End of Year Reports?

P

prairiepork

New member
i'll admit this has been a challenging year. lost 3+ weeks to dog injury, multiple staples after 2 different hunts, so I have not been out as much, but when I have been out I have not seen the pheasants. i hunt in southeast ne, but might make a few trips west. have been able to scratch out a few birds here and there, but not like it has been the last few years. even after this snow I have not seen a lot of tracks. quail populations seem to be way up from the terrible winter a few years back, as I have seen many more quail than pheasants, I just can't hit those little buggers. i would say I have shot about 1/2 as many roosters as I had at this point last year. probably should have at least double the quail(shot 6 i think), I just can't shoot. dog has been killin' it when we run into birds, and there is just enough success and awesome dog work to keep me heading out. if nothing else it is exercise and knocks the dog out for a day. good fortune the rest of the year.
 
My dad and I headed up to a buddies farm near Scottsbluff over the weekend and had a good time. The drought had hit the western part of Nebraska pretty bad and alot of the cover we hunted last year wouldn't hide a bird this year. We still managed to find quite a few birds and the cold over the weekend had them bunched up. When we found the thick cover the birds were there. We hunted cattail patches and thick ditches were the tumbleweeds had collected. My two dogs did great finding the birds in the thick stuff. With out them I am sure we would of walked by most of the birds.
 
Looks like you did just fine after you "dialed it in". I'm headed to Hay Springs to hunt the last 6 days of January in the northern areas of the panhandle. Is this a decent area of the panhandle?
 
Last hunt of the season

Came home Sunday from my last hunt of the year. Rest of the month I'm traveling for work.

Spent Saturday and Sunday in NW Nebraska. One word: COLD. High was 18F. Low was Sunday morning at 2F.

Saturday the first field I hunted had a covey of about 12 sharptails get up out of range. Behind and to the right of me. I heard the wings before I saw the birds. They flew far and I couldn't mark them down. I have too many sharptails in the freezer as it is. Finished out that field with no other birds. Drove back to a field that had produced for me before. My dog flushed 3 hens. No roosters.

Drove over to a new area to check out the WIAs. Most didn't have enough cover to hold a field mouse much less a pheasant. Lots of raptors and one big coyote.

Drove to the next spot that was perfect looking. Out of that one field flushed a group of about 7 pheasants both hens and roosters. They were too far away to take a shot. The snow was dry and crusty and sounded like I was walking over old bones. There was no sneaking up on anything in that stuff.

Out of that same field flushed a sole sharptail and then not 100 feet from the car as we headed back a covey of quail flushed wild. I should have got a couple quail but as usual I got sensory overload.

Sunday I walked one goof sized field for a couple hours. Loki got birdy but when it flushed it was a hen. Which reminds me, 2 things. 1. If you're so prissy you need rubber gloves to field dress a pheasant maybe you should take up golf. God help you if you ever have to clean a goose. And 2 leaving the guts AND the rubber gloves right in the parking area is how we loose access. I don't crap in your house don't garbage up my fields.

Back to Sunday. Worked another good size walk in with no birds. Drove to and stared at a couple stubble fields but it was just me and my dog. Had no idea how to work those huge fields with a flusher and figured anything still in there would flush wild as I crunched along. Tried one small strip and as my eyelashes were freezing shut decided to call it a year.

This was my first year hunting Nebraska so I just burned a lot of gas and shoe leather looking at places but I'm pretty excited for next year. I know where the4re's birds, I know where not to bother going, I'll have a new dog and have some good honey holes to walk through. I'm planning a trip to ND and work on Colorado some more.

Hopefully the NE population rebounds. Every map I have has the same notes:

"good looking cover - no roosters."
 
Hobie1026, what part of NW Nebraska were you in? No specifics needed - counties or towns are more than sufficient.

I'm headed to the "top of the panhandle" around Hay Springs for the last week. Will report back when I return.
 
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