Corn Fields

kansashunting

kansashunting

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I've hunted plenty of milo and wheat fields but haven't ever been through a corn field for pheasants. Has anyone had much luck here in KS with this?
 
Corn Stalks can be Good Hunting

kansashunting said:
I've hunted plenty of milo and wheat fields but haven't ever been through a corn field for pheasants. Has anyone had much luck here in KS with this?
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Corn stalks are good to hunt when the birds are feeding -- early morning and late afternoon. The more ragged the stalks and bushier the chaff the better the hunting. New combine corn heads designed for no-till farming are mulching the chaff and leaving the field with uniformly short stalks, consequently less hiding places for birds so they leave when hunters enter the field. Given a choice between milo and corn stalks, I choose milo for its superior hiding opportunites for the birds.
 
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I laughed a little when I saw your post. I've got a buddy I've been hunting with for years and he swears that there are no pheasants in corn. I thought he was full of it, but after I started thinking about it I've never shot a Pheasant in corn. Milo seems to be the better choice. I'm sure there are pheasants in corn i.e. Nebraska, I have just never seen them in Kansas.
 
Last week all the pheasants we shot were eating corn except one with soybeans. We got them in corn bordering grass and wheat stubble. When the weather is this cold I think they prefer corn over milo where we hunt in the SW. Milo is available as well as winter wheat but the corn seems to attract them first. It supposedly has more heat value than milo but I don't know if the birds have read that statistic.
 
BritChaser said:
Corn stalks are good to hunt when the birds are feeding -- early morning and late afternoon. The more ragged the stalks and bushier the chaff the better the hunting. New combine corn heads designed for no-till farming are mulching the chaff and leaving the field with uniformly short stalks, consequently less hiding places for birds so they leave when hunters enter the field. Given a choice between milo and corn stalks, I choose milo for its superior hiding opportunites for the birds.
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brit i like it in the middle of the day if your not hunting corn or milo stubble i think your messing up thats where there at but killing them is a different story clue me in someone how do you get them with 4 or five guys and loud snow we saw 30 to 4o birds each corn milo field and hard to get!i guess you need about 10 guys
 
sas said:
Last week all the pheasants we shot were eating corn except one with soybeans. We got them in corn bordering grass and wheat stubble. When the weather is this cold I think they prefer corn over milo where we hunt in the SW. Milo is available as well as winter wheat but the corn seems to attract them first. It supposedly has more heat value than milo but I don't know if the birds have read that statistic.
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SAS, that is an excellent thought. I have had very good luck hunting corn stubble, but it needs to be at least knee high and as weedy as possible. If not, the birds see you coming from 100 away and you don't get many chances for a shot. I have bagged plenty of pheasants in corn stubble, and milo stubble too. When I clean the birds in the evening I check to see what they have been eating and that will tell me something very important.
 
Corn is to Pheasants in late season as Anheiser products are to Western Kansas hunters. You need a big group of guys to bag birds effectively out of corn, but is is a great crop to walk to push birds into thick cover.
 
I do love my budweiser.:thumbsup: I'll have to try these corn fields I'm able to hunt. It's got really thick stalks and I'm sure there's enough cover to hold birds. Walking crop fields always intimidates me to an extend unless I'm with a big group and usually its just me and my dog. But hopefully I'll get a good day where they are holding tight enough for me and my dog to get close enough to kill a few. Thanks everybody.
 
Pheasants definately use the corn. I've shot some birds out of the corn, but not as many as I have in the milo. We did okay in the cut corn early this season before the milo was cut. Like Bilbo said, you can learn quite a bit by checking their crawls after the hunt. I've found that quail can eat things other than corn, beans, and milo. Sometimes I find them in cow pastures that have no traditional feed fields within miles. There is a small red seed and a small brown seed that I often find in their crawls. Not sure what the name of it is, but I always look for it when hunting new cover.
 
bricam12 said:
Corn is to Pheasants in late season as Anheiser products are to Western Kansas hunters. You need a big group of guys to bag birds effectively out of corn, but is is a great crop to walk to push birds into thick cover.
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Did you find a 12 pack or 36 pack of Bud in the corn stubble? Heck, I have been looking for pheasants, not the Bud. I learn something every single day.
 
Corn stubble

Most of my experience in corn stubble has been in MO, IA, and ILL. I have harvested plenty of roosters in those states, but there isn't much grain sorghum planted, mostly corn. I've only hunted a few corn stubble fields in Kansas, but the times we have the birds ran from the corn into the CRP. If you can cut them off, the corners of the corn stubble next to CRP has been the best place I have found for pheasants to hold. Good luck!
 
the biggest thing to mess with ya right now is that hard crunchy snow. In corn they dont have as much cover so when they hear you coming they just take off flying, where in milo they can run from ya.
 
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