Elkhart/

birddude

birddude

Well-known member
I used to hear a lot about the Southwest corner. Don't hear much these days. Anyone have any updates on the area?
 
My daughter’s college roommate is from Elkhart and her family farms a lot of country. According to the roommate’s father, they have seen very, very few pheasants this fall. In his words, “it’s the worst he has ever seen”.

I didn’t even ask about quail after hearing that report.
 
lbills said:
My daughter’s college roommate is from Elkhart and her family farms a lot of country. According to the roommate’s father, they have seen very, very few pheasants this fall. In his words, “it’s the worst he has ever seen”.

I didn’t even ask about quail after hearing that report.
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Bummer, Drought I assume.
 
There are no pheasants left in Kansas according to a popular poster on this site, time to sell your guns and dogs folks..... There is no doubt habitat loss is an issue in Kansas and across America for that matter but damn there is a debbie downer problem on the kansas forum. If you scare hunters away how are things going to change? Pretty soon no one will know there were wild pheasants in Kansas according to this no at all guy.
 
My friends and I shot a pile of roosters on Wiha last year in a multitude of regions and counties. Go hunt and be satisfied with the fact you put your dogs on the ground and had a chance at fair chase on wild birds. Things could possibly never turn around for the bird but should we just quit? GTF ouuta here... I hate using that language by the way.
 
My wife and friend were headed to Taos for short trip about a month ago. She reported a near-collision with a flying rooster in between Hugoton and Elkhart during the drive down. I think she also said there were others in the bunch that ran or flew a different direction. I asked her for a mile marker but she didn't write it down. :mad:

So there were at least few down there about a month ago...
 
I have a farmer down there who farms over 10,000 acres. From my understanding there was baseball size hail that went through that SW corner of the state this summer. My farmer friend lost a lot of fields due to that. Said he saw less than 5 birds during harvest as a result.
 
Have a friend who farms Kansas, somewhere in the west. Another friend who farms Colorado, somewhere in the east. Both saw little to no birds this summer. Both just finished harvest and said they are seeing a “shit ton compared to last year”, (that’s relative, just need to forget about 15 yrs ago, last yr was rough at both places) and to get my butt out there. Hitting KS first and then CO. Wont see my wife much in the next 4 weeks 😜.
Gotta go to know….
 
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Just because you hunt an area or spot or maybe 2 and see lots of birds doesn’t mean there are tons of birds everywhere. I can take you to a spot I hunt that is in poor pheasant country but because of the really good habitat there are quite a few on that 160 acres.

If I took someone there who didn’t know better they would think that this part of the state was loaded with pheasants when in reality it’s not. It’s just the one area with prime habitat.

There will be pockets of birds. There is every year. But OVERALL the state of the pheasants are not good.

Yes they can survive drought but the chicks can’t. Drought means no water for chicks and since insects are huge forage base for them it also means less of those. So just because they don’t need to drink water, that water supports other things they need.
 
Frangler said:
My friends and I shot a pile of roosters on Wiha last year in a multitude of regions and counties. Go hunt and be satisfied with the fact you put your dogs on the ground and had a chance at fair chase on wild birds. Things could possibly never turn around for the bird but should we just quit? GTF ouuta here... I hate using that language by the way.
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i assume the WIHAs were CRP? that is the KS habitat now.
 
You would be pleasantly surprised at the cover if you hunted the area Thick stands of wild Sunflowers, Crp and Russian thistle mix that in with volunteer wheat and Milo and there are thousands and thousand of acres in Sw to hunt from Montezuma to Elkhart
 
Bird Buster said:
Drought= less cover, insects, food available, plus moisture for them. I totally disagree with you why aren't they thriving then where the drought maps show bad drought?
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This year had about the best grasshopper crop I have seen out here in over 20 years. And we were in extreme drought for over a year. More bugs this year than during the wet years of 2017, 2018, and 2019. Chicks need dry and warm nights to survive. Good rains in March are great but not in April, May, and June.
 
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