Non-Resident Pheasant Opener Reports

UGUIDE said:
Here's a photo just in from our Boar's Nest Camp Opening Group. I also just got off phone with opening group at my place and I was amazed to learn that they saw several hundred pheasants with majority being roosters. The brood mortality might have been lower than previously thought.

Pheasanthunt2012007BoarsNest.jpg
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Awesome picture. Your post reminded me that bout 80% of the birds we saw were roosters.

Any ideas anyone?
 
All in Fun

Nice Pic, BUT......The picture appears to be a little short of a limit with that many shooters?? What happened??? LOL
 
Report in from Cattail Haven today and the group called me looking for another day of hunting on private land of which I had none. Group of 4 got a bird or two shy of a limit the for two days and then they inserted a public land day in middle of their trip which was today. They sad the public land was and looked TERRIBLE this year. I was not surprised. They go back to their last day at Cattail tomorrow.
 
Found birds around Pierre. Most were stacked in the shelter belts and already skittish and with the pressure you had one shot and the rest was gone (50-100 birds per belt though). The GPA's were most productive but also the hardest hit and even half of those are mowed. I didnt think the state could mow a GPA, kinda makes it not a GPA anymore,no? In earlier posts I seen the WIA was dismal and it was, about 70% was either disced or ankle high the other 30% was solid huntable corn or sunflowers. So bird numbers were good and pressure was hard as expected had alot of fun and my best 'eye was 22" and I think i caught more walleye than shot roosters. Pics coming after elk hunting. Oh yeah, only a few ditches are unmowed, most are mowed. I seen it. As always overall :10sign:

Maybe for a different thread. But if SD gets a semi hard winter say bye bye to the birds for next year. 2 feet of snow and they are done. Every where but shelter belts will be flat, thickest cover we found was no more than knee high. Chris from Uguide, you seem to have great knowledge on things like that. What do you think from the cover you see now, will they make a hard winter?
 
PBuster said:
if SD gets a semi hard winter say bye bye to the birds for next year. 2 feet of snow and they are done. Every where but shelter belts will be flat, thickest cover we found was no more than knee high. Chris from Uguide, you seem to have great knowledge on things like that. What do you think from the cover you see now, will they make a hard winter?
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PBuster, nice report. I would say yes an no. 2 years ago I had 7' CRP and it got smashed by heavy snow and was useless as well as fields covered with 1' snow. Only place that wintered bird was shelterbelts. No food and no thermal cover. Harsh.

My CRP is 2-3' tall this year so it all depends on type of snow falls you get. A lot of variables can be played out throughout the winter. Going in though you are right in that there is not a lot of cover right now.
 
In my neck of the woods crp won't save birds from a harsh winter. They need cattails or shelterbelts. Grass just gets laid flat.
 
Large areas of cattails or even large sections of grasses are fine. The bird photos (in the link below) are from wild birds we found in cattails after blizzard conditions in 2010. The problem was the section of cattail were not large enough to protect these birds from the harsh winds and blowing snow.

This will be an issue for birds this year in SD if the SD winter is a nasty one like years past. If it's another winter like last year we'll be sailing high into the nesting season for 2013.

Sorry about the video link. It's gone for good. I have to re-post my video in something other than youtube in the near future.;)

"Red-Ice" winter kill http://www.ultimatepheasanthunting.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6594
 
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