Colorado Opener?? How did everyone do?

[CO_Weimar]

Hunted all afternoon saw nothing but two jack rabbits. Just a few pheas tracks and a ton of hawks.

Roloc - with regards to pheas tracks, the tracks that I saw were few and far between. We hunted an area last year after a couple of inches of snow, and there were tracks everywhere we looked. Looks like it is going to be a tough year. I am too dumb to know when to quit, so I will be back out there again soon.

 

[Roloc]

Roloc - with regards to pheas tracks, the tracks that I saw were few and far between. We hunted an area last year after a couple of inches of snow, and there were tracks everywhere we looked. Looks like it is going to be a tough year. I am too dumb to know when to quit, so I will be back out there again soon.

Haha unfortunately for the Pheasants I think walking through fields with my dog and a gun is a lot of fun. Not to mention I shot one of the jack rabbits, so I restocked my fly tying materials, not a total loss .

I am not a huge jack rabbit meat guy so if someone wants the meat they can let me know.... wife refuses to cook the damn things but that's like $200 in flies right there.

 

[marshrat]

Hunted areas north of Stratton in which I have always done well. I saw one lone rooster walking through the cemetery on the north end of Seibert or Vona (can't remember which) and no other pheasants all day. Ran my two experienced Labradors and they only got birdy once on about a 50 yard scent trail. Saw a nice whitetail buck and seven or eight mulies and one jackrabbit, along with one flock of migrating geese. Other than that it was pretty frustrating.

 

[CO_Weimar]

Haha unfortunately for the Pheasants I think walking through fields with my dog and a gun is a lot of fun.

Same here ... with the added benefit of little/no cell coverage, and can't get email on my phone from work! :cheers:

 

[Muddskippa]

Seibert, Co

Managed 1 bird on the opener in the first field we hit,bird #s are down from last year had about a 50/50 mix of hens/roosters. Saw a lot of people on Sat but very few today. Not nearly the cover that was around last year.

 

[Roloc]

Same here ... with the added benefit of little/no cell coverage, and can't get email on my phone from work! :cheers:

Amen. So if we look at it like that today was 100% successful! :cheers:

 

[Reifer]

Got out on Sunday. Spent the entire day walking through the toughest WIA we could find. We saw little tracks of birds or people, yet did not see a single rooster. The last field we hit was cut wheat and the hens were every place we turned. So I guess next time I will hit the fields no one else wants to hunt. LOL Had snow all the way to Limon from the Springs, but the dang snow went away once we got well into pheasant country. Boooo!

Still had a great day with my son and dog.

 

[DrahtsRock]

opener

We spent the summer scouting birds and found the numbers to be lower in many of our usual haunts, but the birds where still there. I had one field in mind near fleming that was holding birds. When we arrived saturday there were six trucks at the field just finishing up and not a bird. It was a zoo as opener usually is so we decided to hunt stuff no one else would bother with (hayed fields, sand-hills, sloughs, and 4 inch wheat stubble).
My veteran pup was lame so I only had my "pain in the @$$" dog to hunt behind. To my surprise she locked up hard just as we began hunting. I loaded up and walked in bagging the first rooster of the season. I ended up one with 4 roosters and 5 bobs this weekend all on public land.

 

[CO_Weimar]

Nice job Muddskippa and a nice looking pup!

:thumbsup:

Managed 1 bird on the opener in the first field we hit,bird #s are down from last year had about a 50/50 mix of hens/roosters. Saw a lot of people on Sat but very few today. Not nearly the cover that was around last year.

 

[jlmatthew]

Didnt even bother going as the opener is usually to crowded. I have to admit I hate the WIA program, until it started I'd never see another hunter even on the opener in the area's I hunt

Now everyone knows about the area's I hunt and No Hunting/Trespassing signs are starting to go up like crazy

 

[zoellner25]

I hunted solo on Saturday on WIAs between the Akron and Yuma areas. Shot the only rooster I saw, and only saw one hen. Having just moved to CO in early summer, I can't report on bird numbers but from I saw, it's not very good. Cover seems pretty bad and didn't see much sign. Lots of big groups of hunters out in large vans, hopefully that dwindles as the season goes on.

 

[kansasbrittany]

Didnt even bother going as the opener is usually to crowded. I have to admit I hate the WIA program, until it started I'd never see another hunter even on the opener in the area's I hunt

Now everyone knows about the area's I hunt and No Hunting/Trespassing signs are starting to go up like crazy

I experienced the same thing in the area I hunt. The WIHA has been reduced from 10 large tracts with excellent cover to 1 tract with marginal cover. I saw about 5% of the traffic this year as I've seen the past 10. I don't think that 1 WIHA tract was hunted a single time this season, save for the 2 passes my group took through it.

 

[Reifer]

I love the WIA program. Although the hunting is not great, it gives people like me who have to move every fours years a place to hunt. It seems like every time I get to know some people with land, the military moves me. With out it, I wouldn't get to hunt at all.

What I disagree with is the CRP Program being allowed to keep the land private. it seems like a form of welfare to pay farms to not farm. I understand the importance of it, but if the public has to pay for the land to be in CRP, the public should have access to the land for upland hunting.

 

[Flushing Mutt]

Our group of 4 guys and two experienced dogs put up 2 roosters on opening day after hunting hard dawn to dusk. One on WIA near julesburg, the other on private land near holyoke. Missed both shots, one being inexcusable Saw about a half dozen hens that day.

On sunday we killed 3 roosters in the first grass field we stepped into in a span of about 45 minutes. If it wasn't for that field we may have been skunked. Everyone agreed it felt like late season hunting. The crp is so sparse that the birds can run easily. Dogs were following scent trails the entire length of the fields, all shootable flushes we got were on field edges, the only shootable birds we flushed mid field were hens. Also, all 3 roosters we bagged were mature birds with long spurs and tails. There simply aren't the big numbers of young, inexperienced birds that usually fill our limits early season.

Our final bird on sunday came as we were finishing up hunting a large grass field. The group had congregated in the field corner and were talking about what to do next. The dogs had their noses down as we approached the corner and we were ready to shoot, but nothing flushed so we all relaxed and started to shoot the breeze, not paying much attention to the dogs that continued to work the cover. I suppose I would have paid more attention to them if the cover was thicker, but I figured they were smelling scent from birds long gone. We were probably standing there for at least a full minute before a big rooster flushed, it was a cake shot and the bird folded. Good lesson for us!

Saturday was your typical opening day, Sunday thinned out big time. Many people we talked to said they won't be back this season. A buddy of mine from sterling reported that all his friends who hunted private on opening day had very limited success and will hunt waterfowl on sunday.

I will certainly be back out but with realistic expectations. I guess after last year we all deserve some challenging hunting eh?

Good luck out there.

 

[Scoelki]

Four of us headed out Saturday into the Sedgwick County and around the Holyoke area. My buddy got the one rooster that got up in WIA field. Seems like every field we wanted to hunt, there was someone or several hunters in every field. But we did not hear alot of shooting on opening day as we are used to either. Which tells me that they were having the same luck. We did see a few roosters on some private land in the wheat stubble.

Sunday was alot better. We did put up a few roosters in our fields we know that produce birds. Bad shooting was the culprit (I blame the new gun ). Alot of shoot and release yesterday . The dogs pointed alot of hens in these fields as well. We should of bagged four yesterday. The cover is really down from last year as well as the birds. I did see a bunch of roosters on a farmers land and stopped in and talked to the farmer. He said he doesn't let anyone hunt here because he runs a program called sweet-harvest and charges $150 per gun. He said that he will not do the program this year because birds are down 60% or more. I am not the type to pay that but dang there was alot of roosters on his property.

It's kind of scary if you have been used to hunting these areas the last few years and having alot of success. The cover is just not there or the amount of birds were used to. Still fun nonetheless. I will go back out there because that is what the pups and I love to do. If you are going out with intentions on getting your limit you will probably be disappointed. But if you get after em I am sure you can get a bird or two.

I do have a 4 day trip scheduled for North Central Kansas the week after Thanksgiving. We have thousands of acres of private land we will be hunting. I will update how we end up doing there. Stay tuned...:cheers:

 

[CO_Weimar]

:laugh:

I hunted solo on Saturday on WIAs between the Akron and Yuma areas. Shot the only rooster I saw, and only saw one hen. Having just moved to CO in early summer, I can't report on bird numbers but from I saw, it's not very good. Cover seems pretty bad and didn't see much sign. Lots of big groups of hunters out in large vans, hopefully that dwindles as the season goes on.

Bird numbers are way down this year. For comparison, last year I had many opportunities to miss shots every weekend. I saw more people yesterday than I did all last year. In previous years I haven't hunted opening weekend. Typically I haven't started until ~2 weeks after the opener. In the areas that I hunt, once I pull off of the main roads, I can usually count on one hand the number of vehicles that I see in a day - of those, 2 or so are vehicles with hunters.

Cover is thin as well. I bought an e-collar system this year after losing sight of my dog for 5 - 10 minutes on a few occasions last season.

There are birds out there, but they will be tough to get.

 

[Shorthair Hunters]

Hunted hard on Saturday with some luck, found birds in the WIA's and they were holding tight for us had some great points from my GSP had some bad shots from me. Bird numbers are definetly down but that means you have to work harder and smarter to enjoy our sport, thats why it is called hunting not shooting.

 

[Hobie1026]

At least I didn't have to clean my gun....

I hunted Saturday from 9am to 4:30pm. Got socked in with fog in the first field. All the fields I was heading for already had hunters in them. Saw a massive coat rack with his harem in that first field. I got snorted at rather loudly.

Like many others, marginal cover, a lot of walking and no shots. I saw a few roosters but they were too close to the houses to even bother asking permission. My dog managed to find and flush 5 hens. Not a single rooster.

Saw one coyote, lots of waterfowl, lots or raptors, and a few more mulies.

But hey, it's only the first week of the season. Lots more cover to explore. I can think of a lot worse ways to kill a weekend than walking around with my favorite shotgun and my dog. :thumbsup:

 

[HeavyC]

Hunted private Sat morn, but his best field he had grazed for nearly two months, and his best half section he hayed the pivot corners so it was un-huntable!

Two years ago on the same props, we saw ~60 birds, last year we saw about 150 birds, this year, we saw ~12!!!! Momma Kiwi got birdy only a few times all day and flushed one hen!


Sun-up to sundown yesterday and her son Tako flushed one hen! :bangin:

My poor dogs!

 

[dead pheasants forever]

Hunted private Sat morn, but his best field he had grazed for nearly two months, and his best half section he hayed the pivot corners so it was un-huntable!

Two years ago on the same props, we saw ~60 birds, last year we saw about 150 birds, this year, we saw ~12!!!! Momma Kiwi got birdy only a few times all day and flushed one hen!


Sun-up to sundown yesterday and her son Tako flushed one hen! :bangin:

My poor dogs!

Is the dog in the first picture a pointing lab? She's really holding her tail high, almost like an English Pointer.