Loafing vs. Roosting cover?

JPH

JPH

Member
Seeing how pheasant roost, feed and loaf during any given day, Wondering what you look for in good loafing cover?
Since you can't hunt in SD till 10 am, hunting roosting cover seems to be fairly limited except late in the day. I think have a good idea of what feeding areas look like.
Also what is the main difference between roosting cover and loafing cover?
Trying to get an idea of what type of cover to be looking for at different times of the day.

Thanks for any insights.

JPH:cheers:
 
To me loafing cover is a lot about where the cover is and not so much about the type. I kind of envision it as transitional cover between food, grit and roosting cover. If a peice of cover looks like it is in prime place to allow access to all of the above I will hunt it. I do view proximity to a food source as more of a prime driver though. I don't enjoy hunting them but IMO this is why unmowed road ditches next to crop fields can be so productive.

If you hunt public land like I do hunting pressure becomes a factor that has to be considered. The birds get often pushed out of the obvious/best cover and sometimes if your going to find them on a public parcel mid-day you have to hunt the scraggly stuff. If the food source is "dirty" & weedy they may stay with the food all day. The little weedy water way or wash out in the middle of nowhere can hold birds. The cattail patch in the middle of a grazed pasture etc etc.

We do pick up quite a few "cheap" birds every year hunting these out of the way spots. I think of them as cheap because they are small, easy to hunt and don't put much wear and tear on the dogs.
 
Downtown Bang! said:
To me loafing cover is a lot about where the cover is and not so much about the type. I kind of envision it as transitional cover between food, grit and roosting cover. If a peice of cover looks like it is in prime place to allow access to all of the above I will hunt it. I do view proximity to a food source as more of a prime driver though. I don't enjoy hunting them but IMO this is why unmowed road ditches next to crop fields can be so productive.

If you hunt public land like I do hunting pressure becomes a factor that has to be considered. The birds get often pushed out of the obvious/best cover and sometimes if your going to find them on a public parcel mid-day you have to hunt the scraggly stuff. If the food source is "dirty" & weedy they may stay with the food all day. The little weedy water way or wash out in the middle of nowhere can hold birds. The cattail patch in the middle of a grazed pasture etc etc.

We do pick up quite a few "cheap" birds every year hunting these out of the way spots. I think of them as cheap because they are small, easy to hunt and don't put much wear and tear on the dogs.
Click to expand...
X2 all the way
 
What most people call loafing cover is usually secondary cover found right off a food source. Birds will loaf in cover that isn't thick enough to roost in overnight so they are in proximity to hit a food source few times in a day without having to walk alot. That isn't to say they won't go right back to loaf in their roosting cover if it's in close proximity to the food source.

Here is a another thing to think about. Pheasants love roosting in thick grasses, but once those grasses warm up enough to draw dew they tend to avoid them until the dew burns off. They are finicky that way.

Don't get too caught up in thinking you can draw yourself a fixed schedule of what pheasants do on daily basis and at what time. Wind, wetness, temperature, food source, available cover, and hunting pressure all play a bigger role in where the birds will be at a given point than some type of arbitrary pattern based on what time of day it is. The only thing that's really a given is that you can find them on roost twice a day.
 
JPH,

I would add something to this thread for you, but these guys (downtownbang and hub) got it covered. I used to think that feeding, roosting, and loafing times were something that could be counted on as routine. The truth is, there are many factors to be considered. I've hunted on days that roosters were harvested at a slow steady pace throughout the entire day and when checking to see what they'd eaten, we found that they hadn't eaten all day. Same for chickens....I once thought that all I had to do was show up at a beanfield in the morning and they were bound to come in at some point. However, certain fronts and weather patterns will keep them out of the grainfields at times. On the other hand, I've spent days pheasant hunting and found them only in the feed (usually the warm days). There is some great information in this thread for the novice pheasant hunter!
 
This is a little story about me while hunting one those out of the way places.


I was hunting with my uncle in Minnesota. The cover was cranberry bog with a stream running through the area. I was wearing rubber barn boots because at times the bog got deep and wet. We soon discovered the birds were not in the bog but on the little bulrush islands in the stream. So I went into the stream with my Brittany and we went from island to island. As I stepped onto the one island a Rooster came straight up, hit me squarely on the chin. I went backwards totally off balance and landed on my butt, in the stream. I fired two shots from my hip as I was sitting there in the water and I missed. My uncle was laughing so hard he couldn't shoot. He kept teasing me that was the first time he seen a man cold cocked by a pheasant. ....Bob
 
Don't overlook high cover, brush plum bush when hot. A little dirt to scratch, but overhead protection. Sunflowers (wild or tame) are well liked by the birds also. It helps if some heavier cover is close to move them into and hold them.
About 3:00 on hot days they will go to water also.
________
Chrysler sebring (sedan) specifications
 
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bobeyerite said:
This is a little story about me while hunting one those out of the way places.


I was hunting with my uncle in Minnesota. The cover was cranberry bog with a stream running through the area. I was wearing rubber barn boots because at times the bog got deep and wet. We soon discovered the birds were not in the bog but on the little bulrush islands in the stream. So I went into the stream with my Brittany and we went from island to island. As I stepped onto the one island a Rooster came straight up, hit me squarely on the chin. I went backwards totally off balance and landed on my butt, in the stream. I fired two shots from my hip as I was sitting there in the water and I missed. My uncle was laughing so hard he couldn't shoot. He kept teasing me that was the first time he seen a man cold cocked by a pheasant. ....Bob
Click to expand...

Bobeye.

I laughed my ass of too cuz it sounds like something that could totally happen to me. Round 1 goes to Rooster. You'll never forget that memory.
 
Bobeye...I was working a cattail slough with a buddy and he had pheasant try to kill him in much the same manner you describe. The bird flushed right at his face, but he was holding his gun at port arms and he slapped that bird on the head with the barrel of the gun as it flushed. He knocked it out cold. I told him I had a thousand dollars for him if he'd take the shells out of his gun and take the rest of his limit in that fashion. It was a true one in a million shot.
:)
 
My buddy did the same thing with a quail. We were hunting a preserve and a quail jumped right up under his feet, he yelped and swung his gun to swat at the bird and ended up killing it. I'm not sure what we laughed harder over, him killing the quail like that or him jumping and yelling like a little girl.
 
I do remember it very well, that was 40 years ago. I left Minnesota in the 1970 to move west.....Bob
 
My idea of a good loafing area is tall weeds or brush, with small open areas. Gopher mounds or good dusting spots. Pheasants love to dust. Roosting areas are thick matted type grass. birds like to get hidden. Cattails seem to me to be more of the security type habitat. Pheasants prefer the grassy, weedy uplands but will go to the security with a little pressure.
 
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