Late Season Roosters Tactics

C

cyclonenation10

Well-known member
I've got my own opinions, but was wondering what everyone else does to try and get close to wild flushing late season birds? As much as I like hunting a fresh snow and seeing lots of birds, it certainly makes getting close to birds much more of a challenge. What tactics do you use to get close to these late season snow birds?

Most of my hunting is solo, and so keeping quiet and dogs close is key. Blockers aren't an option, but when hunting with 1-2 people I've had luck pushing birds towards the middle or a corner with everyone starting from a different end.
 
I think the most important part of being stealthy is to pray for wind, preferably about 12-15 mph. If the wind gods appease you, hunt into it as much as possible. Be prepared to do whatever it takes to hunt the most likely spots into the wind.

Also, as much as I like to hunt edges of cattail sloughs (myself on the outside & my dog actually in the cattails), if they can run in the cattails (& most of the time they can), sometimes it helps for me to walk 10-20 yds in from the edge. It can be considerably tougher walking, but I feel we stand a better chance of pushing a bird toward the edge for a closer flush, as opposed to pushing him into the middle of the slough for a long flush or none at all.
 
You're on the right track @cyclonenation10. We all encounter skittish birds in the second half of the season, even on lightly-pressured private land.

If you have the option, I would approach some of these spots from the opposite direction that you normally do assuming the wind cooperates. I used this tactic in December at a couple of the spots I hunt and it paid off. Obviously noise is a huge factor so if you can eliminate that variable it would be wise.

I'm all done for the season as Minnesota is closed as of yesterday, but I still have pheasant hunting fresh on my brain.
 
Stealth and Quite like you mention , knowing the escape routes and day to day activities are important .
I also make a note where I see the most roost piles and try and catch them early .

I had a Crp patch with cattails in a waterway that the pheasants like to roost in . Rather than walk up the waterway in plain site , I would approach the site from a hill which I could be hidden until I was pretty close to shotgun range, bird dog leashed or at heal . Most the time early in a cold morning they would hold . The last time I hunted it I shot three standing in one spot .
 
One thing tough is, when most of the birds are in the cattails, you can't walk through them without making a bunch of noise!
 
I think using the wind to help mask your noise, hunt the cover in a not normal fashion, use pinch points to try and stop birds from running. If partnered and hunting cattails or shelterbelts have partner flank ahead of you 20 yards up and over to help with wild flushes preferably downwind side. Even with my dogs I tend to zig-zag when I walk as well. I try to be as unpredictable as they are.
 
Crunchy snow is loud. Fresh powder is quiet. It helps to have 2 people late season. One guy will get the shooting on the escape route side.
 
gimruis said:
You're on the right track @cyclonenation10. We all encounter skittish birds in the second half of the season, even on lightly-pressured private land.

If you have the option, I would approach some of these spots from the opposite direction that you normally do assuming the wind cooperates. I used this tactic in December at a couple of the spots I hunt and it paid off. Obviously noise is a huge factor so if you can eliminate that variable it would be wise.

I'm all done for the season as Minnesota is closed as of yesterday, but I still have pheasant hunting fresh on my brain.
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I think this is most important. Too many guys just pull up and plow into the patch at the same spot. Then wonder why they don’t get opportunities. Birds get used to that and escape where they are comfortable. Sometimes it helps to switch it up. Go to the logical escape point and work back, go to the middle and work out. Switch up what seems normal and you may mix them up a bit. Guys on public often won’t go to the far ends if they don’t immediately see birds
 
carptom1 said:
Too many guys just pull up and plow into the patch at the same spot.
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I'm guilty of that too. Then I started realizing that the birds were getting skittish as the season wore on, and they'd flush out of range. So I went in the opposite direction and threw them a curve ball.

I never flushed a single bird out of cattails this past season. Not one. Which is a little odd. I normally don't hunt them until they freeze up solid, but its been so dry here the past year that most of them were bone dry already so I could walk through them before they froze. I do recall two occasions when I startled a couple deer, but no pheasants.
 
Last weekend I pulled into a field that I hunt at least once a week, most of the time twice, two roosters flew to a neighbors field and i wasn't even stopped yet. The entrance isn't even close to where the CRP is.
Them roosters keep an eye out for routines.
 
Many valid strategies above. I also look for smaller “one man” sloughs out of the way looking for that one or two isolated flushes versus bigger cattail stands where birds are boiling out all over way out in front. In the bigger sloughs, I don’t allow the temptation to race through and catch up to the birds to distract me as they boiling out ahead of you. I believe we often walk right past tight sitting birds. Instead I methodically allow the dogs to work through small sections at a time and will even zig zag and circle back trying to pick up any birds that may have double backed on us.
 
Shooting hours end at 4:30 in Iowa. I was there recently and no joke….4:33 two roosters flew into the public hunting property from a private field within a few feet of my vehicle. Nothing was pushing them in the other property. It was a corn field. They are intelligent and they learn patterns. I am not saying they can tell time but it was ironic and made me laugh out loud.
 
RedLion said:
Shooting hours end at 4:30 in Iowa. I was there recently and no joke….4:33 two roosters flew into the public hunting property from a private field within a few feet of my vehicle. Nothing was pushing them in the other property. It was a corn field. They are intelligent and they learn patterns. I am not saying they can tell time but it was ironic and made me laugh out loud.
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Similar story from South Dakota, but in the morning. A friend and I pulled up to a large public area that has a bean field on the south side where 100-150 birds were feeding. I parked 3-400 yards from the field and we sat and watched all the birds feeding there from 9:15 until legal shooting time at 10:00. At 9:55 a majority of those bird flew into the private land that was next to the public field.
 
RedLion said:
Shooting hours end at 4:30 in Iowa. I was there recently and no joke….4:33 two roosters flew into the public hunting property from a private field within a few feet of my vehicle. Nothing was pushing them in the other property. It was a corn field. They are intelligent and they learn patterns. I am not saying they can tell time but it was ironic and made me laugh out loud.
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I live and hunt in Iowa. I see this regularly.
 
cyclonenation10 said:
I've got my own opinions, but was wondering what everyone else does to try and get close to wild flushing late season birds? As much as I like hunting a fresh snow and seeing lots of birds, it certainly makes getting close to birds much more of a challenge. What tactics do you use to get close to these late season snow birds?

Most of my hunting is solo, and so keeping quiet and dogs close is key. Blockers aren't an option, but when hunting with 1-2 people I've had luck pushing birds towards the middle or a corner with everyone starting from a different end.
Click to expand...
I also hunt solo. LIke you I try to be as quiet as possible and fresh snow helps. I mostly hunt thick hawthorn/snowberry patches along creek bottoms and try to go the opposite direction any hunter would typically go. I silently keep my lab at heel, approach a woody cover patch,
silently release the lab with a hand signal and as soon as I see which direction he is tracking, I silently rush to the opposite end.

Same approach with a small linear patch of cattails...I'll put my lab on sit, silently walk to the opposite end, then silently cast him into the
cattails to (hopefully) push the bird towards me.

These approaches fail miserably if the snow is crunchy and the birds know where I am located.
 
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