Lousy Monday hunt

ditchparrot19 said:
Just to be clear, that mosquito thing is limited to the state-run WAs. The federal refuges (Sacramento, Delevan, etc.) have no such issue to deal with.
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Makes sense although I know Andy would love to be there when the local district submits the bill to the feds and they blow their nose on it.
State vs. Fed. areas is really East vs. West of the river. All the state stuff is on the East side in an almost continuous band along Butte Creek. According to Andy, the mosquito abatement district has sued Gray Lodge to prevent spring flood up for retuning migratory birds. All the state's area's poor production has a region wide effect East of the river.
I don't know why Sacramento and Delevan do so poorly if it isn't subject to abatement district's water and vector controls. They don't cut anything on those areas and haven't for decades. It's got to be that they keep them dry in the spring.
 
calamari said:
I don't know why Sacramento and Delevan do so poorly if it isn't subject to abatement district's water and vector controls. They don't cut anything on those areas and haven't for decades. It's got to be that they keep them dry in the spring.
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I don't think a simple lack of water is the issue. It's not flooded ground that most benefits pheasants, but rather damp. A state of continuous dampness throughout the spring and earlier summer is difficult (and in many years, impossible) to achieve without a concentrated effort involving both manpower and water.

Both the feds and the state have made it pretty clear that that type of effort isn't going to happen.
 
I've been reading a lot lately that what has happened to pheasants and to quail (the bobwhite quail, some believe, is on its way to extinction) will soon happen to ducks -- that their numbers are about to completely plummet as the prairies get torn up and put into production. Might not see the impact this year or next -- but it's coming.

That's going to wake a lot of people up -- beyond pheasant hunters.
 
calamari said:
It was my understanding that Andy was continuing with Ed's program now that he's no longer being paid. Not true?
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Yeah, there was at least a token effort made, so I can't say it was zero. They had a total of five brood strips divided up between two fields.

Ed said Atkinson admitted to him, though, that the scale of the project was much too small to have any significant impact.

Ed went out there on opening morning and said his dogs jumped nine birds -- all hens. A guy who was hunting with him did bag two roosters, so that guy alone accounted for 6 percent of the birds harvested on Gray Lodge that day.
 
Speaking of Ed, that old man (I believe he's 77 now) is planning to take the 5-mile (one-way) hike out to the Bronner's area at Howard Slough on Saturday. He thinks it'll primarily be a turkey hunt, but he's going nonetheless.

I hope he at least gets a shot at one rooster -- something he's been unable to manage in California this year. Hard to feel too bad for him, though, as he and his son Dave combined to whack 41 of them during a week in Montana last month. They also shot a bunch of whitefronts in Saskatchewan the next week and each bagged a big whitetail buck when they got back to Montana.

Ed was gone from California for 23 days. He said that's too much at his age.
 
We went out to Los Banos today. Hardly anybody still trying to pheasant hunt it looks like and we had the most prime parking lot to ourselves. 5 hrs and lots of miles produced 4 hens 1 rooster (which my uncle had a great shot at but missed) and 2 big coveys of quail all with our best dog at home on the couch still healing. The youngster is coming along fine though and momma dog is just a joy anytime. Enough birds are left out there to keep me interested, can't wait for a full week chasing roosters in an area I've never hunted for thanksgiving.:cheers:
 
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