Help finding pheasant

S

stinkbelly

Member
I have hunted pheasant for about 10 years and I can never find them in bad weather.

I hunted this Friday - Sunday. It was cold Friday morning and probably got to about 50 in the afternoon. We found birds all day. Saturday it went from rain to sleet to snow. We started off finding birds, but when the snow hit, it was over for the day. We didn't find any birds after about lunch. The snow didn't last long and didn't even stick to the ground, but the cold and wet just made it where we couldn't find a bird. Sunday it started out with ice on everything and we weren't fining birds. As soon as it started to melt we started to find birds again.

So where do they go in bad weather?

We hunted all types of cover. We found all but two bird in CRP. One was in sunflowers the other cut sorghum. We found no birds in the thick stuff or brush piles. This is the first time we didn't find a single bird in brush piles.

We only had 2 guys with 3 dogs running.
 
It's been my experience that pheasants love the cattails in foul weather. Or tree groves. Any heavy cover out of the wind and weather.

Good luck on your next hunt.
 
jonnyB said:
It's been my experience that pheasants love the cattails in foul weather. Or tree groves. Any heavy cover out of the wind and weather.

Good luck on your next hunt.
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The area I hunt is usually CRP. There aren't usually any trees or cattails in the area.

How far will they travel to get to cover?
 
I looked on line...can range up to 25 miles; normal is about 2-4 miles. They have been clocked over 56 mph!

All the birds I miss are in the 56 mph range!
 
I agree that they seem to gravitate towards the cattails when it gets really nasty. But what you describe doesn't seem nasty enough to trigger that behavior. We've found them in the heavy CRP grass lots of times when it's cold and nasty, but where we hunt there aren't many cattail sloughs. Plum thickets, cedar clumps, shelterbelts, etc. also seem to produce.
 
Rusty Trigger said:
I would expect that they are just holding super tight. You are most likely walking right over them.[/s

This. We had an inch of wet heavy snow Sunday morning. The snow was heavy enough to lay the grass down. I have a springer. We found birds either buried under clumps of snow covered grass. Most of the places we found them the clumps were along shelter belts, scrub trees, etc. This issue right after a snow when they hold tight is they leave no scent trail so you have to go real slow and let the dog check out all likely cover really thouroughly otherwise you will walk right by them.
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IsThisHeaven? said:
Rusty Trigger said:
I would expect that they are just holding super tight. You are most likely walking right over them.[/s

This. We had an inch of wet heavy snow Sunday morning. The snow was heavy enough to lay the grass down. I have a springer. We found birds either buried under clumps of snow covered grass. Most of the places we found them the clumps were along shelter belts, scrub trees, etc. This issue right after a snow when they hold tight is they leave no scent trail so you have to go real slow and let the dog check out all likely cover really thouroughly otherwise you will walk right by them.
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That helps. We usually go pretty fast through an area.
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I wouldn't think that any weather that KS had this past weekend would make the birds do anything different. I agree that you may be walking by them but moisture usually helps the dog. When it is cold and windy I usually focus on low areas: bowls, bellies, hollows, etc.
 
We were in the low bowl areas. They just seemed to disappear for about 24 hours and then show back up in the exact type of cover. Maybe they were just holding tight and the dogs were use to them running or only holding for a second or two so the dogs moved on. We did have the dogs get very birdy in several areas and had points on areas that we couldn't kick up a bird.
 
jonnyB said:
It's been my experience that pheasants love the cattails in foul weather. Or tree groves. Any heavy cover out of the wind and weather.

Good luck on your next hunt.
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That's usually what I've experienced as well. Sometimes they'll bury themselves deep under the Reed-canary grass too.

Their behavior tends to very with wind, type of snow (wet or light), snow depths expected, etc.

At times though, yes, they can be like ghosts.:confused:
 
Back in the day, anytime there was snow blowing and on the ground, we always had luck around old homesteads. Now, like I said this was back in the day when jumping corners and old farmhouses was an excepted form of hunting.
Seems like shelterbets always held birds in bad weather, also
 
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