Last Two Days of the Season

[BritChaser]

Heading out to the happy hunting grounds tomorrow to hunt the last two days of the season. Two friends from Lawrence are joining me, a rookie hunter who has a couple of pheasant shots under his belt, and his girlfriend who does not shoot but loves to walk the line with men who hunt. Two inches of snow yesterday should keep them where they are -- no need to hunt for water -- and keep them bunched for warmth.

Last weekend I saw pheasants and prairie chickens together (a first), but they went their separate ways when flushed. They behave so differently when flying. Every hunt is a learning experience. Our first field, a quarter of milo stalks, was amazing for late season. Across the road to the west was a big, mature wind break. We started on the west side and went south, north, south, etc., all across the field. When we got back to the west side, a whole different group of birds had entered the field from the break so we rehunted the west half and got more birds!

I let my friends from CO take all but one bird. I cooked him yesterday in the crock pot for four hours with chicken stock, wine, olive oil, mushrooms, and onions. Very tasty. As a leftover, I added rice and it was nice. Finished it off for lunch today.

Anyone else hunting these last two days?

 

[kansasbrittany]

I am hunting at least the last day. Hopefully I can get the schoolwork done early enough to make it before the sun goes down. If I'm past Salina with the sun in the sky I'll stop somewhere and hunt Friday on my way out. We'll be hunting near Scott City for an experience outside my traditional counties. I've never hunted that far west before. Other than sandburrs and tumbleweeds, I'm not sure what to expect.

Best of luck to everyone heading out this weekend!! There are still plenty of birds to be had...

 

[kansasbrittany]

We left for Scott City @ 9:00 so we made it in plenty of time to get some hunting done. I took the wife and my 2 young boys along for the stinky trip with my bird dogs in the back of my trashy Pathfinder. The first place we walked was a weedy lot right by a feedyard. There were about 50 birds in it and about 35 of them were roosters (strange for late season). I dry fired at one close flushing rooster (forgot to load shell in chamber after entering field). My 13-year old cousin shot 2 and one other member of our party shot 1. We went on to hunt 3 more places that evening. Saw a lot of hens in the wheat and milo stubble, then hunted a really thick draw near sunset. Lots of birds flushing wild...didn't harvest anymore that day. That area sure could use some CRP!! Nothing but cropfields as far as the eye can see unless you're at a feedlot.

The next morning 2 guys in a bus came to pick 5 of us up. They were local boys with some access to some of those boundless crop fields. We hunted several feed fields (corn and milo), which were too large for our group (not that I would've wanted to hunt w/ anymore people). We saw loads of hens in almost every one of them and at least a couple of roosters in each. The roosters were getting up way ahead as you might expect on a 70+degree day. The wind was blowing pretty hard helping the close flushers to escape quickly. I left W KS at 3:00 with 4 birds between myself and the 13-year old and a few more great memories to cling onto through the off-season:thumbsup: