So how did opening day go?

opener

Opener could have been worse. Cover is not good at all. CRP that was redone last year grew hardly any. Myself and two buddies did manage 5 pheasants and three quail by 11 but i am afraid this year will be nothing like last year.
 
Bird Buster said:
I have hunted 18 years in the same area as him and would totally agree with your friend. It is not just some of the land is bad it is like most everything has little or no cover. Prepare yourself for lots of miles and long shots as the cover is so sparse they don't hold tight at all.
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totally agree with you, we got some nice coveys of quail to hold, but rooster were getting up hunderds of yards out.
 
Opening day was tough! We hunted in Harlan County with five guys and three dogs for a day and a half and only bagged 1 Rooster and 3 quail. My buddies left sunday at noon and my dad and I stayed another two days. We headed west and I am glad we did. We were hunting crp walkin areas, some had been hayed but alot still had some cover for the birds. We found birds in the grass that was adjacent to corn stubble. We hunted one field that had corn stubble, grass and alfalfa. My GWP pinned two nice roosters in the alfalfa. The highlight of my weekend was when my 14 month old lab pointed and then retrieved her first wild rooster. There are still birds out there you just have to work a little harder to find them.
 
Bigj said:
Opening day was tough! We hunted in Harlan County with five guys and three dogs for a day and a half and only bagged 1 Rooster and 3 quail. My buddies left sunday at noon and my dad and I stayed another two days. We headed west and I am glad we did. We were hunting crp walkin areas, some had been hayed but alot still had some cover for the birds. We found birds in the grass that was adjacent to corn stubble. We hunted one field that had corn stubble, grass and alfalfa. My GWP pinned two nice roosters in the alfalfa. The highlight of my weekend was when my 14 month old lab pointed and then retrieved her first wild rooster. There are still birds out there you just have to work a little harder to find them.
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"So your saying there's a chance?"

That's great to hear that if your willing to hunt hard and smart enough you can still find birds. Seems like it helps to have some good dogs like yours. Nice pics, and thanks for the HOPE!
 
Week 2-

I didn't get to hunt much but I took my son on a walk/hunt down a fence row near our house and we did flush a nice big covey of quail. I got 2. One of these days I might have enough wild game for a whole meal:rolleyes:
 
So how is December treating pheasant hunting? I expect it isn't any better than last month but thought it would still be interesting to here.
 
December report....

Spent this weekend in South Central NE. I hunted public land right on the KS border. I got in late Friday night and started hunting around 8am Saturday. It was in the mid 30s and no wind. And dry. Holy cow is that place dry. I saw 2 creeks with water, everything was dry as a bone. All the irrigation canals were dry and cracked.

Worked about 8 different fields on Saturday before my legs gave out. Didn't see a single bird. Nothing. In fact the wildlife might be bailing on that area altogether. I usually see coyotes, deer, rabbits, and other critters when I hunt. Saturday I didn't see anything. Frankly it was a little creepy. Anyhow my dog never got birdy.

Sunday the weather turned ugly. When I got up it was 17 degrees and the wind was blowing hard. I was not happy figuring the birds, if we found any, would be jumpy and flushing out of range but this was as much a scouting trip for next year as a hunting trip so off I go with the dog.

First field was a stubble field. The wind was blowing up so much dust I literally couldn't see mush of the time. Bailed on that idea pretty quickly. Headed to another field and walked the stubble but didn't find anything and the dog never got birdy.

Went to the last field I was going to work. Hiked to a blowout in the rear of a pasture. Loki flushed a rooster at an easy 20 yards out. I managed to miss with both barrels. :( Much mental cussing at myself... Worked the rest of the blowout and the strip cover back to the road but there were no other birds in there.

At the car decided to work the weeds on the other side real quick. The first thing I flushed was a cottontail. Then a real nice whitetail came up out of the weeds about 400 yards away. Then a rooster flushed wild about 50 yards out. About 10 seconds later 2 more roosters flushed wild but I never had a shot. They flushed hard, caught the tailwind and were gone. I hunted the cover for another 45 minutes and nothing else came out of there.

My eyes were watering from the cold so I threw in the towel and headed home. I was happy to at least have had a chance at a bird. But I think that far south the numbers are even fewer than when I've been in the central part of the state. I still find the landscape beautiful and the people I run into genuine and nice. That was my last trip til January. Thanks NE for the hospitality!
 
Same here hunting between Haxton & Yuma on Saturday, put near 9 miles on my boots, on mostly private and one WIA, and jumped two hens! ... my dogs only got birdy one other time too!:mad:

...if this keeps up, sooner or later these pups of mine are gonna like the frisbee and raquet balls WAY more than hunting!:confused:
 
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I'm nearly a year late but I just joined the forum and wanted to add a little happiness to this thread. We had 16 opening morning and 12 the next morning. Probably flushed around 40 hens the whole weekend. I myself took a total of 21 birds the whole season.
 
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