Best Dog and Tactics for hard hunted pheasants

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oldandnew

Active member
I thought it might be interesting to start a discussion as to the best tactics and dog combination for hard hunted public access pheasants. I consider the public land. walk-in pheasant, the biggest trophy available. I am fortunate to hunt a lot of private ground with unpressured birds also. Tactics on the unpressured birds can be pretty sloppy and still get results. Birds hold for points, move predictably. Now your public bird has seen it all, he may run right out of the area, hunker in the middle of a woodlot, in unpheasant like cover. hole up in the middle of a huge dense CRP field where you can hardly walk, ride out the day on a cattail island in the middle of a marsh. Fly off the public area at dawn and return at the last hour of daylight. I get the chills just thinking about getting out smarted by a bird with a peanut sized brain. It's what keeps me coming back. Now I am mostly a pointing dog devotee, but had a Lab I consider the best dog I ever had the priviledge to be associated with. So if I'm serious about the efficiency of bringing to bag these wiley birds, do I want a close working thorough pointing dog, with high quality retrieving skills, or a wide ranging, out on a limb ground coverer, the one you can let out at a vantage point and watch hunt 80 acres or more while you watch, or some combination of the two. Or would a windshield wiper springer, lab, or other flushing dog be a more efficient companion. Not really looking to start a "best breed", my dog is better than your dog discussion. In fact I'd leave the breed out of it entirely, and focus on the style of dog work, and descriptions of actual public parcel types, ( no specific names or states please, unless you want a lot of company next fall), just size and cover type, how you approach it, dog work style, number of hunters, number of dogs, what works and what doesn't. Maybe we can learn a little from each other, and a good opportunity to share a good story.
 
Dog?: experienced and quiet with range only dependent upon cover and birds.

Hunter?: experienced and quiet with an ability to follow the dog and to keep his head down.

Tactics?: Quiet, slow, long stops and park or walk in reverse of the beaten down grass.

I only am a preferrer of one dog down but I expect that there are many times when, if compatable, multiple dogs will overload a pheasant's senses and allow them to make some dumb moves.
Which pheasants do.
We often believe the dog handled the bird well or the hunter made a correct decision as the tailgate closed but more often than we think...the pheasant just made a bad decision.
Very little rocketry is involved.
 
I don't know that there is a correct answer to this, that works all the time. But here is an example from this year.

We went out west of here in early December and hunted some heavily hunted WIHA. The area we hunted had been pounded for weeks since opening weekend. We tried hunting the CRP, milo, draws and the birds were blowing out of there 200 yards in front of the dogs. I have hunted spooky pheasants before but this was worse than I had ever seen.

We got a few bird pointed, but most of them were hens. But we noticed that several of the pheasant that we flushed landed in the middle of a huge wheat stubble field. The stubble was really not very tall, but did have a few weeds here and there. Not the kind of field that would really get your attention.

There were 4 of us with 2 dogs. My setter Ace and my buddys GSP. We spread way apart, and just followed the dogs. No real pattern, just let the dogs go. The GSP worked most of the time at 40-60 yard. But Ace kept pushing out farther and farther. He ended up pointing several roosters and a bunch of hens. The most memorable rooster was pointed at 376 yards. Ace was 20 yards from the rooster that was hiding under a lone weed. My son walked in and shot it.

What looked to me to be happening was that because the birds were running so much from the hunters that when the dog got on the other side of them the birds tried to hide. I also think that because we were spread out and going in different directions the birds were not sure which way to run. We had birds that flush way out there, but we got more shots in that field in 2 hours than we got the entire first day.
 
I have the option of hunting public land birds from half hour before sunrise until, half hour after sunset. Lots of birds roost on the public lands around here but leave to feed sometime after sunrise and don't return until late in the day. I have killed a bunch of them by going in early and quite. Being able to work the dog without talking or a whisle helps, IMHO.

I am not sure dog breed matters, what matters is weather there is synergy between the hunter and dog.

A friend killed a longspur on a public area after a goshawk chased it and the rooster "crashed" landed. I am sure that bird was glad to be alive, however my friend and his dog walked the 100 yards to where he landed and he held very tight. I still want to know if he needs a falconry (sp) license to do that. LOL! :D
 
When I get out on public land by myself just me and the dog we go places no one else goes. I throw on my hip waders and hit small islands in the marsh lands, push big cat tail patches that others avoid, and hunt a lot of wooded cover that most don't realize is birdy. Since all the public land I hunt are National Wildlife Reserves set up for water fowl on the pacific flyway my best piece of gear are my waders out there.
 
quail hound said:
When I get out on public land by myself just me and the dog we go places no one else goes. I throw on my hip waders and hit small islands in the marsh lands, push big cat tail patches that others avoid, and hunt a lot of wooded cover that most don't realize is birdy. Since all the public land I hunt are National Wildlife Reserves set up for water fowl on the pacific flyway my best piece of gear are my waders out there.
Click to expand...

x2. One of the best tools you have is determination. When hunting late on public it is important to do things a lot of hunters won't do. I have went in cattails so thick I almost needed gps to get out. Most guys won't do that. The majority will walk the edges a few yards in, and try to get the dog to work the cover. Another tactic, as stated above, is to walk at each other in heavy cover or cattails.
 
Let this guy out of the truck in good cover and follow him around.


inhisprime119.jpg


Other than a half dozen trips to the preserve in his first 18-months he flushed nothing but highly pressured mid to late season public land birds for me.

The old boy had grit and determination in spades. Unfortunately I had to put him down after 13 years last fall. He was my "once in a lifetime" dog.

DB
 
Public tactics

I prefer hunting these roosters solo and with one dog. I cover, cover and cover the ground from multiple angles. Even when I see groups of birds fly out of the field I can usually pin a few down that double back . I can't tell you how many times I find a rooster on the third pass through an area. The older birds I pick up every year are usually these birds picked up after really combing the field.

I would only recommend this approach if it's an area you know holds birds and you've scouted it before.
 
This holds true whether its opening day on private land or late season on walk-in: If you can, hunt the best part of the field first, which depends in part on the weather. Don't save the best part for last like dessert.

There will be lots of runners too, so go across the wind and follow the dog as it turns into the wind to trail. Once the trail is lost or there is a flush, reset your position to start across the wind again.
 
quail hound said:
When I get out on public land by myself just me and the dog we go places no one else goes. I throw on my hip waders and hit small islands in the marsh lands, push big cat tail patches that others avoid, and hunt a lot of wooded cover that most don't realize is birdy. Since all the public land I hunt are National Wildlife Reserves set up for water fowl on the pacific flyway my best piece of gear are my waders out there.
Click to expand...
There is a public wetland near me that gets hit pretty hard. Out of 1200 acres? there is one quarter section that is in cool season grass. Running through the middle of it is an irrigation ditch, can't be more than 10 yds. wide,and the cover on the edges of it is measured in feet. Anyway, one year I decided to walk out there and give it a shot. I walked the length of it, 1/2 a mile. I didn't fire a shot, but the pheasant numbers were incredible. If I could ever convince someone to walk out there with me, I'd try pushing it from both ends.
 
BrownDogsCan2 said:
There is a public wetland near me that gets hit pretty hard. Out of 1200 acres? there is one quarter section that is in cool season grass. Running through the middle of it is an irrigation ditch, can't be more than 10 yds. wide,and the cover on the edges of it is measured in feet. Anyway, one year I decided to walk out there and give it a shot. I walked the length of it, 1/2 a mile. I didn't fire a shot, but the pheasant numbers were incredible. If I could ever convince someone to walk out there with me, I'd try pushing it from both ends.
Click to expand...

When do we leave?
 
I will agree with alot of people on here, when it comes to late season it all depends on how much drive the dog and hunter have. I for one love to go into thick cattails that I know no one else has walked because of how big of a bitch it can be to walk. Usually pays off though, and it's good excerise too! :D
 
My late season tactics.
Be as quiet and sneaky as possible. Pay attention to good heavy cover and food sources. Hunt the wind. Wear high waterproof good fitting boots. Use a tight choke. Hunt with a tuff biddable dog.

In my opinion my yellow lab mix has some traits that I think are valuable for hunting wily late season birds.

*) He generally works within 30 yds.
*) Always pays attention to where I'm at.
*) Can be worked quietly with hand signals, soft voice commands or whistles.
*) Slows to point a bird that is holding tight but will flush it if it begins to run.
*) Catches and retrieves dead birds or cripples in most any type of cover.
*) Scent trails birds for hundreds of yards through most types of cover.
*) Usually works close enough to flush birds from inside edges of tall standing corn or cattails.
*) Seems to remember terrain previously hunted and how to work it.

The only complaint I might have is that he's hard to hold back on a hot running bird but I can live with that. We often catch up to them eventually.
 
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huntsem said:
My late season tactics.
Be as quiet and sneaky as possible. Pay attention to good heavy cover and food sources. Hunt the wind. Wear high waterproof good fitting boots. Use a tight choke. Hunt with a tuff biddable dog.

In my opinion my yellow lab mix has some traits that I think are valuable for hunting wily late season birds.

*) He generally works within 30 yds.
*) Always pays attention to where I'm at.
*) Can be worked quietly with hand signals, soft voice commands or whistles.
*) Slows to point a bird that is holding tight but will flush it if it begins to run.
*) Catches and retrieves dead birds or cripples in most any type of cover.
*) Scent trails birds for hundreds of yards through most types of cover.
*) Usually works close enough to flush birds from inside edges of tall standing corn or cattails.
*) Seems to remember terrain previously hunted and how to work it.

The only complaint I might have is that he's hard to hold back on a hot running bird but I can live with that. We often catch up to them eventually.
Click to expand...

I will echo everything above- especially hand signals to keep noise to a minimum. My first Setter was very similar to his lab except that she most often would "creep" after a running bird until the bird holed up or flushed wild. Would often take some amount of time to work some birds. On a couple occasions, she broke from the "creep", exited the cover and ran outside the cover to a point some yards distant and started back to me, pinning the bird or a bird. After seeing one such exhibition, my father and uncle would just shake their heads.

I have to say that when she was young, she was very headstrong and a handful. As she learned what put birds in the vest, she became the "one dog" everyone has. I can't imagine that I will have any better than she was.
 
The best thing that I have found that will get you close to late season pheasants is to carry a rifle suitable for shooting deer. They will get up at your feet.
 
heres a trick i thought of and it works is if you are getting the slip in the same spot and only have a few guys to block is drive to the spot they are escaping get out drop the tailgate talk in a regular voice to your dogs or whatever then the birds think there is something there or they know not to go that direction a buddy drops you and a friend off he parks the truck as a blocker and he also walks down from the truck and work everything to him into the wind
 
1. Get a Pudelpointer
2. Find a small number of birds or bust up a big flock.
3. Push to spot where cover ends and is next to resonably bare ground that bird does not want to run out on.
4. Point. Shoot. Retrieve

Alternative----cattails or heavy cover with snow slows 'em down pretty good.
 
Oldandnew thanks for this thread. I've read and re-read it a few times. I learn so much on these types of threads...thank you :)
 
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