Bird sightings

ehudgens said:
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A little tribute to my dad.
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Saw 37 pheasants in field across the road from that sign along with 10 deer.

Hunted Sunday and ran birds out ahead of me all day. Just me and dog and one "blocker" who mostly sits in the truck watching, which is fine.

Had several points on hens and only one cock gave me an opportunity, but a very long shot. it was the last place i would hunt for the year so i gave it a go and luckily dropped him into a bean field. Looked deader than a doornail, tail and one wing flopping in the air and head down on the ground.

15 seconds later it hopped up like nothing had happened and high tailed it to the next ditch about 150 yards away. My dog had never seen it and was busy working several hens. we drove over and I put him out and he pinned that bird down right away and i put it in the bag. final bird of the year.
 
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Good to see you guys up North still have some good pheasants. We had good quail numbers in Lawrence County this year. We hunted one day and put up about 100 quail in 6 coveys. Where there is good cover there are birds. Winter wasn't too bad on them so should be off to good start for this year.
 
Goosemaster said:
I drove through Illinois recently, and did not see any pheasants.
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I've gotten permission to hunt some private CRP in IL a few times that I've seen incredible numbers. I think we stopped counting at 80 birds flushed from a quarter section in the best year I've seen there. The problem is those areas are pretty limited in scope, and good luck getting permission unless you have connections. The public land that's any good requires winning a lottery. Just driving around the state in general I almost never see one and I put a LOT of miles on my truck. Road to road farming, clean roadsides, roundup, and neonics have destroyed it here. The harvest is down 90% in the last 30 years for pheasant and quail.
 
Got out for the opener in Iroquois Co. Hunted one ditch, and two patches of grass. One was a new spot that friend got permission to hunt this year.

In total I think we flushed 80-100 birds. Good mix of cocks and hens. 8 hunters and only two dogs, one of which is a field trial dog so his owner and he basically run through what cover there is. My dog had multiple good points, including the first two right in front of the farm owner and both were cocks. He missed them both but does really mind.

First spot is 10 acres, 2nd is 20 acres and the last a 1 mile long ditch. Very good numbers compared to previous years. And we never went to our best spot which is a half mile ditch that can have 50-100 birds by itself in good years. Also kicked up a covey of quail.

And is it DRY! The ditches have about 3 inches of water, the fields are powdery.
 
We also saw good numbers on the opener. Hunted a state PHA (lottery) that we have hunted in the past. Saw 3 small coveys of quail, and probably 10 pheasants. Not astounding, but we did not see close to those numbers when we last got in there.
 
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