Gettin' the heck outa Dodge!!

S

shock_n_awe

New member
Man, we have hunted WIHA areas within 30 miles all around the Dodge area this week and we have been having a terrible time getting on birds. I usually drive up to South D., or Neb., but I hunted Liberal and Texhoma when I was younger and never had this kind of trouble. We have seen NO hunters, and we have pushed crops, CRP, corners, wash outs, transitions scrub, and still have only kicked up 5 roosters and 3 hens in 4 hard days of hunting first light through dusk. We have seen NO birds on the grounds or roads, and I have not seen any wild flushes when driving. I have only seen a total of 12 or so birds since driving into the state.

We have 3 smart (kind of) hunters and 2 trained dogs. What the heck am I doing wrong?

Help Kansas guru's!

thanks,
 
gsh lover said:
which direction from Dodge?
Click to expand...

We Hunted north to jetmore, west past Cimarron, South to Minneola, east to Kinsley. I'm stumped. We have been on great areas, but just have not seen any type of Kansas numbers I remember as a kid. The walk in areas appear to have had little pressure, so I don't think that is the problem.

Any advice?
 
I was in the same area Mon-Wed with 6 guys and 3 dogs, can't say we had the same luck. I will say a lot of the WIHA we hit were short on birds, but not a lot different from my past experience. We always hunt the next few days after opening weekend, so this was not a shock.

The private we hunted, however, was lights out. More birds than last year, and definitely an uptick from the few years before that. Don't know that you're doing anything wrong, but the weather has been milder than usual and with the moisture they got on opening weekend and then again on Wednesday might have screwed up their patterns after an extended dry period. Never know, good luck to you though.
 
All WIHA in that area you are talking about was hammered opening weekend and monday after opening weekend. As I was in that area and there were way more hunters there this year then last. I would say every walk in field was hunted at least 2-3 times Sat. and Sun. then at least 1-2 times monday. After getting hit that hard it will take some time for the birds to come back. I am not sure what happened after Monday as I had to get back to work.
 
wihas got pounded, from Liberal to Hill City, even through Tuesday, biggest crowds in years, let the wihas rest, come back after Thanksgiving or wait until the first week of Dec., birds are on private ground.
 
hunter94 said:
wihas got pounded, from Liberal to Hill City, even through Tuesday, biggest crowds in years, let the wihas rest, come back after Thanksgiving or wait until the first week of Dec., birds are on private ground.
Click to expand...

Ditto - Ive never seen so many out of staters in my life the past couple of weekends. Its like the thunderin herd is overwhelming the local populace.
 
I was in Rush Co. this last weekend and thought I was in Texas, I saw more Texas plates then anything. We also saw more hunters then birds. The bird numbers are there just not on WIHA. The amount of pressure walk-in gets is crazy.
 
Thank you guys for all the feedback. I could not believe how it could be that bad. After reading this and the experience gained from a LONG week, I have a better game plan for later this year. I will be bringing my two boys and my dad back. I am convinced we will do better.

On a side note, I noticed that a large majority of circle corners were cut in with winter wheat. What happened to all the CRP corners??
 
That's the biggest reason we stopped going after ten years. The WIHA just gets pounded. It didn't seem that tough to find birds even five years ago, but we've had more and more trouble the last few. I don't particularly like the idea of 30 guys making a swath across WIHA at one time. Kind of puts the little guy at a disadvantage. It also seemed like the habitat became more and more questionable on many of the WIHA tracts.
 
akp said:
It also seemed like the habitat became more and more questionable on many of the WIHA tracts.
Click to expand...

Not arguing exactly, but remember not all the WIHA tracts are leased from the state only for pheasant hunting. Some are for deer, waterfowl, etc. Others are in it simply to square up a landowners quality ground for signage purposes, and even "If you take this 160, you also need to take that 80".
 
I understand. It has been my observation along with the other two or three that usually go that we've had to look harder for suitable WIHA than in years past. Could just be me, but it seems that way to us. I know some years (06 for example) some is hayed because of drought and I know not all is for pheasant. This is simply my observation. There have been several instances where I have traveled WAY out of the way to check out a piece of WIHA to have it shorter than my lawn--I have seen entire sections like this.

It's still by far the best program I have ever seen, so I hate to complain.
 
Great Bend

I just got back from a 2 day trip around Great Bend where we hunt private and public land. Luckily, we did have private land to hunt because otherwise we would have been in trouble. All of the CRP contracts expired last year in the area which were not renewed. Some of the best fields we hunt are nothing more than dirt with hay stacked 4 stories high. On Saturday we shot 30 in our group of 10 which is a great day in my book, but Sunday, we only saw 10 pheasants all day. However, we did get into several coveys of quail. In total, I came home with 4 pheasant and 4 quail. Hardly a bad trip and we had a blast, but things were certainly different this year. Birds were more isolated as opposed to last year. It was not uncommon last year for us to flush 50+ birds at a time and they were everywhere, but this year we were only seeing a few birds at a time. It really was sad to see our favorite CRP fields gone after hunting them for years. We have a good relationship with several of the large land owners around the area who talked to us about this last year. Something to do with an experiment the state was testing to address issues with the county watershed. I did not really understand it, but needless to say our hunting spot has changed forever.
 
I can't speak for around Dodge, but can echo the sentiments about the quality of WIHA 30 minutes after opening morning. I've hunted the opener near Collyer (and many other places after the opener) for over a decade. I have never seen anywhere close to the amount of hunters I saw on opening weekend this year. Of course, I saw this coming a few years back, but I was still shocked by both the numbers and the willingness of 3-4 groups of hunters to hunt the same 1/2 section simultaneously, yet independently. That doesn't account for the armies I also saw, which I am absolutely sick of seeing out there. Nothing is less sporting than 25 guys surrounding a field in hopes of killing every bird that might be out there. This is a big reason all the birds are gone after opening morning. For better and worse, Kansas has - after a decade of heavy advertising - successfully attracted a critical mass of hunters. I doubt it will ever be the same again. Western Kansas WIHA has simply become the place that everyone without contacts or money in Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Arkansas and Kansas go to hunt. The real bird loving and hunting enthusiasts (typically found on this site) are surrounded by 100's of weekend warriors passing time until deer season.

I would also echo the advice to go later in the year. Unfortunately, that advice has been dispensed enough that people are beginning to listen and the quality of that hunting has also suffered. Last year in mid December, I went near Garden City to a couple of spots that ALWAYS hold birds. The weather was perfect; for hunting at least. Two guys, three top shelf dogs and 10 miles on the boots pushed up a single hen. What's more depressing, I saw people at almost every decent WIHA spot.

In my humble opinion, the expiring contracts and other factors (weather excluded) is far less of an impact on hunting success than the sheer number of people who find their way to the promised land nowadays.
 
vizlaman--I agree with you--having grown up in sw ks bird hunting my whole life I now find myself deer hunting more and more. Just for the fact with a couple hundered of acres I can have great deer hunting. Pheasant hunting land is either getting leased out or put into wiha. Wiha is just pounded these days anymore. Every weekend I go out to hunt i always see someone from a different state. Use to only see this on opening weekend and weekend of thanksgiving. The state is going to have to start stocking birds like SD if they want the revenue to keep coming in cause I just can't see this increase in hunting climbing as much as it has the past 10 years without something being done to increase the game numbers. They say we are losing the hunting population I see just the opposite.
 
Wiha

we did well on Walk in land around Greensburg up towards Kinsley.
But we were hunting quail.

I didn't see the number of pheasants on the roads that we usually do.
Friday before opener, I thought the numbers were going to be up. Riding around in the rain, we saw pheasants everywhere. We didn't see the as many pheasants this year as we did last year. (but the quail were up)
 
Coach R -

Agreed on the hunting population. I am half-convinced it's a conspiracy - doesn't appear to me that the sport is dying. My guess is that the argument is more about the percentage of the population who hunt vs. actual hunters. Actual hunters is higher, just a lower percentage of the overall population. Either way, it wouldn't be too hard to see more hunters than birds on a given day in West Kansas. That math won't work long.

And my fear is that the constant three month pressure on WIHA - especially by non-resident weekend warriors - will begin to negatively impact overall bird numbers on WIHA now and in the future. I don't care what the biologists say, a place getting hunted that hard for that long impacts hens and roosters in lots of ways.
 
I agree 100% in all ways. My family and I own quite a bit of property here in Texas, and I have always taught my boys the respect and work ethic necessary to peruse and hunt game. While we can certainly afford to pay a guide to put us on birds, I do not agree with walking huge kill lines with 20 dogs and blockers to find birds. For me and my family, we will continue to learn the areas, and peruse the birds in the manner I feel should be passed along to future hunting generations. We will give it another go around Christmas when we are in Amarillo. I am planning on coming up around Dec. 15 and hunting around liberal or just north for a few days. If you guys are around, you are more than welcome to push some grass with us in pursuit of the (more than ever) elusive game cock!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top