grilled fillets and made sandwiches last year. Absolutely delicious.

Received an interesting update from the farmer: “ It took some time to get everything dialed in but it worked well. 25 bushel rye average. There was some soy damage from being off road, turning, travel and pinch row between the duals. We would have ideally harvested it 10-14 days earlier but...

I would certainly love to see wheat or milo in the rotation. The reality of farming in IL is milo is not purchased by any elevators around here, nor have I ever seen it grown. Wheat is, but I am told it cannot be grown profitably around here (too much rain, low prices). Beans are cheap to...

Thanks, I'm very excited to see the results over a few years. I expect to see better soil health, and less runoff. The problem of research money is certainly an issue. One of the points of this system is to improve profit by using natural systems (crop rotation and cover crops to suppress...

I should add that from a financial perspective my new farm tenant offered me more or less the same cash rent that conventional farmers would offer in this area. He agreed to cover crop all acres for the duration of the lease. He also agreed to do "non-conventional" practices on 20% of the...

Rented the farm to a different breed of farmer this year. He is doing “regenerative” farming a la Gabe Brown. What I’m seeing in IL is that $1,000/ac gross revenue and $50/ac+ cash rent losses on CRP acres (at the low end we will see $100+ downside this year if corn prices stay above $5) have...

Saw my first pheasant of the year will driving down IL-78. I believe it was just South of Prophetstown. Nice health looking rooster picking gravel. Hoping for a good year. Haven't seen or heard any of the quail on my property yet. I sure hope they survived that week of super cold snowy...

Missouri Department of Conservation has a download for quail friendly plants that is pretty good, and many of these plants are throughout the pheasant range too: https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/mp903

Drove down to Ashkum along I-57. The combines were out picking crops, and I saw 4 pheasants between Herscher and Ashkum. Another guy we were going to eat with was coming from Watseka. He likewise reported seeing several birds along the road between Watseka and Ashkum. The other thing I would...

If you want to do a lodge you might try Richard at Triple Creek Outfitters in Hudson. I hunted with him last year and he has pretty good wild bird properties to hunt, and great food. He just built a new lodge this year that looks fantastic. The only caveat would be he is primarily a deer...

If people don't find birds they stop hunting. When they stop hunting the DNR has no money to pay for walk in. Everyone loses. In 2001 there were 5.43 million small game hunters. In 2016 there were 3.5 million. How much walk in do you suppose the states will dedicate to bird habitat when...

I made a rather drastic change in the way we do business on my family farm this year. We rented it to a "regenerative" farmer, who incorporates cover crops and cattle grazing, along with crop rotations other than corn/bean. The other talking point is minimal pesticides - and I think insect...

Looks like a great hunt! Just returned from my first trip to ND. We did not have quite so much luck, but three of us killed 16 sharpies over 4 days of hunting. We did not see any Huns unfortunately. I saw more birds in NW ND than I did last year in NE MT. The weather was kind of a buzz...

I hunted walk-in SW of Holdrege NE last year December. Killed a couple of pheasants. Missed a couple. Shots were generally LONG. I wish I brought a tighter choked gun. Generally speaking most of the CRP fields I hit had a bird or two - whether a couple birds per field is "worth it" is a...