Opening weekend and Monday, Shocked!!! Kimball, Chamberlain, Platte area.

Drake1 said:
Keep in mind if you are north of I90 in the area you mentioned, that prime week of hatch some places had north of 9 inches of rain. I am south of I90 and rain totals were not as bad, and I expect to see 250 to 300+ per day. If we get weather and they group up, I will see more.
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Oh wow I wasn’t aware of that. And we weren’t told that by this outfitter we hunted with. I was sure asking our guide why he thought the bird numbers were down so much.
 
kansaslabman said:
Oh wow I wasn’t aware of that. And we weren’t told that by this outfitter we hunted with. I was sure asking our guide why he thought the bird numbers were down so much.
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Keep in mind it was not in all areas but I do know around Pukwana and north of kimball they definitely got hit with the heavier rains. I will be out here bring in a few weeks and will report back. I was out in early fall and I do know there are more birds in my area than last year. I kind of do my own fall survey route
 
Drake1 said:
Keep in mind if you are north of I90 in the area you mentioned, that prime week of hatch some places had north of 9 inches of rain. I am south of I90 and rain totals were not as bad, and I expect to see 250 to 300+ per day. If we get weather and they group up, I will see more.
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I’m really glad to hear that! In Kansas our best days in the last 25 years or so would be about 300 birds at most.
South Dakota west of Chamberlain across the river we’d get into 200-300 a day on bad years and 1000+ in good years.
After our South Dakota trip I was afraid there aren’t numbers like you’re mentioning anywhere in the State.
 
Day county, driving to spot saw pheasants coming out of the cattails on top of each other. Dirty ditches next to private. We jumped in and birds were flushing like crazy on both sides. I couldn't believe how many we saw in this county where pheasant are an endangered species. Mid day gave dogs a rest. Told my buddy, drop me off at this weedy fence line on a walk in, doubt anyone has tried it. Made it 50 yards a rooster jumped, got him. No dog. 10 minutes later I missed a big rooster. Hit a spot at golden hour with dog power, turned into pure bedlam. Dogs flushing birds, roosters flying in from corn landing in front of us at the same time. Never seen anything like it. I'd love to see 1,000 birds flush blackening the sky, deafening like a freight train. In the meantime, it's been a great trip to SD. Personally I like hitting these areas that aren't as publicized or popular. No pen raised birds, no manicured fields, just hard earned wild birds. I think SD is good every year. And let's say it isn't, what state is better? Iowa was a couple times over the years, but with ethanol those days are over. Either way you just go hunting or you don't. Personally I would never decide not to go hunting based on bird reports. I'm going either way.
 
I find it interesting that pheasants in the Dakotas are more prone to be in the open vs. Minnesota. Maybe it is the Dakotas just have more gravel roads. Amazing how many paved county roads there are in Minnesota. Seems like in the Dakotas the birds also often fly from corn field to grass in the evening whereas the birds in MN stay prefer to stay on the ground.

I am not so sure it is just a total numbers thing either.

I notice the same thing in Kansas years ago with wild turkeys. Kansas turkeys had no issue hanging out in the open.
 
Yesterday I had my farmer friend with his brother and nephew out walking some private ground that always holds plenty of birds. My friend thinks we always have to have a blocker so he takes the nephew and hightails it around the crp. The brother and I are in small patch of crp with my 3 weims pushing birds towards the bigger crp. Birds are flushing everywhere and flying to the hillside crp. I did shoot 1 where we were.

So we get into the crp and again birds are flushing everywhere. The blockers are banging away on the other side of hill. They never touched a feather. We get to them and hunt a little ways and my friend drops a bird.

Now we are done and standing in a group when the brother says I can't believe it we saw 200 birds land in there. I was seeing what he saw only having witnessed this many times I knew we really saw 40!
 
I have never seen a flush that blackened the the sky but 300 birds in 10 rows of a snowed in cornfield is something I will never forget.


Another thing I have seen is a path like a deer trail where pheasants were walking between a abandoned farm place and a cattail slough. The path went down the edge of the homeplace along a weedy fenceline that separated 2 cornfield and continued to the cattails.
 
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