Kansas bound

gettinbirdie

gettinbirdie

Active member
I've been working my tail off this year and haven`t had a chance to really run dogs on birds. I`m really wanting to get away. I`m contemplating on heading to Kansas probably second week of January. Am I crazy for wanting to go this late into the season?!! I really want to focus on pheasant but would be tickled with a mixed bag....it's all about the dog work. I'm considering s.w (morton or stevens) or maybe rawlins county up north. Im not totally stuck to these as i have alot of uncertainty in my map research. Are these areas ok for pheasant this year? The walk in maps are pretty overwhelming! I've spent countless hours researching them. How can I research what crop situations are like or what's planted nearby without actually driving by the properties? Any and all suggestions or help is greatly appreciated!
 
Only way to see current condition of fields without driving by is Google Earth's real time pay service. Pricey. But Google Earth's free service will allow you to spot large cropless pastures that are poor prospects for birds and, on the other hand, farmed ground with draws and, perhaps, abutting CRP. Good luck.
 
Can be done just have to be smart about it. I like to hunt solo or with one other person. Two labs and be silent hunting into the wind and pick smaller spots using natural blockers like a road or short grass.
 
My brother might join me. We will have 2 young dogs. Both 2 year old gsp`s. Duckn thanks for the pointer, really got me thinking about our approach while in the vehicle and in the field. Brit- I'm definitely going to have get a better look on google earth before I head up. I think I'm leaning towards south over North. Is cimmaron something I should consider?
 
We spent a lot of time around Morton and Stevens counties during the rifle season, and got to do a decent amount of bird hunting. We hit a lot of private ground and while we got into some pheasants, it was spotty. The public ground we did hunt didn't yield much in that area.

The Cimarron grasslands was a cool place though. Got into a couple coveys of quail and heard a couple pheasants (never actually saw one). If you have dogs it should be a fun place to quail hunt.
 
gettinbirdie said:
My brother might join me. We will have 2 young dogs. Both 2 year old gsp`s. Duckn thanks for the pointer, really got me thinking about our approach while in the vehicle and in the field. Brit- I'm definitely going to have get a better look on google earth before I head up. I think I'm leaning towards south over North. Is cimmaron something I should consider?
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Another consideration is the amount of walk-in of particular areas. If you have the KDWPT's walk-in atlas, or view it online, the back cover has the whole state depicted which will show concentrations of walk-in.
 
gettinbirdie said:
My brother might join me. We will have 2 young dogs. Both 2 year old gsp`s. Duckn thanks for the pointer, really got me thinking about our approach while in the vehicle and in the field. Brit- I'm definitely going to have get a better look on google earth before I head up. I think I'm leaning towards south over North. Is cimmaron something I should consider?
Click to expand...

I assume you are talking about Cimarron National Grassland. The Grassland is big, about 105,000 acres, IIRC. A chance for bobs and blues. Blues want to run rather than fly and if they happen to be in one of the 95 or so guzzler locations, they may run out ahead of you. There are lots of things to poke the dogs feet so plan on dog boots. Outside the Grasslands, there are many other areas, especially in sandy soils, where the sandburs are thick and dog boots may be necessary.

Wishing you a good hunt wherever you decide.
 
I'm planning to head out this weekend if everything works out. I'm getting excited. It looks like I'm heading to the northwest part of the state. I'm sure I'll learn a bunch, I'm not going with big expectations. If at some point I reward the dogs , that would be icing on the cake
 
Turning cold this weekend and should have snow on the ground, although not much but it will help. You should find some birds! Best of luck!
 
We left the Texas panhandle this morning. We pickedup groceries and things in Liberal and checked out a few walk in areas on our way up to the nw part of the state. Saw a couple of roosters but no shot. Super dry and awfully warm today. We got our room outside of colby. Then We did some scouting and encountered a bunch of birds on crp and on private across the street. We spotted quite a few roosters , we were also able to secure permission onto the private across the street. Too late to run the dogs. We are going to start there first thing in the morning.
 
I got up this morning at 0500, couldnt sleep. Seeing all those roosters and hens on the dirt road late in the evening was more than i could handle! We had all our gear, dogs , everything ready to go before driving so we wouldnt scare anything off while parked. We shut the truck down aways down the road at 0745 and queitly slipped into the crp.my brother and me were about 40-50 yards apart and our girls were running back and forth between- when they got too far on the right or left(or in front) we vibrate them to come in. We werent 100 yrds from where we slipped in and my female Lilly goes on point. She breaks off and points another 5 yrds up, a rooster erupts about 40 yrds up. I got the gun up a little late sending a round out. I crippled him ,but were not able to find him. We had about 6-10 roosters get up in the next several hours. I never fired a shot, they were just a little bit too far out. At one point we pinched 3 roosters to a clear point of some dense crp. My brother pulled a double, connecting with 2 roosters. This evening , we are going to try that private across the street that we got permission to access last night. We are hoping some of those birds are there.....
 
We went back to the crp field on Saturday afternoon and crossed over into the private we had access on. We walked an edge, we got a trio of roosters up- we bagged the closest one. We managed to get on one more rooster the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately he was out of range. A little dissappointing for our private area excursion. Sunday we woke up to super high winds and sleet. We went out to a new area hoping the weather would make them hold a little better. We hunted a strip of grass edge along wheat stubble, we had a rooster get up not 5 yards from me. This was the best opportunity of the trip so far. In the bag he went. This nasty weather really picked up our spirits. We got down in a bottom , out of the wind , with thick cover. We got on a group of about 12 birds at one point. There were 3 or 4 rooster in this group. ...just too far out of range. We hunted till 3pm in the rain and sleet, the snow didn't come till Sunday night. We got on several more pheasant after that big group, about half were hens. Unfortunately, they didnt hold like we hoped. We finished 2 days of hard hunting with 4 roosters between the 2 of us. The drive home after receiving 9" of snow that night was another exciting adventure! We learned a lot on this hunt and our looking forward to next year.ill try and post some pictures once I load them.
 
It was a great time duck! I thought we would do better but those birds humbled us real quick! I can't wait to go back next season.
 
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