Lots of hens - no roosters

jonnyB said:
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.
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I don't ever talk about that with a farmer. He might decide to stop allowing hunting.
 
PheasantSlough said:
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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We covered some of the same fields twice...and approached them in a different way - still lots of hens. I don't have the luxury of visiting this farm during breeding season; I'm sure it would be different...
 
jonnyB said:
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.
Click to expand...
Not the only explanation. My guess is you ran out all the cocks because you made a little noise and they have been hunted enough to know what's up.

We find later in the year that we see far more hens than cocks, but in places where we put blockers they will see the cocks run out of the cover before the hunters/dogs get there. Just had this happen last time out. Put 50 birds in the air at one place. Probably 48 hens and 2 cocks. Blockers saw at least 50 other birds and petty sure that 48 or more were cocks.
 
Sdbowhunter said:
Seems like roosters like to hang together in the winter like mentioned above. I see as many or more roosters on my land
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They certainly do, at various times. Many times I've seen "large" groups of pheasants (say 20-40), nearly all roosters. Years ago, my wife & I lived in an apartment just outside of Brookings, SD that had a corn field right next to it. The day after they picked corn, I looked out the window & saw a couple roosters on the edge of a shelterbelt. I kept watching, & after a few minutes there were 28 roosters standing/walking along the edge of that shelterbelt. No hens. My landlord owned it, so needless to say, the next day I asked if I could hunt the grassy draws that also ran through the picked field. He said "Sure" & I had a couple good hunts before they got wise to me. Those easy hunts were a godsend back then, since I didn't have a dog.
 
Years ago while driving in from hunting I saw a bunch of roosters fly into a abandoned farm. I got permission to hunt there it was 1 mile north of Brookings. Next day I got out of school ran home and grabbed a gun. Had only about a 1/2 hour before dark. First time I went in there I swear I got 300 roosters out of a 6 acre patch. I shot 2 and just stood there in awe. I hunted it every few days for a couple weeks and always at least saw birds.
That first time I don't think there were 20 hens in the bunch.
 
You were probably on the Sundahl place. I was almost due west of there but but 1977,78.

Marlin Hill owned the first farm north of the watertreatment plant east side of the road. My buddy did some farm work for him. Marlin let us hunt jackrabbit but not pheasants because he said there aren't any. It is late December we had a early blizzard which prevented Marlin from finishing corn harvest. Probably 20 row strip almost a 1/2 mile long. Well we got a quarter of the way thru and there were so many pheasants sneaking away ahead of us it looked like a army of dark ants. You couldn't see the snow. That is as close I ever came to experienceing the scenes described to me by others of 1950 pheasant hunting. And as I said we were rabbit hunting with 22s.
 
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