Don't discount the beans

A5 Sweet 16

A5 Sweet 16

Well-known member
Just a reminder, since there seems to be plenty of interest in the status of the corn harvest in different areas of the state.....Don't forget that pheasants like beans too!! I hunted a public area 2 days last weekend with picked corn on one side & beans on the other, separated by maybe a couple hundred yards. I hunted about the last 1.5 hrs of sunlight each day. Of the 5 roosters I shot, only 1 had been eating corn recently. The others were full of beans. Granted, STANDING corn offers much better daytime cover, and I'm still a firm believer that all other things being exactly equal, they'll choose corn, particularly once winter sets in. I've even heard that they can't digest beans as well. My opinion, though, is that they'll eat whatever is EASIEST. Don't know what the difference would have been in this case, other than maybe beans were just more plentiful.
 
Yep. I hunt with a guy who sometimes won't want to walk great looking cover if there is no corn next to it. I'll still walk it. It is common to find birds with 50-50 split of corn and beans in them. They will eat them, especially if the beans are close to good cover.

I can't remember the name of the substance in beans that can cause harm if they ate a diet of only raw soy beans. Since they seem to go back and forth on whatever food is easier and safer to get I think pheasants do fine on it.

Tim
 
Since we're mentioning crops, don't forget about sunflower fields. I put up consistent numbers of birds along picked sunflower fields.
 
UGUIDE said:
Don't forget the milo food plots!

:cheers:
Click to expand...

Gosh it made me feel good to see all the milo fields in the area I was hunting, wish I had access to them.....Do the State Game Production areas plant milo? Used to kill alot of birds out of milo fields on public land in both Nebraska and indiana.
 
I know this is the SD forum but , we shot birds near canola this year in ND and their crops were pretty full of it. Do they grow any canola in SD? Seems like a perfect sized grain for birds.
 
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