Opening Pheasant next week!

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Beniciahd

New member
So I put in for 4 areas for Saturday and Sunday and I scored only one place on Sunday. Looks like Sunday will be Grizzly Island. My partner saw a birds in September. Anyone have any luck with the lottery or are you going elsewhere?
 
If you didn't draw anything Saturday you can always hit Mendota, they never reach their quota and I can give you some tips for out there if you'd like. Last year I hunted mendota saturday and drew Yolo for sunday, showed up around 7:30 and didn't even need a reservation.
 
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Good luck and have fun everyone. I'll be way up north for the opener but back in the Valley for the first wednesday hunt if anyone would like to meet up at Salt Slough.:cheers:
 
Quail Hound, that would be great! Any information you have is really appreciated.
Calamari, thanks for the insight. I knew the non toxic rule, I just haven't patterned for it.
 
Beniciahd said:
Quail Hound, that would be great! Any information you have is really appreciated.
Calamari, thanks for the insight. I knew the non toxic rule, I just haven't patterned for it.
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When I get home from work I'll send you a pm with an area map If I can find one in my truck.
 
Good luck, guys. I'll be hunting Willows Pheasant Association ground opening weekend and then move onto the wildlife refuges for a Monday hunt and for the remainder of the season once the opening weekend madness is over.

It really struck me last year -- and I don't know if any of you experienced this or even care -- but I really felt something like a fish out of water as an upland bird hunter last year. Just didn't see hardly any wild pheasant hunters on the refuges last season and felt a little self-conscious in my blaze orange gear.

Opening day of pheasant season used to have a celebratory, festive feel to it. Anybody remember the groups of pheasant hunters camped out at Gray Lodge for the opening week -- huge campsites, hunters of all ages, kids tossing footballs in the parking lot, guys who fixed big meals, even set up bars?

The pheasant hunting tradition and culture is pretty much gone in California -- unless you're on a gamebird club. Made me a little sad last year, I admit.
 
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Sporting Days said:
Good luck, guys. I'll be hunting Willows Pheasant Association ground opening weekend and then move onto the wildlife refuges for a Monday hunt and for the remainder of the season once the opening weekend madness is over.

It really struck me last year -- and I don't know if any of you experienced this or even care -- but I really felt something like a fish out of water as an upland bird hunter last year. Just didn't see hardly any wild pheasant hunters on the refuges last season and felt a little self-conscious in my blaze orange gear.

Opening day of pheasant season used to have a celebratory, festive feel to it. Anybody remember the groups of pheasant hunters camped out at Gray Lodge for the opening week -- huge campsites, hunters of all ages, kids tossing footballs in the parking lot, guys who fixed big meals, even set up bars?

The pheasant hunting tradition and culture is pretty much gone in California -- unless you're on a gamebird club. Made me a little sad last year, I admit.
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Those were the days from the 1990s. At least that was when it was at its peak. I remember there was a group of guys from the Richmond area that would set up a camp and BBQ with everyone trying to find an excuse to go by their camp because it smelled so good. They'd BBQ jackrabbit after opening day and man, it smelled wonderful.
Those days are gone for awhile at least. Low pheasant numbers reduces the desire to camp for 4 days in advance to get a low number for the opener.
 
Sporting Days said:
Good luck, guys. I'll be hunting Willows Pheasant Association ground opening weekend and then move onto the wildlife refuges for a Monday hunt and for the remainder of the season once the opening weekend madness is over.
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Is it worth the $125 fee to just hunt the opener on the Willows area?
 
It is to me -- thousands of additional acres for me and my dog to roam without needing a reservation, calling ahead, waiting in line, etc. They also have some very nice birds. And you do get a little bit of that opening-day/weekend sense of festivity that has disappeared mostly everywhere else in the state.

Willows is open the entire wild pheasant season and I do try to get back up there after the opener -- just doesn't always happen.

A man only gets so many pheasant openers in a lifetime, so I like to have a guaranteed place to go and several options at my disposal.
 
Good luck to everyone and hunt safe, it's what we wait for all year!
 
Sporting Days said:
l A man only gets so many pheasant openers in a lifetime, so I like to have a guaranteed place to go and several options at my disposal.
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That makes perfect sense to me given how slim the pickings are these days. Get the right day and you might have a memorable goose shoot if that's allowed.
 
Sporting Days said:
It is to me -- thousands of additional acres for me and my dog to roam without needing a reservation, calling ahead, waiting in line, etc. They also have some very nice birds. And you do get a little bit of that opening-day/weekend sense of festivity that has disappeared mostly everywhere else in the state.

Willows is open the entire wild pheasant season and I do try to get back up there after the opener -- just doesn't always happen.

A man only gets so many pheasant openers in a lifetime, so I like to have a guaranteed place to go and several options at my disposal.
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I may take an afternoon this week and go out and look at some of the WPA ground. I'll consider ponying up if there's a substantial amount that's not rice -- I detest walking up and down checks.

I can get to the northernmost properties in a little over a half-hour, so it might be a decent option.

I've got 20 to kill at the club out in Corning through a work-trade deal I have with the proprietor, but I like to save those for January and February. I'm hoping I'll be able to put my new Lab pup on a few when that final month rolls around.
 
The reason behind my question about it being worth it isn't all about the money. I spent probably $1,700 and drove 4,000 miles to bring home 8 pheasants so being careful about my money isn't my strong suit. The experience, on the whole, was worth it however. Paying even $125 for nothing but ditch running alongside rice stubble puts me in league with DP19 in that I've done that enough where walking a mile of ditch in the hopes of jumping one bird has lost its appeal. If you have the option of maybe shooting a goose on a high wind or foggy day then that's a different story. Being out in a huge area with no one else in sight pegs my Fun-O-Meter too. There's also the possibility of a free hunt the following year if you shoot one of their banded birds but I assume that's a one day deal though.
I hope it's a great opportunity to hunt pheasants because there won't be squat on the Class A wildlife areas which leaves the few co-ops like this one that are still operating.
By the way, a radio at the end of the ditch playing Rush Limbaugh makes a great blocker to drive toward.:cheers:
 
Calamari (one of my favorite dishes, by the way) -- I assume you spent your money on a wild bird hunt, which is money well spent in my book.

I, too, have traveled to the Dakotas for the wild bird experience and it's worth every penny to experience wild birds numbers in that kind of volume. Wow. Wildlife of every kind that we just can't imagine in California. Never seen so many deer or cottontail rabbits, either, for that matter.

I've even toyed with the idea of buying a little house in one of those small, South/North Dakota farm towns because the real estate is so cheap and I'd have a place to go every year as a resident, get to know the locals, etc. Very tempting and I know other CA upland bird hunters who have done this and love it. They are something like celebrities when they show up each fall.

Willows is still in California -- so there is a lot of clean farming, not a lot of native cover, patches here and there and, of course, they all get hit pretty hard as many of the pheasant hunters are all looking for the same thing. I found my birds in the rice fields last year -- and, of course, got one out of those long, narrow ditches with minimal cover that aren't so fun to hunt. Cover so thin hard to keep up with my Lab and be close enough for a flush. Just the way it is and it can get very, very frustrating.

I just try to make the best of it, mix it up with some wild birds hunts on the refuges, some wild quail hunts, some snipe hunts, some second-season dove hunts. And I belong to a commercial pheasant club, too, to take friends and family and keep the dog busy when wild bird seasons close up.

So, by the end of the hunting season, I hope to have a collection of birds in the freezer and a mix of experiences, memorable flushes, shots, retrieves by my dog, etc.

I will say Willows has a super fun ham dinner on the Saturday night of the opener.
 
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Sporting Days said:
Calamari (one of my favorite dishes, by the way) -- I assume you spent your money on a wild bird hunt, which is money well spent in my book.
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I'd like to say that the money went for a stay at a lodge with all the food and drink and a mini pedi at the end of the day but it didn't. $175+/- for the license ($75 cheaper than my Calif. license and that included 10 days of fishing in MT), another $20 for 9 beers ( 6 of them on one day because I couldn't listen to Rush sober) another $50 dollars for meals and ice and the remainder of the $1,700 went into my trucks gas tank. I'm not complaining about the cost because Morgan and I had fun but as you point out it's all about the quality of the experience. I've had my best times getting places and staying as cheaply as possible.
The ham dinner is almost enough to make me want to join.:):cheers:
 
Nice Calamari. Montana is on my wild bird bucket list as well. And the way the Midwest is losing CRP and being plowed up for ethanol, etc., Montana may end up with some of the best upland bird habitat when it's all said and done.

My one disappointment with South Dakota was all the commercialization of pheasant hunting. Seemed like every farm had a "lodge" and a pheasant-hunting operation, though still plenty of wild birds on the public land.
 
Sporting Days said:
My one disappointment with South Dakota was all the commercialization of pheasant hunting.
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Yep, I've only been there once (3 days in Winner) and that was a serious turn-off for me. So much so that I doubt I'll ever go back unless I'm sure the situation will be far different.

I was basically just there to run dogs for several well-off gents who made their money pitching baseballs in the '80s and early '90s. Everybody had their hand out looking for some of that coin, and they got quite a bit of it.

Also, going into the restaurants in the mornings and seeing all that orange was nausea-inducing.

Nope, I'll stick to northeastern Montana. Not quite as many birds, but in 6 days this year I never encountered another hunter in the field and only a couple in the grocery store. It's been that way on most of my seven trips there.

There's always a few "Welcome Hunters" signs around, but that's about as far as they go in the commercialization department.
 
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