Percentage of unrecoverd birds?

H

Hub

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So on average how what percentage of the pheasants you knock down do you think you lose? I'm just guessing, but I bet I lose 1 in 15 or so. When I hunted strictly in Minnesota I seemed to lose fewer birds. It always stings to lose a cripple, but it seems every year my dogs come across a couple non-flyers from other folks so I guess things even out a bit.
 
I might lose one in a dozen or so--but should say that with a few caveats. Most of those birds are lost when they run onto posted land after I didn't bring them down hard enough in the first place. And most of them in places where there is a lot of bird scent.

I will say we also occasionally can't find a bird and then go back later to the same spot and find it. Usually those are birds that are close to where they dropped from what I can tell. Some I'm sure where dead in the air or shortly after hitting the ground. Almost always birds that folded up hard, and almost always in cattails, switchgrass, or some other dense cover. My dogs are pretty good at finding down birds and they won't quit if they saw one go down. I've always just chalked those up to the old "airwashing" phenomenon, which I believe to be true, as I've found birds that good dogs go right past without detecting on occasion.

Of course, I have no idea how many I actually hit but didn't know it. I've seen that on preserves a number of times so it makes me wonder how many times it happens with the more tenacious wild birds.
 
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I can say I am very lucky, Tony has been trained to release with the flush. So when a bird hits the ground he is really not too far away. In 2 season's of hunting. We(Tony and I) have only lost one bird. I have a buddy U hunt with his Brittany is trained for field trials and I have seen him lose 2 birds in one day. The biggest factor was the dry early season conditions. By the time Tony got there the other dog and hunter had things pretty trampled up.---Bob
 
If we count each bird that is significantly wounded I would say that about 15% are lost or don't get into the bag. Not all hunters will make the same effort to find lost birds. Some will look a long time for a downed bird while others are more impatiant and will move on. More importantly is the attitude of a large group when it comes time to stop the line to find a bird. Some groups will simply keep moving while others will stop and give the lookers the time they need. Even those with dogs sometimes don't give their dog enough time to find the bird, especially when hunting with an impatient line. Sometimes the hardest bird to find is the one that glides a long ways before hitting the ground. If at least one person in the group gets it marked then there is a chance it could be found, otherwise the odds go down quickly.

I might add that we often see a leg drop on a bird after being shot at but it keeps flying away. We can probably guess that the bird is wounded enough that it will not survive long afterwards. Sometimes a hunter may find a bird wounded like that if it can be determined percisely where it landed and if the hunter makes an effort to find the bird. Sometimes the dog will make the find in such a situation if directed to the spot.

I once heard a Wildlife Biologist mention that they thought about 15% of birds mortally wounded are not bagged. We can suppose that those with dogs will have a lower percentage lost and also hunters that hunt in small groups. I would guess that larger groups, those without dogs and road hunters will lose more than the 15%, on average.

LM
 
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I have had the good fortune to hunt over some wonderful labs over the last several years. Looking back over the last 7 years, my hunting journal recorded under 10% lost birds. If you factor in cripples my dogs picked up, we are ahead of the game.

There was one lost bird the really bugged me. He flushed close in neck-high CRP. I shot him dead out of the air but neither my dog nor me could find him.


Lefty
 
Our group hung a leg on a rooster in a large ravine a few years ago. My brother saw right where he landed. Hunted over to the spot and then we hunted and tramped in the cover. My lab kept going over to the same spot by a small area of water. We kept tramping and looking and then next thing I know my lab sticks his head completely under the water and comes out with the old rooster with one broken leg. That bird had submerged himself in the water. Most amazing retrieve I ever witnessed behind that old pup! I gave him a little extra food that night!!
 
landman said:
I once heard a Wildlife Biologist mention that they thought about 15% of birds mortally wounded are not bagged. We can suppose that those with dogs will have a lower percentage lost and also hunters that hunt in small groups. I would guess that larger groups, those without dogs and road hunters will lose more than the 15%, on average.

LM
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I would hedge to say that some groups including my own experiences could push that number to as high as 25% and we look for birds.

Take into consideration winged birds downed in heavy cover with a lot of other scent around makes for tough retrieval conditions.
 
Another factor that can result in higher "lost birds" are those hunters who take a lot of low percentage shots. We've all hunted with the guy who goes through a box of shells shooting at every bird that gets up and at the end of the day only has a bird or two to show for it. I sometimes feel that hunters like that wound ten birds for every one that finds its way into the bag. My usual reaction is to include them on the no-invite list.

LM
 
I'm with uguide

I hunt a lot of public land in SoDak. You have to use non-toxic shot. I can say this, I believe steel is even less effective on Pheasants than it is on waterfowl. I have hammered birds 15-20 yrds out and crushed them..to only have them fall into cover and their gone or you see them running 50mph..then their gone.

Last year, I even went to 3.5" #2s at 1625fps because I was tired of wounded birds...STEEL SUCKS! The penetration on their hard armed bone back is near zero with steel. When cleaning the birds killed by steel. You could see big bruises where the BB's had hit but didn't penetrate.
 
onpoint said:
I'm with uguide

I hunt a lot of public land in SoDak. You have to use non-toxic shot. I can say this, I believe steel is even less effective on Pheasants than it is on waterfowl. I have hammered birds 15-20 yrds out and crushed them..to only have them fall into cover and their gone or you see them running 50mph..then their gone.

Last year, I even went to 3.5" #2s at 1625fps because I was tired of wounded birds...STEEL SUCKS! The penetration on their hard armed bone back is near zero with steel. When cleaning the birds killed by steel. You could see big bruises where the BB's had hit but didn't penetrate.
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Try Hevi-shot...it leaves lead in the dust. I once hunted with Hevi-shot in early December with my 20 gauge...dropped 20 roosters that trip, found 19 of them. I have never had a retrieval rate that high, even shooting fairly hot lead loads with my 12 gauge. Hevi-shot is very expensive, but so is the whole act of going hunting.
 
I lost my first two birds ever this season. That's not as impressive as it sounds - I've only been hunting pheasant 4 seasons, and my all time harvest is only (1 in 2005, 3 in 2006, 9 in 2007, 3 in 2008). There is always the chance that I have injured birds that did not drop I guess, but the first two that I KNOW that I lost were this year. First one was a stupid mistake on a warm day when I grabbed my vest intead of my usual pheasant coat - there was a #8 shell from woodcock hunting in the pocket and I knocked the rooster into a river with it (no knowing what it was). He sort of swam/flopped to shore and then ran into the alders. I cast Ruby across the river and into the alders but no luck. I then waded across where I could and came back and we looked long and hard for it. Around here, roosters are not that easy to come by, so the the temptation to just leave it and keep going is not as great as it might be in more productive areas. Anyways, the alders had a number of hens in there running around and there was all kinds of scent, so after nearly an hour of scratching our eyes out in there we lost it. The second one was on the last day of the season and it was the biggest rooster I've every seen. I don't know what happened. He went up vertically about 10 yards out and I hit him as he cleared a spruce tree. He fell hard and Ruby was nearly on him when he flew again, too low (relative to the dog) for a second shot. He crossed the road and onto private property. The way it was layed out I had to go back to the car and drive to the farm. They let me go into the orchard withi no gun. We looked for him until dark. Lots of scent, but no bird... The only plus side was that the owners were impressed by my exhaustive efforts to find a lost bird, so they invited me to hunt their orchard anytime after harvest. Silver lining! So I guess that puts me at a loss rate of 3/19 birds hit, or about 16%.
-Croc
 
benelli-banger said:
Try Hevi-shot...it leaves lead in the dust. I once hunted with Hevi-shot in early December with my 20 gauge...dropped 20 roosters that trip, found 19 of them. I have never had a retrieval rate that high, even shooting fairly hot lead loads with my 12 gauge. Hevi-shot is very expensive, but so is the whole act of going hunting.
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I have shot Hevi-shot for geese in my SP10..good stuff but they have lost their minds in the cost of that stuff IMO

Also, I have some guns I will not/can't shoot it in.

I wish I could afford Hevi-shot Classic double loads. I understand they are the ticket.

Chuck
 
the groups that I hunt with we look for the birds I would say we are around 15_20% bird loss. our reasoning is that the birds in Gove county wear kevlar vests LOL, but seriously some times even if we hit the birds hard its like they never existed they are gone
 
yes sir uguide they are a runnin just like forest gump and there hasn't been cold enough temps to hold the scent for the dogs so it is pretty tough
 
Quote UGUIDE
"I've got one word for that "RUNNER!" "

----------------------

I hate runners
 
Chuck, I think we all hate runners they drive our dogs nuts.---Bob
 
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bobeyerite said:
Chuck, I think we all hate runners they dive our dogs nuts.---Bob
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And........they make us look bad too which is why they need to DIE! It's an ugly vicious cycle.

:p

We've found that as a team if the person closest to where the bird goes down can run to that spot as quickly/safely as possible and can stay there and mark it we have a higher retrieval rate and the dogs tend to run where that person is too and they get on fresh scent much sooner. Major problem is when they was just 10 birds that got up out of that spot or have been runing all over that grass area it is pretty tough for dog to detect the winged bird scent and he just slips out in middle of confusion and chaos.
 
UGUIDE said:
And........they make us look bad too which is why they need to DIE! It's an ugly vicious cycle.

:p

.
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:cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers:
 
We rarely loose a bird when hunting in WI but when hunting the Dakotas, I'd guess a 15% loss rate's about right. I think the abundance of bird scent tends to confuse the dogs when tracking runners out there.
 
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