Reports

Hunted 5 hours today and saw a total of 2 roosters. Shot the first one on some WIHA. Dog flushed him right in front of me. The second was on private land. Dog got birdy on him and he was running. Dog finally flushed him about 50 yds away, to far to shoot. Went to one of my good private spots and it had been cut sometime in the last 2 weeks. Very disappointing. It had some good cat tails on it. Saw a group of about 12 hunters doing the rhode island red round up in a milo field.
 
Yesterday, hit a couple WIHA properties around the Flint Hills trying to chase quail. Saw nada. Was in thickets and draws surrounded be grass from boot to chest high. Hiked only 4 miles total as it was a shorter day. May hit some spots farther north this afternoon. Would ideally like to hunt some of the draws next to crops, but didn’t see anything super attractive when I drove by several other WIHA’s.
 
Hunted afternoon only yesterday. Saw a few and shot 1. Dog flushed another just out of range and flushed another right in front of me but it was right into the sun and I never could find him once I pulled the gun up. Kind of blinded me. Anyway, got my average of one. Plan on hunting all day tomorrow. Today is football.
 
Hunted just a little north east of town today. Had a late start. Walked two fields with no success. Third one was end of the road. I rolled under a barbed wire fence and headed down a steep draw. Saw a quail in a cedar. Just as the dogreached the area. Pulled up and shot once and dropped one. Covey probably had around 15 birds. Flushed towards private and it was as past three so I wanted to naked sure whatever I hit dropped stone. Called the dog back to try and send her on the blind. Took a while but she found it as I was stumbling around in the brambles. That one flush and bird changed my attitude on the weekend.

Photo is of an unproductive field.

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NW KS the last two days. A good portion of the spots we have seen birds past years are literally bare dirt.

We do not hunt terribly hard by this forum's standards, 12 miles in 2 days. Saw exactly 1 rooster that flushed wild. 3 hens in the 1 standby spot that still had decent grass. 4 coveys of quail and shot a few, a couple coveys were quite big. Prairie Chicken seem to be doing Ok have seen well over 30, but the 1 good opportunity in a legal area my dog blew them out getting too close, had a great shot on another but we were in the no go zone at the time.

We are having fun, but the conditions are truly dismal in the area we hunt. It's going to take more than 1 good spring to bring numbers up to even close to reasonable.

Edit: 3rd and final morning. Went back to the best area we saw. Rookie mistake parked too close to a finger of cover and a flock of chickens and 5 pheasants busted as we shut the truck. 3 or 4 roosters. Good dog work....3 pointed coveys, 1 pointed single. Killed a double, and my pointer finally acted like he could work quail. Pass shot some chickens and missed. Great day hunting and good trip despite 0 pheasants shot. Hopefully numbers improve.
 
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First foray to Kansas this year chasing pheasant, hit my northeast KS honey hole with 2 inexperienced pups. We flushed 13 pheasants, shot 2, missed one. First year springer got her first retrieve (she’s put up quite a few, but she gets beat out by the retrievers to the dead bird, or marks it poorly and overruns it). Today she got to run solo while my partner put his young lab away and she came up with this nice first bird to hand. A nice sized covey of quail pitched into the prairie as we loaded up to leave.
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I've thought about switching back to chickens this winter, but it's really hard to get close to those big flocks this time of year. 2 of us hunted about 4-5 hours yesterday morning before we got soaked. (I'll happily endure a shortened, wet hunt in exchange for some rain) Found three coveys and a handful of pheasants. Killed 3 quail. All on private ground.
 
I went out New Year’s Eve morning. Got to my WIHA spot about 1/2 hour from my house. There was about 6-8” of snow down. The wheat stubble was almost completely covered in snow. It looked like a sheet of lined paper. I saw a few tracks and started my cast through the wheat stubble. Chickens saw me at about 300 yards out. 7 flew out. I moved in to look for stragglers. Found two. One bounced at 100 yards the second at about 60. I took two shots and missed both shots. Working towards a line of pines saw a rooster go out the back way out of range. Working back towards the truck the dogs put up a hen within gun range.

Walking in the snow was like walking in sand. A constant uphill climb for 2.5 miles. Short walk but strenuous.

When the snow starts to melt the roads will be impassible unless frozen. The cold and snow has bunched the chickens up which is good but also makes it harder to get close to them.

I only counted 4 separate sets of pheasant tracks in the snow.

It has been a very slow year. Might grab a whitetail doe tag and see if I can put the flintlock to work.
 
Long time member seldom post Thought I would give a positive post Our group of 4 with 2 dogs hunted quail on private ground east of Emporia Finished the day with 16 birds Found 4 sizeable covies This past weekend my son with 3 other hunters and 3 dogs hunted in Seward Co On Sat they bagged 5 roosters and 5 quail Said he was surprised by the number of birds that they saw and the majority of them were roosters All hunting was done on private ground
 
i made 2 trips up. Bird numbers where I hunted were way off. The grass on most of the private land is grazed to the ground. I ranch so I understand there’s not much you can do when it’s dry, but everywhere looked like a pool table. Sure hope we see moisture this spring. Our terrible drought in ok in the early 2010s when we finally got rain led to pretty good quail numbers starting about 2013 leading up to the best year in recent memory 2016. So it can turn around.
 
Yesterday was our best day so far this year. 3 of us with 4 dogs hunted pretty hard until about 1:00 or so, on private ground. Killed three roosters and 5 quail. Of the roosters, 2 were 2nd year plus, one was this year's bird. There was very little wind yesterday and pretty good dog work.
 
I went out Friday driving around trying to find a few spots to pheasant hunt before trying for chickens in the afternoon..The first spot held a small covey of about 8-10 quail. I drove over to look at a piece of walk-in and it was all baled except for a couple of draws. The first one looked really good , it ran down to a dried up pond that was all weeded in. I walked it and when I got to the pond 12 or 15 got up and flew down farther into the pond down by the corner by the dam. I walked it some more and another 10 or so got up and I took a shot at a rooster and hit it too far back. Walked it to the end and one more hen got up , the rest of the first group must have run over the corner of the dam.
Walked the second draw in that pasture and wasn’t near as weedy just some around the edges of another dried up pond. Nothing in it but a mangy coyote.
Tried another pasture for chickens none found.
Drove over to another draw I found the other day. Same kind of deal. baled around it, with some phragmites mixed in with some cattails, and some smartweed down in the dry pond. I walked it got down to the pond and you could hear some rustling in the smartweed and saw a shadow run through it. I thought it was a skunk and then saw another shadow run across it and so I got the courage up to rush it. 4 or 5 birds ran out into the short the cut grass and flushed . I think 2 were roosters but I didn’t take a shot.
I then went over to a pasture where I think a big group of chickens landed the other day and maybe see if I could find out where they were hanging out for future hunting. Walked maybe a third of it but no luck.
 
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