Yesterday I did quite a little bit of driving, in order to hunt ditches, in areas with LOTS of public land. I hunted ditches & one WPA briefly. I saw 3 other guys out hunting ditches, 1 hunting private land, & nobody on public. In the areas I hunt, ditches get hunted regularly. Maybe not as frequently as public land (early in the season for sure), but regularly (especially late season). When it snows, it's very common to see human tracks along a pheasanty ditch, just as you'd see them on a public spot. And let's remember that as public spots are finite in number, so are pheasanty stretches of ditch. People who know how to find pheasants know this, so the good ditches get hunted the most.
This is repetition, but here's why I hunt ditches. They're relatively easy hunting (I'd try to hunt a public spot in the most effective, easiest way too). When it's super cold, you don't have to spend long periods away from the heated truck (my fingers are less tolerant of cold than they once were). It's easy to use the wind to your advantage to mask noise. And mostly, by now, in my areas, very, VERY few roosters are using public land during the day. Hens may be, but almost no roosters. But they're around somewhere; they haven't all died. How do I know?? Years & years of experimentation.
The small parts of the state I hunt are loaded with public land. There are hardly any preserves & very few private pheasant havens. In these areas, public land, I believe, produces a high percentage (if not the lion's share) of pheasants each spring/summer. As time goes on, summer passes, pheasant season starts, crops are harvested, winter happens....these birds spread out, not only on a daily basis, but on a more long term basis too. This phenomenon is what makes South Dakota South Dakota. The pheasants have a staggering number of options, unlike some other states, where 1 big slough, buffer strip, CRP field, etc. might be the only significant pheasant habitat for several miles. Where I hunt, there may be 1 big slough & 4 little ones....in every section! And every farm place, occupied or abandoned, has a big shelterbelt around it. Pheasants can be anywhere! But by now, roosters know not to be on public land between 10:00 & sunset. And those are the ones I want.
The point to all this is...in areas I hunt, regardless of where roosters actually ARE, many of them ARE public land birds, or at least were until maybe Nov. 1. You may find a thicket full of them in a ditch somewhere, but they may very well plan to roost that evening in a big slough on a WPA a 1/2 mile or even a mile away. They act like public birds. They're just easier to hunt when you can find them in a ditch (so they may SEEM "dumber"). Big border/edge, which is, of course, the road. Frequently another huge edge that is a picked/plowed corn/bean field. Skinny cover that frequently comes to an end, especially when there's enough snow to knock down all grass, leaving only a short stretch of cattails. They still run. They still flush wild. They still dig in. They still use every play in the book, but they're a little easier to deal with. I'm frequently finding lone roosters, who aren't surrounded by 10 hens, with 20 ears & 20 eyes.
Now, for the last few years, I've had the HUGE privilege of hunting 1 day toward the end of the season with Golden Hour, on private land. We typically start on some land adjacent to a WPA. It's got a food plot & big slough, & it's loaded with birds. But they're pretty challenging. They're public land birds. It's an absolute blast to SEE them, but if we finish the spot with 2 or 3 in the truck, we've done well. Then he takes me to 1 of 2 or 3 spots he's got that've hardly been hunted at all, sometimes not at all, or at least not since opening weekend. These are different pheasants. They're Private Land Dummies (PLDs), so easy compared to what we've been used to that it's literally laughable. We finish up quick & stand around mocking them for awhile. But we also acknowledge that we'd only maybe get away with what we just did once, twice...3 times at most (if we spread out our assaults), before those birds (the roosters anyway) wised up & started turning the tables on us. PLDs don't stay PLDs for long.
Anyhow, it's 10:56, -30 windchill, & Ace is snoozing beside me on the couch. He's been expectant all morning though, so I suppose I'd better get ready to go. It's easy to be too comfortable inside, & I wouldn't want to let him down, as he knows the end of the season is near. Gotta make hay while the sun shines, as they say.
