Birds Wouldn't Leave

[pheasantaddict]

I hunted a 55 acre piece of pheasant paradise yesterday. The birds would not fly out of this cover as they would just fly from one place to another in the crp. Most of the birds just continued to keep running and would not flush. There was not much cover in the surrounding fields but with no snow I figured some of the birds would vacate. Has anyone ever had this experience in the same size area or smaller?

 

[FCSpringer]

What? I thought there was no birds in Iowa.

But no, they most often fled, especialy when they see me shoot there buddy.

 

[Toad]

I've seen pheasants repeatedly bounce between two 1/4 sections before, but never refuse to leave the one they were in.

Ducks though... One time I had a big flock of migrating mallard ducks come in during a blizzard. It was freezing sleet/snow, and blinding. They tried to land and we shot a few, they circled and tried to land again, and we shot a few more, they circled again and tried to land again, and we finished our limit. They finally landed and swam around about 50 yards away while we picked up the ducks and decoys.

In the moment, it seemed like the greatest duck hunt of all time, but afterward I felt bad for the ducks. They must have been so exhausted, or had frozen wings, or maybe there was some other reason they refused to leave that marsh. I've never seen anything like it before or since, which is a relief.

 

[Uncle Buck]

I hunted a 55 acre piece of pheasant paradise yesterday. The birds would not fly out of this cover as they would just fly from one place to another in the crp. Most of the birds just continued to keep running and would not flush. There was not much cover in the surrounding fields but with no snow I figured some of the birds would vacate. Has anyone ever had this experience in the same size area or smaller?

No where else to go. The little patch behind my house was like that late season.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Saw something similar in corn field during onset of storm. They were landing next to the pickup when we were dropping into the pits. We actually grabbed some thru the pit lids as the landowner only wanted honkers shot. We did so and the ducks just ducked down next to the tracks going out of the field. They were not tired, just wanted to feed up as the Missouri River was only 1/4 mile away.

 

[Michigan Gunner]

I haven't with pheasants. But, a few years back I was hunting geese in a cut oat field. I was by myself with a dozen decoys and a call. I was laying in the decoys in camo with a goose decoy on my legs and another on my chest. Well, about 45 minutes after sun up the flocks started to come in. The first one came in from behind me with no noise. They landed all around me. I could have touched the one on my right. When I sat up they all lifted off and I had my two bird limit in two shots.

All the while I was picking up the decoys and birds, flocks were circling the field. When I left, the field just filled up with geese. It was a sight.

Lock and Load!

 

[AtTheMurph]

I have seen it. I chased pheasants one day in the same field for hours. a 20 acre rectangle and I marched back and forth and flushed some from one end to the other but mostly had my dogs running crazy in the grass as they weaved back and forth.

don't remember killing any but do remember working my butt off.

 

[1GB]

Ducks though... One time I had a big flock of migrating mallard ducks come in during a blizzard. It was freezing sleet/snow, and blinding. They tried to land and we shot a few, they circled and tried to land again, and we shot a few more, they circled again and tried to land again, and we finished our limit. They finally landed and swam around about 50 yards away while we picked up the ducks and decoys.

In the moment, it seemed like the greatest duck hunt of all time, but afterward I felt bad for the ducks.

I've experienced that twice and felt bad afterwards both times too, but it balanced out the days we got skunked.

In regards to pheasants, I had something similar happen in about 80-100 acres of a quarter section last winter after about 2-3" of snow at the end of the season. The handful of birds just kept running circles! The weather was unpleasant and it was just the dog and I so pinning them down was hard. We eventually had a few leave, but we walked about 3 circles throughout the area and started to doubt my young dog a little before I realized the pheasant tracks were on top of my previous boot prints.

 

[1pheas4]

Most of the birds just continued to keep running and would not flush. There was not much cover in the surrounding fields but with no snow I figured some of the birds would vacate. Has anyone ever had this experience in the same size area or smaller?

I did back in Dec. 2009. A spot not far from home. It was a corn field left standing from the past year and filled with giant rage weed and other nasty weeds that pheasants seem to love. The field was loaded with birds.

I followed their tracks in the snow as they ran from one end of the field to the next. This was a back and forth game for about two hours.

Finally I Picked out the rooster tracks, singled one out at a time and caught up with a few simply by tracking at a running pace.

Great fun but frustrating at the same time. I feel your pain PhAd. lol

 

[xc_burner]

Finally I Picked out the rooster tracks, singled one out at a time and caught up with a few simply by tracking at a running pace.

l

I'm curious how you can tell the difference between a rooster and a hen track? Last I checked, they had the same feet.

 

[pheasantaddict]

rooster will leave a spur drag mark, pretty easy to distinguish in crop fields.

 

[1pheas4]

I'm curious how you can tell the difference between a rooster and a hen track? Last I checked, they had the same feet.[/QUOTE


As PheaAD mentioned (if the snow is deep enough) rooster's spurs leave a spur indent at the back of their track/print.

One may mistake this is as mark left from his back toe. Instead it's his spur imprint extending beyond his back toe as his leg comes down on an angel (foot forward and knee back).

Plus, rooster tracks are larger then hen tracks. This is especially the case in late season when the young roosters are fully grown.

 

[Uncle Buck]

In the right kind of snow conditions you can identify roosters by tail tracks in light , dryer snow.