Hunting Brush

S

sloth5202

New member
Maybe this is old news but it proved true this weekend and last night. I listened to the FAN Outdoors show Saturday morning on my way out to the field and "The Capt'n" said they would be hunting the brush this year because in his scouting he had noticed a lot of birds in those areas. I'm the type of guy that typically hunts by himself on public land so I usually hunt transition areas because I can cover all of those areas much easier than a big expanse of grass.

This strategy worked great the last few days. All the birds I found were near a big pile of brush or some sort of woody growth in the middle of a big grassy or swamp type area. I'm pretty new to the whole solo hunting thing so having success like was great. How many of you hunt cover like this or use this strategy? Where else do you tend to hunt when hunting on your lonesome?
 
Thats where we shot 90% of our birds. The rest where in shelter belts and cattails. We where an hour early to our spot both days and watched them fly right into the stuff both mornings.
 
Yeah Saturday morning I was out there at 730 because I knew it was going to be a popular spot. They were spreading manure across the road from me and I watched a big ole rooster fly across the road and right into a big old shrub and he was right there when it was time to hunt.

I remember a couple of years ago I would walk aimlessly through all that grass and not get a single bird until I figured out where pheasants actually hang out. It also helps that most of the crops where I hunt were out this year. Makes for a lot of fun!
 
Before I was old enough to lug a gun I was just a two legged dog, so I didn't know there was any way to hunt but in the thickest weeds I could find. It came as a shock later to see groups hunting cut milo, corn stubble, and crp actually getting birds! I remember a book by Bob Bell, about pheasant hunting in Pennsylvania back in the 70's, he wore a homemade leather long sleevd shirt, to minimize the blood loss from his forays into the brush. So carry on brush hunters I think we have morale superiority to the grass walkers,and I guarantee, as an added benefit, if you hunt the brush, eventually your dog will to!
 
Oldandnew I think the word groups is very key in your reply. I can only imagine how many birds that I may have missed when I was walking those expanses of grass.... With a group those birds just don't have any place to escape.
 
I hunt by myself a lot and I normally jump from brush to brush. In an open CRP field with one guy, you are just pushing the birds around you. To have success hunting solo, that is the only way to go. The birds feel safe in the brush, so they are less likely to run when they see or hear you.
 
Another thing I learned this weekend was how long those darn roosters will sit and hold. We would stand at the end of our push for upto 5 to 10 minutes. All of a sudden a big old rooster would flush. Iv been pheasant hunting for almost 5 years now and I dont think you can walk and work an area slow enough. I will be hunting a lot slower this year.
 
Yeah those roosters will sit for a long time. I've really slowed my hunting down a lot. I have found this does two things. First, the birds get nervous and second it slows the dogs down a bit so they are a little more thorough. This isn't usually a problem with my older dog. He's as thorough as an accountant but the young pup runs like gangbusters if I let him go as fast as he wants to. I'm still amazed how much I learn every time I'm out in the field.
 
I agree that if you are solo, you have to work cover you can handle. You can effectively hunt really large crp, by using enough dog power. I won't go into detail about how many dogs I have, but suffice to say, I have proven that using the " army of barkness", confuses roosters so badly that they make mistakes. Other tactics that work, watch another group work a large area, I guarantee you that they will cut a corner somewhere, and not work all the way out to the road. Immediately work the area thoroughly they missed. Lots of times I have seen them flush a large number of hens, no roosters, roosters tend to run together, to a corner opposite the hens, why I don't know, but in any case I have shot a lot of limits, while my "group unwitting partners", watched from the road, convinced there wasn't a bird left in the field.
 
Brush, tree's, shelter belts, cattails, creek bottoms...Big open grass areas are typically a waste of time if you don't have enough people to drive the birds out to standers.
 
The other thing that I have noticed over the years is if you are in something uniform like grass, look for an area that has something different. What I mean is cattails or a different taller style of grass surronded by uniform height grass. A small island of trees surronded by grass work to the trees. It always seems to me that the birds look for an area with higher cover than everything around it. The other day I was working dogs on some pen birds and had one escape the box. The bird flew a big circle around cover and lit where there was a bit of scrubby brush that was 2 feet taller than the grass and weeds everywhere else in field. The area was maybe 10 feet by 5 feet in size but yet that bird sought that area out. Walking fence lines in Iowa over the years always a bird by a lone tree or a small patch of brush in an other wise unremarkable fence line with plenty of good cover. I think that is why old abandoned home steads work out well some times the birds are flying to something a landmark so to speak. Abandoned equipment, junk areas along swales.
 
I think hunting big CRP fields solo can be deadly. The key is to to communicate silently with the dog-- hand signals or using the beeper mode on the shock collar. No whistles and no yelling. You do push some around, but sneak up silently on enough to make it worthwhile. Bad weather is better, and use the edges of cut fields to your advantage.
 
The colder and worse the weather gets BRUSH is exactly where you need to focus on! 95% of my birds come from those areas, Buck Brush, Plum Brush, Willow stands. That is where they are at. I even go after 'em with snowshoes. Best solo because you can move pretty quite!! Go Get 'em!!
 
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