Not a complete bust but......

D

duckn66

Well-known member
Hunted about 4 hours today and walked about 6 miles. 2 big covies and 1 small covey moved. Scenting conditions were horrible for the pointers. Obie who has a literal vacuum cleaner nose was struggling. Birds didn't want to hold well either.

Skipping tomorrow and doing some winter prep around the place and will wait until more condusive conditions come along.

I hope your hunts went well and everyone had a safe, fun day.
 
Thanks for report; great to hear that the quail seem to be doing well. Can't wait until Tuesday when we cross the KS line sometime around 4-5AM! Long drive but well worth it. We will be in the NE part of your wonderful state.
Cheers,
Wolf
 
For the area I generally hunt I thought the number of birds were down considerably from last year. But, again scenting conditions were in my opinion horrible.

Some rain and cooler weather will be the tell all.
 
North Central was very dry and windy

Hunted about 5 hours. Only saw 3 roosters and one hen with no shots. Saw a nice covey of 15-18 quail. Wind was blowing 15-25 mph. Hunting by myself and enjoyed the day but no birds in the bag.
 
4 of us 2 dogs walked butts off all day saw 14 roosters 3 hens. 10 roosters chilling in cooler tonight. I think less birds this year over last where we are. Going to try moving 100 miles south Monday.
 
Hunted by myself. As every one said the scenting conditions were horrible. My pointer struggled with the conditions. He did get a nice point late in the day. My English Cocker did well this morning while it was cooler. No I don't hunt them at the same time. Ended up with three roosters and 2 quail. Saw a fair number of pheasants. Did find 5 coveys of quail. I took 1 out of two coveys. All coveys had 15+ birds.

I will say that given the favorable report given by KDWPT there were hunters out in droves. Talked to several groups at the hotel and reports are pretty slim as far as birds go.
 
I usually don't make the trek out this weekend, as my access to private land is limited, and WIHAs are a complete rat race. I did go to some of my good quail spots in SE KS, they were wheat and beans this year however. I don't see land transition that fast usually, but I've seen plenty of dozers clearing land the past few years. Good times for commodities, bad time for habitat.

And yeah, the heat and wind were horrible. Moisture would be great too.
 
The weather and scenting conditions were very tough today for sure. Unfortunately conditions are supposed to be even worse tomorrow.

We were lucky today. Two of use finished on pheasant early and spent the balance of the day scouting and found a few coveys. Below is a picture of me and 5 of my closest friends.

KS%20Opener%202015%204.jpg
 
6 of us and an 8 and 11 year old ended with 14 and 3. Had a ton of points. Had some poor shooting. Had my 8 year old nephew kill 2 roosters with a single shot .410. Good day.

Where we are id say birds are about same as last year which is far from 5 or 6 years ago. Enough to keep it interesting though.
 
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I did not get out yesterday. But I have seen many an opening day that where like this. Too hot and to dry for good dog work,

but it does turn the pheasants into track starts. Good luck all.....
 
The picture of the boy with the two birds in it is priceless. I will bet he would have been happy carrying those around with him all day
 
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Hunted public ground with a friend and my lab yesterday. 18 pheasants seen. 7 roosters, 3 in gun range. 2 roosters taken, 2 coveys moved - 6 quail taken.
 
Walked 5 miles on Saturday. Three people and the dog. Say 7 roosters, a handful of hens, and two coveys of quail. Took one rooster and a quail. The birds were not holding and were flushing wild out of range. Warm and dry.

We got checked by a Game Warden. Nice gal, she said she was seeing lots of hunters, but few birds.
 
Pretty disappointed in the amount of birds we seen yesterday. Hunted an area that has been pretty good to us over the years and was expecting more birds. I've heard from a few people around the state and from what I'm hearing numbers are up, but a far cry from what they were 10 years ago. However, I think we may be in for one heck of a quail season!
 
From what I am hearing is defintely more birds, but more habitat as well. Lots of ground to cover. Weather will give us a better idea of what is really out there...Hearing great things on the Quail. Great pic's you guy's!!!:thumbsup:
 
Conditions were unfavorable at best. We saw 13 roosters, 5 hens but 30-35 quail. Problem was we only had shots at two of the roosters as they were flushing wild. We called it good at 11:30 a.m. with a rooster and a quail.

This morning wasn't better. Again, the birds were running or flushing out of range until about 9ish. We saw 13 more roosters, 8 hens, and another mess of about 30-35 quail in three coveys. After 9, the birds were holding incredibly tight. We bagged three roosters and two quail after having shots at four of the roosters we saw.

One of the roosters I shot, I have to give an assist to a prairie hawk. My dad and I were blocking a draw while the other four guys walked to us. We had no more set up and heard a rooster squawking. I yelled to my dad to pay attention I could hear the bird cackling. The rest of our group was still over 500 yards away. A couple of minutes later, the bird busted on my side, with a hawk giving chase.

The rooster landed in the milo 60 yards away as the hawk made a swoop down. I took three steps to where the rooster landed and it busted again coming right at me, flying low as the hawk was trying to give chase. One shot later, the bird was in my bag.

Maybe I need to train a falcon to be my bird dog.
 
CharBroiled said:
Conditions were unfavorable at best. We saw 13 roosters, 5 hens but 30-35 quail. Problem was we only had shots at two of the roosters as they were flushing wild. We called it good at 11:30 a.m. with a rooster and a quail.

This morning wasn't better. Again, the birds were running or flushing out of range until about 9ish. We saw 13 more roosters, 8 hens, and another mess of about 30-35 quail in three coveys. After 9, the birds were holding incredibly tight. We bagged three roosters and two quail after having shots at four of the roosters we saw.

One of the roosters I shot, I have to give an assist to a prairie hawk. My dad and I were blocking a draw while the other four guys walked to us. We had no more set up and heard a rooster squawking. I yelled to my dad to pay attention I could hear the bird cackling. The rest of our group was still over 500 yards away. A couple of minutes later, the bird busted on my side, with a hawk giving chase.

The rooster landed in the milo 60 yards away as the hawk made a swoop down. I took three steps to where the rooster landed and it busted again coming right at me, flying low as the hawk was trying to give chase. One shot later, the bird was in my bag.

Maybe I need to train a falcon to be my bird dog.
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Nice story, I bet that hawk was not happy.
 
we hunted all day saturday and till 11.00 today. Had a very large group, to many for my tastes, but thats life. we saw well over 150 birds, with a nice 50 50 hen/rooster, all in grass.Not sure how many we finished up with, but well over 30 roosters. No quail where spotted. first time in 27 years that we didn't have any dogs to hunt with, kind of sad.
if the winter is mild, and a wet summer again, next season should be great.
 
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