I drove around scouting some over the weekend. This is the first brood I saw, the birds were identifiable for the most part, as two ringnecks ran off the road on the left side of the picture. The second brood I saw was very young, I couldn't tell the difference in gender. I also saw one old rooster pecking along the edge of a beanfield in the last shadows of morning. Before I could get a picture he melted away. I'm hoping if the dog puts some birds up I get some easy ones with color and a cackle! I guess the one good thing about prairie chicken hunting is it really helped me with identifying not only chicken/pheasant but also I got to see a lot of pheasants and try and pick out hen/rooster just for fun. I think it'll be a lot of really young birds this weekend. I'm gonna try not to shoot any with eggshell still on their head. These birds pictured were on private land, and I didn't talk to the landowner. I did talk to two landowners and got some permission to hunt their farms, although I'm not sure what to expect there. A couple nice spots, but also a lot of really thin fencerows. I plan to start the day on public ground, I found a new spot and it looked really good. A lot of grass and thistle plants, which have been good in the past. Good luck everybody!
