How important is water in the immediate hunting area

S

stinkbelly

Member
I have been to Kansas for about 8 seasons pheasant hunting on public land and this year a fellow hunter told me that we needed to hunt near water. For the past 8 years we never tried to find water, we just looked for good grass, food, and cover. We have always found pheasant, quail, and chickens.

How important is it to have a body of water in the immediate hunting area? Do pheasant (quail too) need to visit a pond or creek daily for water?
 
water

stinkbelly said:
I have been to Kansas for about 8 seasons pheasant hunting on public land and this year a fellow hunter told me that we needed to hunt near water. For the past 8 years we never tried to find water, we just looked for good grass, food, and cover. We have always found pheasant, quail, and chickens.

How important is it to have a body of water in the immediate hunting area? Do pheasant (quail too) need to visit a pond or creek daily for water?
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i believe that adult pheasants don't need water, like a drink of the stuff. they get what they need from what they eat. chicks for about 3 weeks need moisture and mostly i think it comes from bugs. moisture for sure is important for cover and bugs though

cheers
 
There are lots of places in good pheasant country with NO water.
Like John said, during droughts and periods of low humidity a water source will benefit a pheasant population.

I've seen lots of times during dry weather in a waterless area pheasants and sharptails are getting moisture from grasshoppers, snowberries, buffalo berries, and green grasses and weeds.
Green leaves are at least 90% water. Berries and bugs close to 90%.
 
I know during the early parts of quail season, before green up starts with the first rains you better be within a mile of a water source or you won't find any quail. Once green up starts and there is dew in the morning a water sorce isn't needed.
 
Honestly I have never thought about water until recently. A year or so ago one of my friends said that in really dry areas that he always finds quail around water troughs. This year another friend said we needed to be near water.

I guess if they needed a body of water daily, there would be lots of Kansas without pheasant.
 
Trust me or not. A dry year is much more pheasant friendly then a wet year.
There are extremes of course, like the drought in Kansas and lots of areas in pheasant country 2011-2012. That is not good. Not so much the dryness as the lack of cover that the droughts cause in the lack of vegetation cover. So very important during Winter months and Spring nesting.

You do need to hunt near a water source during dry years. That might very well be the only place secure, heavy cover is available. Pheasants are not there so much as for a drink of water, but for the vegetation that is there because of the water source.
 
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