report

carptom1 said:
Maybe I need a better dog:). Seriously if I am going to hunt in kansas anymore I am probably going to have to adjust my approach. In the Dakotas or Kansas in some thick CRP or heavy cover I will put my flusher up against any dog. In Kansas hunting a lesser number of birds, or quail or chickens, I need to change if I am going to continue to hunt here. I am honestly thinking of getting another pointer. I have not had one for twenty years. I wonder how I will break it to my wife? I am thinking if I put the pen behind the old barn, my wife will never know...... My neighbor to the north trained pointers before he died and the pens are still up. Maybe I could keep it over there. hmmmmmmmmm.
Click to expand...


That makes two of us thinking of getting a pointer. I haven't had one in 30 years. I hunt Gordon Setters, and have one that will run some if I take his shock collar off. Last winter late in season I was hunting a 480 acre field of milo stubble that I had been hunting all winter. I had been shooting a few birds when I came out to corners ect. all year. On this hunt there was a skiff of snow. I saw lots of tracks and had birdy dogs but never put up a rooster. I decided I didn't have anything to lose, so when I got to the pickup I took the collar of my older male Gordon and turned him lose. He took off running and hunting like a good pointer. He pointed around 6 or 8 roosters in about 45 minutes. Most of the flushed wild and didnt hold, but two of them were in lone tumbleweeds in the stubble and held and I shot them both. All day the birds had been just running circles around us, but when I let the dog go he got them pinned down. I repeated the same think in a patch of short wheat stubble later that day and shot 1. Now in heavier cover this may not work, but I am reconsidering how I hunt lighter cover after that day. When my old Gordon goes down I am seriously thinking of finding a good English Pointer to run with my Gordons.
 
Last edited:
mustistuff said:
no. of course if there are no birds period, ya can't really hunt something that can't be hunted or doesn't exist. mostly, however, there are nothing but a bunch of lame excuses. there are at least some birds to hunt everywhere in Kansas for example, whether or not hunter's would enjoy the work trying to find them is, maybe another thing. in my lifetime I surely have had my ups and downs on every trip I ever took but I have never ever failed to find birds, never. been skunked before for whatever those reasons were but birds were available and will be again this year. bet on it.

cheers
Click to expand...

99% of the hunters around here swear up and down there are no pheasants left in the Valley but me and the other 1% visit in our secret places and share our stories and knowledge of where we find those precious few birds left.:cheers: I hope Kansas turns the corner soon fellas, its hard to believe I was moving more birds last year than you guys.
 
quail hound said:
99% of the hunters around here swear up and down there are no pheasants left in the Valley but me and the other 1% visit in our secret places and share our stories and knowledge of where we find those precious few birds left.:cheers: I hope Kansas turns the corner soon fellas, its hard to believe I was moving more birds last year than you guys.
Click to expand...
I guarantee you we didn't walk as many miles as you did Robert.:cheers:
 
BrownDogsCan2 said:
I guarantee you we didn't walk as many miles as you did Robert.:cheers:
Click to expand...

Yea or up and down those freggin hills. If I hunt to hunt the stuff he has too hunt all day, my fat arse would be dead:eek:. It's hard enough for me to do eight hrs on the plains.:)
 
Pointers are where is at when you get old, I have 5 at the moment, so I guess I am old now ( early sixties).

Mine will range out to about a 1/2 mile and if anything is in that field they will find it eventually.

FWIW Pointers make great house dogs you will have a lot better dog if you don't keep him in a kennel behind the barn. When they live with you they want to be with you and you don't have to worry about them not checking in.

I went to Kansas on a bad drought year and couldn't find any birds so I said the heck with it and let 8 good pointers loose and hunted a section of CRP.

Not a single bird was found ... with 8 dogs..... so I went back home.

I learned a lesson about drought years in Kansas...my drive is 1400 miles one way.

Good luck this year I hope you locals do well, if I lived there I certainly would give it a go.
 
fsentkilr said:
That makes two of us thinking of getting a pointer. I haven't had one in 30 years. I hunt Gordon Setters, and have one that will run some if I take his shock collar off. Last winter late in season I was hunting a 480 acre field of milo stubble that I had been hunting all winter. .............................. how I hunt lighter cover after that day. When my old Gordon goes down I am seriously thinking of finding a good English Pointer to run with my Gordons.
Click to expand...



You just need to upgrade to a Setter that starts with English ;)
 
fsentkilr said:
That makes two of us thinking of getting a pointer. I haven't had one in 30 years. I hunt Gordon Setters, and have one that will run some if I take his shock collar off. Last winter late in season I was hunting a 480 acre field of milo stubble that I had been hunting all winter. I had been shooting a few birds when I came out to corners ect. all year. On this hunt there was a skiff of snow. I saw lots of tracks and had birdy dogs but never put up a rooster. I decided I didn't have anything to lose, so when I got to the pickup I took the collar of my older male Gordon and turned him lose. He took off running and hunting like a good pointer. He pointed around 6 or 8 roosters in about 45 minutes. Most of the flushed wild and didnt hold, but two of them were in lone tumbleweeds in the stubble and held and I shot them both. All day the birds had been just running circles around us, but when I let the dog go he got them pinned down. I repeated the same think in a patch of short wheat stubble later that day and shot 1. Now in heavier cover this may not work, but I am reconsidering how I hunt lighter cover after that day. When my old Gordon goes down I am seriously thinking of finding a good English Pointer to run with my Gordons.
Click to expand...


Pointers are nice dogs, but don't ugly up your team. Get another setter :D
 
carptom1 said:
Yea or up and down those freggin hills. If I hunt to hunt the stuff he has too hunt all day, my fat arse would be dead:eek:. It's hard enough for me to do eight hrs on the plains.:)
Click to expand...

You guys give me too much credit. Those hills are flatter in person, I do need a new back up pair of boots this season though.:thumbsup:
 
Back on track

Now that we have finished with the beauty contest, we can get back to kansas conditions. Went back to the norton area for two full days, shot lots of dove but there really were not very many compard to the week before, looks like most of them have left. It was very hot, mid 90's. Missed a double on chickens over my ol' lady dog torrey but did get one of them. About 10 in the bunch and they were friendly kinda, good point though. Over the past couple of years most of the walkin areas that i had hunted for a decade were gone, made touring the area unfun, and much of what was still there was poor for pheasants and more than a few no hunting signs. Things sure are a changin. I did also see one covey or quail and a number of pheasants incl. A few hens, considering the time i was outside the suv, not much

cheers
 
I remember the numbers being way down when we hunted KS in 2002. Do you guys think that the birds are at least back up to the numbers they were in 2002 yet? Much of what we hunted out around Rush Center looked like a desert. Very little cover and few birds.

They did recover pretty quick back then. I remember 2004 and 2005 being excellent....
 
numbers

I haven't hunted w. Kansas forever, just almost, I remember dry years and fewer birds but nowhere near as few as we have today. at least years ago it was no trouble finding decent looking cover of several kinds in which to hunt, today, and esp. these last 3 years I have spent as much time finding cover to hunt as I have actually hunting pheasants. last year when I found good looking cover, there were at least as few birds, finding the cover was a problem. this year I believe will be better than last year but my part of Kansas, cover has not bounced back nearly well enough and farmers haven't helped the issue either. my field time this year in the Norton area, parts of 5 days, wasn't very exciting, while I was mostly after chickens and dove, I was in pheasant country and in fields, the flushes of pheasants were there but few and sometime we had 3 mutts running the fields.

cheers
 
akp said:
I remember the numbers being way down when we hunted KS in 2002. Do you guys think that the birds are at least back up to the numbers they were in 2002 yet? Much of what we hunted out around Rush Center looked like a desert. Very little cover and few birds.

They did recover pretty quick back then. I remember 2004 and 2005 being excellent....
Click to expand...

I doubt there will be as many as there was in 2002. It wasn't great that year, but we were able to get a couple birds per person. I doubt that if I hunted the same county this year with 6 guys that we'd harvest 12 birds. We were 1 county south of where you were.

2004 and 2005 were stellar, for both pheasants and quail! In 04 we limited on roosters the first day, in the rain, if I'm not mistaken. We woke up on day 2 and got another limit of roosters before lunch. Half of our group went home, so the remaining 3 of us went quail hunting. We limited on quail by 2:30pm or so. It was the most productive day of upland hunting I've ever seen.

In 05 I hunted alone on the opener. I shot my 4 birds in less than an hour, then spent the rest of the day watching groups push fields.

I didn't think there were quite as many birds in 2006, but if memory serves, it was a bit hotter during that opener. We limited on day 1, but got tired of the heat on day 2 and quit half way through the day. Now I really need to look back at my pictures and see if I got the years right:rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
kansasbrittany said:
I doubt there will be as many as there was in 2002. It wasn't great that year, but we were able to get a couple birds per person. I doubt that if I hunted the same county this year with 6 guys that we'd harvest 12 birds. We were 1 county south of where you were.

2004 and 2005 were stellar, for both pheasants and quail! In 04 we limited on roosters the first day, in the rain, if I'm not mistaken. We woke up on day 2 and got another limit of roosters before lunch. Half of our group went home, so the remaining 3 of us went quail hunting. We limited on quail by 2:30pm or so. It was the most productive day of upland hunting I've ever seen.

In 05 I hunted alone on the opener. I shot my 4 birds in less than an hour, then spent the rest of the day watching groups push fields.

I didn't think there were quite as many birds in 2006, but if memory serves, it was a bit hotter during that opener. We limited on day 1, but got tired of the heat on day 2 and quit half way through the day. Now I really need to look back at my pictures and see if I got the years right:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

10 years ago we all had stories like this....that's a long time ago and a lot has changed.
 
Man, how depressing..... 2009 was my last year up there. Almost got stuck on one of those "gravel" roads on day 2. We were out west of Rush Center and it got nasty in a hurry. When I made it to the blacktop (barely), I hit the gas and didn't look back.... Apparently, I haven't missed much in the way of bird hunting since. I guess 2010 was pretty decent, but it was starting to interfere with my time in the treestand. That's usually about the best weekend to be in the woods.

I would love to go back, but would not spend the money or the time if I didn't feel like we could get into some birds. We hunted opening weekend in
'97, '01-09'

We sure had some good hunts in there. All on WIHA!

I still quail hunt a lot down here in OK and have a nice place to hunt, so that's what gets me through.

In 2004, we found a WIHA about mid day down around Kinsley on opening day. Finished a four man limit there. We were getting ready to leave as the cackling started (right before dark). The birds poured out of an uncut milo field for 15 minutes and landed to roost in a CRP field. It was incredible. It's the most birds I've seen in one field. We had it to ourselves on Sunday morning and it was about a half of a section. The four of us slowly worked that field back and forth. Never left. Killed 16 more birds there. Went back Monday morning and it was wet and cold. We hunted for about an hour until we were sopping wet. Seems like that one pass yielded about 5 or 6 birds and we were done. Couldn't take anymore. The good old days.....
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top