Start of Prairie Chicken Season

We connected on a couple this weekend too. It was too hot to hunt for long, we were back at the truck at about 10:45. I favor pastures with multiple ponds and still carry water with me for both me and the dogs. A little shade here and there is a good thing too. This weekend will probably be the end of chicken season for me.

Clearly I was wrong about PC diet this time of year. The pictures above don't lie and were confirmed by the crop contents of one of Saturday's birds. One bird had an empty crop and the other was full of milo. Just to emphasize how much ground these birds will cover, I'm not even sure where the closest milo field was.
 
So I’m out here chasing chickens for the first time. Really enjoying it, and I’ve gotten into some birds!

A quick question.

How do cattle affect things? I have found several places that look good, but currently have cattle on them, so I’ve been avoiding those spots for now.

Thanks for the help, friends!
 
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Hey you’re finding chickens you’re doing great .
If the grass is in good shape and it has cattle on it I’d hunt it for sure. Later in the season when the grass has been grazed thin I think it pushes them off. About everything I hunt has cattle on it somewhere. There’s one spot I always check when I’m in one field. It’s pretty close to a mineral tub. It’s kind of on the fringe between heavy and medium foot traffic and there’s a single chicken there about 30 percent of the time , not the same one he’s ended up in my vest a few times. I’ve shot a
another in the fringe grass by a solar stock tank.
I don’t hunt anything with cedars on it or more than few and they are lower than waist high. I was watching a video a while back from the Sandhills coalition in Nebraska. Pretty neat video, greater than 3 percent cedar encroachment was there number when chickens would no longer occupy a pasture. Not to say that chickens don’t occasionally end up in a pasture with
some cedars in it.
Keep at it it sounds like you are doing great. Good luck tomorrow
 
I expect to see cattle on the pastures I hunt, but those pastures can also be grazed too heavily to be good chicken habitat. I hunted a full section of pasture on Saturday that wasn't quite right. It was subdivided into 4 parts with by an electric wire, One part looked like it had been rested this summer. It was pretty thick for a pasture, but not CRP thick. Results confirmed my thoughts: one pheasant and no chickens. The other three parts had been grazed, but maybe a bit too heavily. Some parts looked about right, but others were way too thin. The dogs got birdy once, but there wasn't anything there.

But then I didn't even see a chicken on Saturday, so what do I know? :)
 
I went last night and couldn’t find anything either. I thought I had that field figured out but I sure haven’t this year. Someone who knows more about chickens than I ever will was saying with this drought he’s been finding them at lower heights than he had before. Maybe I’ll try that
 
I am still trying to learn the PC hunting game, but went out Sunday and managed to finally see one. It flushed wild while I was trying to get into a position to use the wind to our advantage. There was only 1 bird that flushed, is this common or are they typically grouped up. After reading through this post I realize that I should have stayed closer to the ridgelines and not drop into the drainages in what I considered "better" cover.
 
RutCrazed said:
I am still trying to learn the PC hunting game, but went out Sunday and managed to finally see one. It flushed wild while I was trying to get into a position to use the wind to our advantage. There was only 1 bird that flushed, is this common or are they typically grouped up. After reading through this post I realize that I should have stayed closer to the ridgelines and not drop into the drainages in what I considered "better" cover.
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This has been a weird year. I'm used to seeing smallish family groups at this time of year, anywhere from 3-10ish. There's always a few singles, but it's mostly the smaller groups. Big flocks form up when it gets cold, and they get really difficult to approach on foot. All that is what I consider "normal". This year has been a little different. It seems like I have seen more singles this year than in the past.
 
matto said:
This has been a weird year. I'm used to seeing smallish family groups at this time of year, anywhere from 3-10ish. There's always a few singles, but it's mostly the smaller groups. Big flocks form up when it gets cold, and they get really difficult to approach on foot. All that is what I consider "normal". This year has been a little different. It seems like I have seen more singles this year than in the past.
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Thank you. I went after the bird that flushed (it flew over the ridge so no idea where it went), but later was thinking to myself I should have went back to the area where it flushed incase there were more. I grew up hunting chukars and there always seemed to be a few stragglers after the initial flush, but I was just excited to finally see one and wasn't really thinking strategy at the time.
 
RutCrazed said:
Thank you. I went after the bird that flushed (it flew over the ridge so no idea where it went), but later was thinking to myself I should have went back to the area where it flushed incase there were more. I grew up hunting chukars and there always seemed to be a few stragglers after the initial flush, but I was just excited to finally see one and wasn't really thinking strategy at the time.
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Very low odds on that strategy. I've never had any success trying to follow them once flushed. Usually I lose sight of them before they land. They get that 3-flaps and glide thing going and they can cover a lot of distance. Maybe others have been able to get a second flush, but I never have. Last weekend when we shot a couple we caught site of a flock that was either spooked by who knows what or just flying back from wherever they had been foraging in the morning. Regardless, they were flying towards us, sort of, when we first saw them. Not away from us. We marked them as best we could and did get 2-3 up the air close enough to kill one.
 
Pick a landmark and go straight at them. If they stay in the pasture they’ll go over the next big hill and be on the upslope of the following. Don’t try to sidehill them or catch them on the way back, you never find them. If they split up take the smaller group they are easier to get a shot in range at. You can reflush them two or three times if they stay in the pasture but each time they get a little higher up the hill and flush a little farther away. Singles are a lot tougher to find but a lot of times they’ll lead you to other chickens.
 
I made it back out last weekend. The dogs ran over 15 miles but we didn't put any birds in the air. I thought I saw one group flush waaaaay out ahead of us but couldn't be sure if they were chickens. I used the tips you guys had given me and felt more prepared and less just wandering around. I did see someone else on another portion of the walk-in, so that gave me hope I was in the right place.....or both of us were lost. 😀
 
On my way to Nebraska for the weekend hopefully there will be a few pheasants and even fewer people. I had to stop and walk a couple of fields. It couldn’t have gone much better except for maybe the one I fumbled the safety on and wiffed😆 I love chickens in the wind. I’m gonna make a stop at a field once I get across the border and see if it looks chickeny. That would be awesome.IMG_3440.jpeg
 
BrownDogsCan2 said:
On my way to Nebraska for the weekend hopefully there will be a few pheasants and even fewer people. I had to stop and walk a couple of fields. It couldn’t have gone much better except for maybe the one I fumbled the safety on and wiffed😆 I love chickens in the wind. I’m gonna make a stop at a field once I get across the border and see if it looks chickeny. That would be awesome.View attachment 6370
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Wow! I would say I wish I had your luck, but something tells me it wasn't luck that got in in position to get those birds. With the steady decline in pheasants and my proximity to their habitat, I think I will start putting in more time to figuring out chickens. I don't think my dogs will care as long as they are out hunting.
Good luck in Nebraska!
 
RutCrazed said:
Wow! I would say I wish I had your luck, but something tells me it wasn't luck that got in in position to get those birds. With the steady decline in pheasants and my proximity to their habitat, I think I will start putting in more time to figuring out chickens. I don't think my dogs will care as long as they are out hunting.
Good luck in Nebraska!
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Thanks Rut I think you’re going to figure them out. They are a fun bird and fairly predictable. Once you find two or three pastures that you know hold chickens you’re good to go. Then it’s just matter of figuring out their pattern has changed a little bit from early season or the previous year.
 
After a hiatus for family matters I got back after chickens. It was pretty warm on Saturday so I limited myself to two descent walks.

First walk was quiet save for a coyote who popped up in the longer grass. Our meeting was brief that was followed with a quick parting shot.

The second walk was a bit more productive. Ran into three singles. One fell to the gun. One flew away unmolested. One took lead, cupped his wings and sailed over a ridge where I couldn’t see him or find him. I was a bit surprised as they were all low off of the ridge almost in pheasant type cover.

Sunday flushed a huge covey out of range and saw some others flying back into loaf from a corn field.

This weekend starts pheasant season. Kind of curious what the hunter turn out will be. I’ll probably walk one field for pheasants then turn my attention back to chickens.

This is what was in the crop of the bird I harvested. Looks like a bit of winter wheat and some corn. I saw a few left over hoppers but most are dead. IMG_2379.jpeg
 
I had a question for those with more experience than me, how does the prairie chicken hunt strategy change during winter? Do they bunch up like other birds? Do they change their exposure to more open areas? I am thinking of hunting them with a combination of strategies between pheasant and chukar. I was going to go out of the Christmas break but came down with Covid and spent a week laying in bed with my bird dogs instead of following them across the prairie.
 
In Kansas, a flock of 20-40 birds would land in the middle of soybean field. When approached they flew to South America I think.
Occasional single was flushed randomly. We would pass on them. Kansas quail taste better.
 
Conventional wisdom is that PC form bigger flocks in winter and get even more difficult to approach on foot. Pass shooting as they fly from pastures to harvested grain fields in the morning is the traditional method for this time of year.

However, I've heard of serious dog guys that continue to hunt them by walking the pastures. Maybe some of those guys will see this and offer first hand info.

I was pheasant hunting with a group of 6-8 people once and we stumbled on a big flock in a CRP field with really light grass. They were on the very edge of range when they flushed and all of us had pheasants on the mind. By the time we realized what they were, they were well out of range. I've never intentionally hunted them once pheasant and quail seasons open so I can't offer any other first hand information.

And as WR wrote, quail taste much better.
 
I was thinking once they got into bigger flocks they would be harder to pin down with dogs, but was hoping someone might have a trick they could pass on.
When I first started hunting Kansas in the 90s before moving out here I had never seen or heard of a prairie chicken and flushed a covey about once a year while pheasant hunting and thought "Wow, that was a lot of hens" and then realize after that they were chickens, so while I have never shot one, I have had opportunities. I shoot quite a few quail and pheasants every year, but I still want to get a prairie chicken, so far they are undefeated in our battle!
 
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