Lots of hens - no roosters

J

jonnyB

Well-known member
Just returned (Jan. 18) from a trip to SD and was disappointed in the lack of roosters. Three- day planned hunt ended up two day's, due to lack of birds.

The first two day's we flushed two different flocks of hens - both in excess of 50 birds...not a rooster among them. Several other fields produced 10 - 20 hens, again, no roosters.

What's gong on here? The only explanation is...this farm has been overly hunted and there's nothing left!

I cut my trip (and expense) by a day and came home. Weather was ideal - temps in the 40' and 50's.

If it's been overly hunted, how does one convey that opinion to the farmer??

Comments welcome.
 
Well none of us were there so you may have reached the correct conclusion.
Then again the roosters may have all given you the slip.

I just hunted a 30+ acre slough / grass weeds mix. We pushed about 30 hens out no roosters. Leaving it the dogs got excited and started trailing birds in the short grass. 6 or 7 roosters ran off and flushed way ahead of us. Only 1 ever got over 5 feet off the ground and would have been easy to mix them escaping.

When I was in high school we had hunted a couple gfp late in the season. Driving a back road I saw a couple roosters and many hens beside half dozen rows of standing snowed in cornstrip about 200 yards long.. Asked the farmer whose place was right on the opposite side of a little shelter belt. He said if you kids are that anxious go ahead. He almost lost his teeth when I asked him if he wanted a bird if we got 1? He said he would be delighted.
2 brothers and I got out and preceeded down that little strip. I was oldest and tallest so I was in the corn they flanked it 1 to a side. We went thru it and got out about 6 hens. I said there are more birds so we went back. Made it about half way and more hens came out. I backtracked about 20 yards and stomped around back and fourth. Finally 1 of the biggest roosters I have ever seen flushed and we bagged him. Never saw the other rooster and still kicked out more hens. The farmer's eyes lit up when I brought him that big beautiful bird.

Guess I am saying ,sometimes they sit tight!
 
I don't know what to tell you... I just returned from 3 days in South Dakota all on public land and had a very memorable trip. Sure there were more hens than roosters, but not anything out of ordinary. A lot of it I think is just right place at right time.
 
jonnyB said:
The only explanation is...this farm has been overly hunted and there's nothing left!
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Certainly possible. Considering that its near the end of the season and the only ones that can be harvested are roosters, the chances of seeing as many roosters as hens not as good as might have been earlier this season.

As @Weimdogman already stated, the roosters could have held tight or ran off unseen too.

The good news is that if all or most of those hens survive and there's decent nesting conditions in the spring, there will be good reproduction.
 
My experience in Iowa anyway is when the temps are in the 40's and 50's the well educated roosters run like the wind. I would rather have cold temps at least for hunting pheasants.
 
In watching the video that Golden Hour posted a few days ago you see a segment that his lab points a small clump of cattails
His lab flushes a hen that was sitting very tight. As the hen flushes and the lab reacts to the hen the dog literally steps on a big rooster that was buried even deeper in the clump. I appears when watching it in slow mo that rooster was going to sit tight even with the dog flushing the hen only feet away until the dog steps on him. That is a great example how tight they can and will sit.
 
I read something somewhere that said if there was a large population of birds with an equal amount of hens/roosters at say 100 each for easy math, that if 97 of those roosters did not make it that year and the nesting/winter was favorable you would not notice a difference in population the following year. This means 3 roosters would breed enough of the hens to have the broods produce enough roosters for the following year.
 
brown dog said:
I read something somewhere that said if there was a large population of birds with an equal amount of hens/roosters at say 100 each for easy math, that if 97 of those roosters did not make it that year and the nesting/winter was favorable you would not notice a difference in population the following year. This means 3 roosters would breed enough of the hens to have the broods produce enough roosters for the following year.
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I've read a few times that you need roughly 10% of the rooster population to make it to spring and they can breed every hen there is to get the pheasant population back to what that area can sustain. In fact, some studies say you really don't want more than 10% of the roosters to survive. More than that and the roosters may push the hens out of prime winter cover, feed, etc.
 
In my opinion, and making the safe assumption that the 100+ hens you saw are wild birds....there are a few roosters around somewhere.
They probably just weren't hanging out where you were hunting, knowing it's not a safe place for roosters.
Common late season occurrence, especially during nice weather when hens & roosters aren't forced to occupy only the absolute best cover together.

I've heard people say they're reluctant to shoot that lone rooster they see among 100 hens, thinking that if they do, they'll be shooting the only rooster left in the area. No. If we're talking about wild birds, there are roosters are around somewhere. That 1 horny, dumb one just screwed up. Shoot him.
 
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jackrabbit said:
I've read a few times that you need roughly 10% of the rooster population to make it to spring and they can breed every hen there is to get the pheasant population back to what that area can sustain. In fact, some studies say you really don't want more than 10% of the roosters to survive. More than that and the roosters may push the hens out of prime winter cover, feed, etc.
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Roosters will certainly push hens out if there's not enough cover to go around. I think times have to be pretty tough for it to happen though.
I've heard/read all sorts of opinions on optimum hen to rooster ratios come spring, most commonly between 4 & 10. So when the topic comes up, I split the difference & say 7 is best.
 
40s & 50s for temps, I would say is not ideal for harvesting roosters, it might be ideal for you to be hunting roosters. Cold and some snow on the ground seems to provide more birds that sit tight. Balmy conditions it seems we few few birds sit to be pointed by the dogs. It seemed to be even more like this this past season than normal....lots of nice weather, tons of wild flushes.

Only need a few roosters to sustain a population similar to the prior season numbers, if things go well...that is not neccessarily what the habitat can sustain, in 2016 we put a quarter in CRP and every year have an increasing number of birds, not at the max number yet it seems! We maybe shot 20-30% of the roosters, the majority were "long spurs", not this season's hatch. Look forward to more long spurs next year. Mild winter so far with very little snow cover...so far.
 
It's likely that there were roosters, you just didn't find them. Hens don't have to have a strong hunter survival mechanism. Late in the season they are often not anywhere near roosters. I haven't hunted SD in the last 2 years, but down in Kansas in December we would find groups of hens with no roosters, then, and quite often stumble upon a large flock of roosters hanging out in heavy cover, if we spent the time to sort through where they were at. If you just "hunted" a field you would swear there wasn't a rooster in it.
 
I had the opposite experience on Sunday. We were hunting some private ground and virtually every bird we saw was a rooster. We ended up killing 7. We only confirmed 2 hens, but there were a handful of flushes that were far enough away that we couldn't tell. It was actually a little concerning.
 
matto said:
I had the opposite experience on Sunday. We were hunting some private ground and virtually every bird we saw was a rooster. We ended up killing 7. We only confirmed 2 hens, but there were a handful of flushes that were far enough away that we couldn't tell. It was actually a little concerning.
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Private place with all roos?? Sounds like your hunting a preserve, that's what I'd be concerned about. Got a closeup picture of the beaks?
 
One of the spots we hunted Monday was 4 roosters and didn’t see hens until we got right up next to the truck. The other spot that produced had about 30 birds in it . Was all hens until the roosters ran out of running room then mostly roosters actually ended up pretty close to 50/50
 
I just have terrible hunting in in warm, calm weather. I don’t know where they go. The colder the better, along with some wind seems to be best. It’s almost like if I don’t suffer, the birds don’t suffer.
 
In chasing roosters for over 50 years, I can tell you roosters are around. Most likely in lighter cover where they are more mobile. Their survival instincts are more cunning than the hens. You will not shoot all of them, no matter the pressure. Push them into cover they feel secure in
 
Roosters and hens often segregate by gender during the late season, so you have to keep after it. The "next spot", or the end of the field, or... will have a couple roosters. Go out to these same spots in the spring breeding season in the early AM, and you'll hear roosters crowing all over the place. I guarantee it. I'm a rural resident that hunts nearly every day of the season on public access lands.
 
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