henhenROOSTER!!!
New member
I did NOT get out on Fri/NY's Eve day as planned, even though would have been the best by far hunters-favor day weather-wise of the wknd - but alas, too many other items encroached on the menu & it would have caused WW III on the homefront w/the Mrs anyway, so I just let it ride...
Did manage to sneak in an overniter on Sat & Sun/Jan 1st & 2nd (even though my son was not able to make it out with us at all - still feeling weak & the chemo makes him hyper-sensitive to cold, so not a very good deal for him right now!):
Sat had to work for 'em, but pulled off a late-season limit with a 20 ga & put up plenty birds/shots for a newbie kid - he got one rooster, missed a lot & we lost one bird...Not sure I would put my dog down in that kind of cover again - 2nd time this yr the skin at backside of both eyes was rubbed raw & bleeding from pressing thru the pheasant-loaded knarly biz (I thought for a moment back at the hotel he may have poked one eye out - it swelled shut, but bounced back after a round of eyewash/salve & a good night's sleep). Both dog & hunters could hardly walk at the end of a long, satisfying day! :thumbsup:
On Sun saw as many birds as I have ever seen anywhere in pheasant country, including sw ND...but with pin-drop silence from virtually no wind, the snow hardening/squeaky & PHD-educated late-season birds all bunched up together by the hundreds on high alert & puttin on the feedbag out in the open corn after the storm - hardly a legit shot fired at a rooster all day other than a few marginal hail-marys! Now if hens were roosters, would've been a different story altogether - dog got plenty of close-up work on them!!!
Overall it was truly a GOLDEN wknd out roaming from south to north across the eastern-CO prairie!!! Tall, thick red-grass (switchgrass) w or w/o shelterbelts directly adjacent to raggedy-cut corn was the cold-weather ticket for the most part (except for that one BIG patch of wicked, knarly stuff)...Picked-up a couple brand-new, bang-up private places added in for next yr. Saw literally a thousand or two birds in two days (and that's only the ones we were able to see)! Several of my familiar haunts the numbers were gettin kinda rooster-thin & hen-rich, but that spells an awful good omen for next year as long as God smiles with fairly-cooperative spring/summer weather!!! :cheers:
Did manage to sneak in an overniter on Sat & Sun/Jan 1st & 2nd (even though my son was not able to make it out with us at all - still feeling weak & the chemo makes him hyper-sensitive to cold, so not a very good deal for him right now!):
Sat had to work for 'em, but pulled off a late-season limit with a 20 ga & put up plenty birds/shots for a newbie kid - he got one rooster, missed a lot & we lost one bird...Not sure I would put my dog down in that kind of cover again - 2nd time this yr the skin at backside of both eyes was rubbed raw & bleeding from pressing thru the pheasant-loaded knarly biz (I thought for a moment back at the hotel he may have poked one eye out - it swelled shut, but bounced back after a round of eyewash/salve & a good night's sleep). Both dog & hunters could hardly walk at the end of a long, satisfying day! :thumbsup:
On Sun saw as many birds as I have ever seen anywhere in pheasant country, including sw ND...but with pin-drop silence from virtually no wind, the snow hardening/squeaky & PHD-educated late-season birds all bunched up together by the hundreds on high alert & puttin on the feedbag out in the open corn after the storm - hardly a legit shot fired at a rooster all day other than a few marginal hail-marys!
Now if hens were roosters, would've been a different story altogether - dog got plenty of close-up work on them!!! Overall it was truly a GOLDEN wknd out roaming from south to north across the eastern-CO prairie!!! Tall, thick red-grass (switchgrass) w or w/o shelterbelts directly adjacent to raggedy-cut corn was the cold-weather ticket for the most part (except for that one BIG patch of wicked, knarly stuff)...Picked-up a couple brand-new, bang-up private places added in for next yr. Saw literally a thousand or two birds in two days (and that's only the ones we were able to see)! Several of my familiar haunts the numbers were gettin kinda rooster-thin & hen-rich, but that spells an awful good omen for next year as long as God smiles with fairly-cooperative spring/summer weather!!! :cheers:
