Opening weekend report

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duckn66

Well-known member
My daughter got a very good education today on habitat = birds. We hunted the same spot we hunted last year. This spot is not very big but it has water, tall grass and feed on 3 sides. Last year in about a 40 acre area we flushed probably 40-50 pheasants and a really nice covey of quail. Had a limit of phez by 8.

Fast forward to this year. Over half was hayed. This area of the state was dry this year too. We saw one small covey of quail that I didn't even shoot in to. We saw 6 roosters that were all older birds and 1 hen. 1 hen was disturbing to see. We killed 1 rooster today and I felt bad about killing it.

Lesson learned first hand for her. We never go west for opening weekend due to the crowds. Always stick closer to home. I don't think I'll hunt this spot or area again this year. I talked to the farmer that owns a lot of land around there and he said the birds have been basically gone from that area for 20 years. Sad state of affairs around there.

Was still nice to get out and watch the labs put some birds in the air. I hope you all had an enjoyable opening weekend with friends and family no matter if you shot birds or not.
 
Good to here you ans your daughter got out , hopefully habitat conditions are better next year . Was there buy chance a few wheat feild in your area last year ?

We hunt the Northeast part of the state close to home and we manage the habitat as best we can . Our area used to have decent amount of wheat , Milo unhayed waterways with weeds in them and the hunting was good, 70 and into the 80's

Our managed ground is one of the few spots I see pheassnts in the northeast other than a few CRP patches that are still left .

We managed to move 6 coveys and harvest two birds per covey .
 
I think the drizzle yesterday had the birds messed up. We hunted a spot where we counted 20 just a week earlier, and another spot were we cruised by and saw four roosters hanging out. Nary a bird to be found. We hunted a couple sweet looking draws with food very close and didn't find anything. We managed to bag 2 roosters and a quail. But as we were waiting for it to be light enough to see what we were hunting, we heard a rooster cackle, but never saw him.

Today, saw a bunch of birds, with four of us shooting three roosters and five quail. I'm ready for some colder weather and maybe these birds won't be wearing track shoes.
 
Hunted SW/SC this weekend. Found birds pretty much everywhere we went. I killed 4 yesterday. My son missed a couple of good opportunities today and yesterday so maybe next time. They were very spooky. Way more than I remember it being opening weekend. Half of our birds were this years hatch.

I remember saying this years ago.... we drove by so many WIHA that were nothing and that has not changed. Not huntable in any shape or form. I guess one could sit with a high powered rifle and deer hunt it. Or maybe it was a good dove field two months ago? Is someone getting a check for that? I remember talking to a biologist up there years ago and he made it sound like the conditions regarding WIHA habitat were fairly strict. Many i saw this weekend were worthless. I’m talking half sections and sections. With that being said, we did find birds in nearly all we hunted.

There are enough out there to keep it interesting and i would say it’s one good hatch away from being pretty good. It is nowhere near what it was from say 2004 to 2010. Not even close. We did have a good time and did not see too many other hunters where we were. Saw more people as we moved east.
 
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2003-2007 was the bees knees. Since the droughts, I often wonder if the effort is worth it. Granted, the last few years have been better, but you just aren't seeing the birds bounce back like they should. I'm no expert, but we've had really favorable weather the past 3 or so years. The missing piece is habitat... it continues to decline. I'm heading out next weekend, and over Thanksgiving. I'll try to post an update.
 
I agree with Jake. For the area we hunt numbers are down. 7 of us got 9 on Saturday. Should have been 11. We hunt hard and I like to think know what we are doing. The years if limits by noon for the group are definitely in the rear view mirror at the moment.

Did get my 7 month old pup out on birds for the first time. The light switch to the bulb in his head got turned on as we got him stopped next to my old dog that was on point. Wind in his face. Stone cold still until the hen flushed. From then on you could tell he wasn't just out there running around. A couple more hen points and a solid point on a covey of quail. Plus a couple retrieves. He is going to be fun.
 
Pretty disappointing in Central Kansas. Instead of being the same or better, it was worse than last year. Going to have to relocate for next year's opener.
 
Cover was thin enough in central Kansas that if we have a bad winter the birds are in real trouble. Every bird we got was an older bird, no young ones at all.
 
My son and I and our 11 year old GSP hunted Smith County. We saw more hunters than we had seen in the last 10 years on Saturday, by Sunday morning, most were gone. Quail numbers were about as good as last year, but pheasant numbers were way down. There was still a lot of standing crop in and around the areas we hunted, so that could have played some part in it, but we only put up 2 roosters and 1 hen and we hunted private property.

Rut
 
I was not impressed with the overall habitat conditions. Lots of bare ground and I’m not just talking WIHA.
 
My opening weekend was an enormous disappointment. I don’t ever really base what I think bird numbers are on my own experience, much less on 2 days of hunting, but our opener in Northwest on private ground was abysmal. Did a little better in north central on public ground on Sunday.

Made me happy I have to have dogs that hunt ducks, too, because I think this is probably the new normal for pheasant hunting.
 
Hunted SW on opener and found 10 pheasants and 5 quail with 9 hunters and no dogs. Like cheesy, we hunt HARD. We started out pretty good in some excellent grass bordered by feed, but the day was SLOW from then on. I believe the weather was a factor (weird with the mist) but I wouldn't say with any certainty that there were more birds than last year.
 
I will say that my father in law hunted south central around a town on hwy 400 and he and 3 friends all shot limits of quail on Sunday. Granted, they hunted crp corners of crop circles on private land all day...
 
We found that bird numbers were NWK sporadic (better than Nebraska though). Saturday with the heavy fog and the damp grass the birds held and we manage to kill a few. We tried a few places south towards I-70 after we dried out and found a few hens and one rooster. A couple of fields we walked looked as if they had been flooded out during the spring or summer. Lots of flotsam and debris out from the ditches. There was still quite a bit of standing crops around. We covered roughly 15 miles and saw few birds late in the day. We could hear cackling from standing corn during one walk. I think they are still using it as cover during the day and as soon as it's out they'll be back going between CRP and feed.
Sunday started out sunny with a hard frost on the ground. First walk turned up eight birds spaced out over a 4 mile walk. Manged to kill 2. The others either jumped out of range or flew to low over the CRP for a shot. Turned up a few more birds in some other WIHA's and dropped another rooster. All told about 12 miles covered and less than 20 birds sighted. Called it a day around one as the dogs were getting tired.

As for hunter numbers Saturday we didn't see anybody until the end of the day and most were cruising the back roads. On Sunday we saw a few more hunters and heard a lot of shooting in various directions, but yet hunted four large WIHA's and were the only guys in or around them.

Overall I saw less birds than last year. I think we'll have a better feel when the weather turns cold and the birds bunch up and the crops are out.
 
We had 15 in our posse of hunters.Saw a good numbers and took 11 rooster's and 8 quail and a deer with a truck. We should have had better results but poor shooting helped the birds. Took Rufus my eight year old Britt and Josie my 6 month old Lab. Josie knocked it out of the park for her first hunt.

Kickem Up!
 
Hunted close to home in NE KS, over about 4 hrs I saw 3 covies if quail, 1 rooster, and 1 hen. It was about what I expected for where I was hunting. People came out of the woodwork. I wasn't able to hunt any of my honey holes as there was a truck everywhere I went. I was complaining about it and my wife reminded me it's a good thing for our sport. I know she's right but...enough said. I haven't fought opening day crowds in years around here. I wish there were more birds for them but in the NE part of the state it's been tough for a long time. Lots of milo still standing so when it comes out I'm sure it will be better. My 3 year old Irish setter house dog was great. Overall not bad for the opener. I'll be back out Friday and hopefully I'll see a few more roosters. If not I'll forget the big birds and be happy we have a good number of quail around.
 
onealmck said:
Hunted close to home in NE KS, over about 4 hrs I saw 3 covies if quail, 1 rooster, and 1 hen. It was about what I expected for where I was hunting. People came out of the woodwork. I wasn't able to hunt any of my honey holes as there was a truck everywhere I went. I was complaining about it and my wife reminded me it's a good thing for our sport. I know she's right but...enough said. I haven't fought opening day crowds in years around here. I wish there were more birds for them but in the NE part of the state it's been tough for a long time. Lots of milo still standing so when it comes out I'm sure it will be better. My 3 year old Irish setter house dog was great. Overall not bad for the opener. I'll be back out Friday and hopefully I'll see a few more roosters. If not I'll forget the big birds and be happy we have a good number of quail around.
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Our group hunted NW KS. We ended our weekend with 45 roosters and 3quail. Saw a bunch of hens. Overall much better than expected. Cover was better than average. Mostly young birds. With the good cover and number of hens, fingers crossed, good hope for next year. Hunted a lot of wheat stubble with the weather conditions. Birds held tight.
 
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