Northeast of Manhattan
On Friday I hunted the public area of Jeffrey Energy Center and Walk-in area #2, which are Northeast of Manhattan. The cover at JEC looks absolutely perfect, like it was managed for pheasants and quail. One problem... I flushed four mallards off a creek and about a thousand song birds. It was a great day to be out wandering around, but disappointing that we didn't at least see some roosters or quail. The wind was howling and I wonder if that didn't hurt our chances.
#2 looked "quaily", but our hunt there was pretty half-hearted, since we had pounded Jeffrey pretty hard. I doubt I'll go back there, the cover looked pretty average.
I would guess I'll probably go back to Jeffrey after some snow flies and see if that doesn't help pin some birds down in the thicker stuff.
If you decide to go, the road that runs up the East side of Jeffrey is minimum maintenance, and IMO impassible when wet. Same story for the road that divides WIHA #2, and turns North along the East side towards #1. I was wise enough to avoid trying both, but I saw somebody's tracks where they slid off the road and looked like they probably had some "fun" digging out their truck.