Prairie Pounders

KSBrittman

Active member
I hunted the Kansas opener in the Northeast side of the state with not quite as much bird contact as I had hoped . The second weekend of the season I met up with MI Forester and we ran the Praires of western Neb . These pictures are from pounding the prairies of western Kansas .

How is everybody’s season shaping up so far ?

In our are we hunt I would say Quail population up considerably.Pheasants spotty down quite a bit over last couple years .

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Here is my Britt on point on a covey lucky enough to get a double and after my britt finished picking up one of the Quail she led me on a track on a Rooster pheasant . I sure love the mix bag opportunity.

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How we ended the 1st day
 
Thanks Chestle , I had help my buddy not pictured I droped off 1/2 hour earlier to see if a big whitetail was going to return to his bed in this CRP patch and see if he could arrow him , no luck this time .
 
Skimpy pheasant-wise. Got into more quail opening. Tried north central last weekend and saw three pheasant and one covey. Slim pickings.
 
I had a pretty lackluster day on Sunday. One covey of quail, 4 hens, 1 rooster, 2 undetermined. Only a single quail fell. I hunted by myself for about 5 hours on mostly private.
 
hunted majority of the day sunday on public ground north of salina and saw one covey of quail, no stronger than 5-6 birds. actually was checked by a game warden (first time in my life while upland hunting) who says this used to be good phez country 5-6 years ago but anymore these days its slim pickins...
 
hunted majority of the day sunday on public ground north of salina and saw one covey of quail, no stronger than 5-6 birds. actually was checked by a game warden (first time in my life while upland hunting) who says this used to be good phez country 5-6 years ago but anymore these days its slim pickins...

I was out that way this past weekend and shot 2 and a couple of quail. I hunt that area a lot and will be back out this weekend. The numbers are definitely low and it takes a lot of work to get a limit. I havent seen any game wardens out this year though.
 
Hunted the WIHA areas around Russell, Osborne, Lincoln and Mitchell counties the week of the 18th with little success. Only saw a few birds here and there and when speaking with the few other hunters we encountered, they were seeing similar numbers. Certainly not the numbers that I was expecting for central Kansas. We did manage to find more birds once we headed further west, both pheasants and quail. Good luck to those of you heading out in Kansas later this season.
 
I hunted around Dodge, didn’t see a lot of birds. But found a few. No quail. I’m going again later in December, are the numbers better farther west?
 
I hunted around Dodge, didn’t see a lot of birds. But found a few. No quail. I’m going again later in December, are the numbers better farther west?

Not really, hunted a lot of western Kansas the last three days from Goodland to Dodge City and bird numbers were very spotty. One field would have decent numbers of birds, drive to the next one a mile or two away and nothing. Did see quite a few lesser prairie chickens which was a treat since I had never seen one.
 
Not really, hunted a lot of western Kansas the last three days from Goodland to Dodge City and bird numbers were very spotty. One field would have decent numbers of birds, drive to the next one a mile or two away and nothing. Did see quite a few lesser prairie chickens which was a treat since I had never seen one.

Unless you know the subtle differences it's hard to say which ones you saw unless you're a chicken nerd. I love seeing them.

The map the state has is bs - not accurate. Lots of Greaters and what I'd guess are hybrids are in the area they will claim is lesser area.

But good you saw some in the SW quadrant of the state. There's enough around where they have the right habitat - the powers that be cant seem to figure out hunting has 0 to do with their population.
 
I do nerd out on chickens and grouse but I suppose they could have been hybrids or Greaters. They held very tight and we were able to get a very good look at them. The bars on the chest were much more faint than all of the greater pc's I have shot over the years. The clucks that some made seemed a bit different as well.
 
The private ground in NE has about 25 chickens using. I also think they are beautiful so did not take any shots. I have a male mounted from couple years ago and they make a beautiful upland mount.
 
I do nerd out on chickens and grouse but I suppose they could have been hybrids or Greaters. They held very tight and we were able to get a very good look at them. The bars on the chest were much more faint than all of the greater pc's I have shot over the years. The clucks that some made seemed a bit different as well.


From all the ones I've seen I'd call a Lesser similar to blue quail coloring/bar pattern -- I believe more of the "white" shows up in their pattern and it appears more "scaled like a scaled quail" than a Greater which is more mottled to me and has more yellows if that makes sense.
 
I hunted this past Friday in the SW zone, all WIHA, and found the birds to be very skittish. I don't know if that was wind related or if was due to public pressure or both. Group of 5 guys, 4 roosters and 3 quail. Moved over to Colorado on Saturday and Sunday to private ground, hoping to see better numbers on private. Results were basically the same. I did shoot two doubles on two different covey rises and had some good dog work as well. So that made the trip worth the miles.
 
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