Pheasants at the Afterbay are the result of unannounced plants by DFW after the opener. Best eating pheasants around I'd imagine but given the cover and how they plant, not the most sporting.
A dismal tour of North Valley pheasant country
- Thread starter calamari
- Start date
ditchparrot19
Member
They stopped doing the youth hunts out there in about 2008 and I haven't seen a pheasant since. I'd sometimes hear one crowing while fishing the Afterbay, but not anymore.
There is a small private club just north of there, so I guess there's a chance an escapee could make its way out there.
I was surprised too but when I turned some guys into a warden at Howard two years ago and said I was so P.O.d I was going home he tried to convince me to stay by telling me that DFW had planted some birds on the Afterbay and he and another warden had shot 6 the day before. He encouraged me to go and hunt it which I thought was a nice touch after how the jerks I'd turned in left me feeling about my fellow hunters.
Last year I talked to the same warden and asked if they'd planted birds there again and he said they had. Nothing to do with a youth hunt. Just Andy being generous with some of the rice money from Gray Lodge. He didn't know how many but did say where. After the opener and before Thanksgiving.
quail hound
Moderator
In 2013 season (I think) I took a drive up there from Colusa to check out the quail opportunities while JP was healing up in the trailer. I talked with a guy that had two roosters he got on around the afterbay. Not sure where they came from but he was happy and he even have me some pointers on where to try for quail.
Its no mecca that's for sure but there is some hunting opportunities is all I was trying to tell Sportnlyf.
Its no mecca that's for sure but there is some hunting opportunities is all I was trying to tell Sportnlyf.
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Thanks for the info guys. I'll bring a gun or two just in case an opportunity ariises, but this is pretty much an annual Christmas visit to spend time with the grandkids and their parents. In past years I did go to the Corning Club with a friend who is a member there and last year enjoyed an invitation for some waterfowling at the Butte City Duck Club.
With regard to those "Einstein collared doves," we are apparently enjoying the ones with a lower IQ. They have been thick in Imperial Valley for a few years now and have been very vulnerable to a couple of Mojos placed in bare fields adjacent to roosting areas and feed lots.
They appear to be very adaptable and are pretty much everywhere in North America. I hunt grouse and pheasants every year in the northeast corner of Montana and they are present in the towns and around grainaries.
Our daughter is a teacher in Thermalito and I've seen a few roosters in that area from time to time. When our kids were students at Chico State, we'd hunt and find a few wild birds near Scotty's in a flood control channel I think was called Mud Creek.
Friends in the area, some involved in agriculture have told me that pheasants which were once very plentiful have declined so drastically that they no longer hunt them, which surprises me since there seems to be a good amount escape cover edges, particularly along the river, certainly more than the birds in Imperial Valley have.
By the way, how is your duck season going? Our club near the Salton Sea is experiencing the worst early season and there are simply very few pintail around, or much else for that matter.
With regard to those "Einstein collared doves," we are apparently enjoying the ones with a lower IQ. They have been thick in Imperial Valley for a few years now and have been very vulnerable to a couple of Mojos placed in bare fields adjacent to roosting areas and feed lots.
They appear to be very adaptable and are pretty much everywhere in North America. I hunt grouse and pheasants every year in the northeast corner of Montana and they are present in the towns and around grainaries.
Our daughter is a teacher in Thermalito and I've seen a few roosters in that area from time to time. When our kids were students at Chico State, we'd hunt and find a few wild birds near Scotty's in a flood control channel I think was called Mud Creek.
Friends in the area, some involved in agriculture have told me that pheasants which were once very plentiful have declined so drastically that they no longer hunt them, which surprises me since there seems to be a good amount escape cover edges, particularly along the river, certainly more than the birds in Imperial Valley have.
By the way, how is your duck season going? Our club near the Salton Sea is experiencing the worst early season and there are simply very few pintail around, or much else for that matter.
Every year I go back and forth about joining that club since I hunt Howard Slough across the road but I'd be a single and never know how I'd mesh with the others in the blind. What I could afford would be a dry blind too and don't really care to shoot a bunch of geese. Lots of birds on Laribee's that go back and forth to Howard and Llano Seco Federal area so the blinds tend to do very well to unbelievable in a strong south wind.
It sounds like a slightly different deal up here in that most hunting for the great unwashed is on wildlife areas so they get pretty smart pretty fast or get pretty dead. A friend found a large flock in Arizona one evening and shot a few that day. When he went back the next day and the day after to really get after them they'd left and never came back.
I saw a guy with three Mojos opening day of dove season in the middle of a whole flock of guys with single flappers and didn't see anything like the reaction that they illicit in waterfowl. I can't say I've seen much difference from them. Decoys, yes. Flappers, not so much but that's just my experience.
Gone, gone, gone.
Drought and Mosquito Abatement districts have decimated pheasants in my view. A friend has access to hunt pheasants on 20,000 acres of rice near Colusa that is hunted VERY lightly and they still have pheasants there but pretty consistently on anything the public can hunt they are non existent.
Lots of fallowed land in the rice blind areas due to lack of water. A friend has a blind near Knights Landing that they've had for decades. They normally pay $1,500 a hole per year and have good shooting most years. Last year the farmer charged them $250 for the entire blind for the whole year with the understanding they'd get water once at the beginning of the year and no more water till it rained hard. If he put on more water they'd have to pay more money. They never got more water but there was enough rain to keep it flooded until the very last weekend when it dried out and had a slightly below average season. Same deal this year and they finally shot two birds on it this week.