"Suffering Withdrawals"

henhenROOSTER!!!

henhenROOSTER!!!

New member
Work & responsibilities have gotten the best of me this time around & I am unable to make my weekly day-run to the pheasant fields! Y'all tell me some good stories & send some pics, so I can at least live vicariously thru someone else's adventures until next week...Man paybacks are h#&!, but I can take it like a man since I've been dishing it out all year! :D

Don't guess I have too much to complain about - have had 7-out-of-8 great bird-filled days afield so far this season, with a freezer full of roosters (even after having already eaten quite a few) - not bad for a first-year newbie/rookie!

Sure hope the dog and I can somehow double-time next week & get in at least a couple more days "Last Hurrah" before all the wild-rooster chasin shuts down for another year! That 3-4 day "KS Grand Finale" hunt is starting to slip out-of-range & becoming just another Hail-Mary long-shot at this point... :) :(
 
I was lucky enough to get out today. Did my usual go solo trip. Only saw five other hunters all day which was nice. Saw a lot of birds. Two different places had groups of thirty or more birds take off. I have never seen flushes like this in Colorado. Very skiddish. Birds flushing a bit far. Did not want to take any questionable shots in such heavy cover. Tried something different today. Hunted the big heavy cover fields. Smaller areas I usually hunt like corners, shelter belts fence rows held nothing. Kind of unusual as well only saw two birds along the road. A few weeks ago birds were crossing the road a lot. Got my usual nothing. I'm ok with that. Better than working. Only pictures taken were of the great sunset.
 
How about that sunset yesterday!!!! It was one of the most beautiful I have witnessed in a while. I finished the evening in one of my favorite walk-ins north of Flemming and watched several flushed roosters silhouetted against the switchgrass and amazing sunset, it was truly beautiful and made me realize how fortunate I was to be out in field with my dad.

I had much of the same luck as you, only got one bird between my father and and I was lucky with that one (long shot). We were putting some serious tactics on the birds but man were they wily. I was literally rolling out of the moving truck and sprinting into corners to get a shot. LOTS of big flushes and tons of hens. I'm saying it now, next year Colorado will rival NE.
 
Well we went out today and man was it cold and windy..:) We got up on some birds because the wind was blowing so hard they couldnt here us coming, They were out very early picking gravel, we got 5 out of 6 and `1 goose that landed about 30 yards from us by a corn field, (Ithink he was tired of fighting the wind). I use steel so was ready for him.
 
there is still fun to be had...

On Saturday, me and The Pheasinator left in the chill of early morning blackness to drive through scattered fog toward the rising sun. Rolling into the first WIA field well after dawn, we found it soggy from some precip the night before. The wind was starting to rip across the prairie, and we only raised a couple hens.

On to another field, and another... A new one after lunch proved to be the magic, a few hundred yards in a rooster rose and fell to the first shot. A couple hundred yards later a pair of roosters rose together... one fell to the first shot... so tempting to go for a double but after some lost birds and difficult recoveries of the last weeks, I carefully marked its fall in the chest-high switchgrass. A good thing, it took me and The Pheasinator a few minutes to find it.

We hit a couple more fields to try to fill my limit, but the effort yielded only 3 roosters flushing a hundred yards away, cackling their disapproval. It was a good day, perhaps The Pheasinator forgave me for leading her into a field littered with sand burs and cactus, and for my atrocious marksmanship of the week before. :eek: Regardless, I'm sure she'll be up for our last hurrah day on Saturday.

Have fun out there, I have had a great time re-discovering pheasant hunting the last few weeks after basically giving up on it for many years. :)
 
@Pheasinator--you had better scratch out at least a few birds with a name like that! Nice job!!! :D

Sounds amost like an exact-duplicate copy of some of my days afield this year - except I would have shot that 3rd rooster "on-the-double"! LOL...Seriously though, Thx 4 the post - it gives me renewed hope for the "Last Hurrah" this week! :thumbsup:
 
my writing may not have been that clear, I came up w/ the nickname for my dog of The Pheasinator, and she does tend to always scratch them out... I'm the sometimes incompetent shot that doesn't always come through on my part of the deal... my nickname would be much more lowly ;)

yes, hope springs eternal, always fun to get out, you never know what the next field will bring

good luck!
 
Here's some pics from Sunday. We started the day hunting ducks on the Platte River hoping the end of the duck season would turn out like last year. Unfortunately, it didn't as we only managed a few to come within range.
So, we drove to our usual WIA spots in high hopes of that ever elusive rooster. Wind was a major factor that day as they held good and could not hear us coming. Saw more roosters than hens with the usual bird that flushed just outside of shooting range and then a couple of the ones that got you saying "how in the heck did I miss that one?"
We only hunted two fields as the wind got too extreme for us. Not too bad of a hunt considering it was only three guys and no dogs. Anyway, enjoy the pictures.


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Pheasinator, Nice story! Welcome aboard. Where did you get your brittany? She looks just like my Brittany, Gauge. I know it's a long shot, but maybe they're long lost siblings.
 
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mong, nice mixed bag and photos

chadsbritt, thanks re. the story, my brittany came from a breeder in Lyons. She has been a great family dog, and though she had only had a couple quail knocked down in front of her prior to this yr she seems to be picking the pheasant game up pretty well.

as for my marksmanship some days... she really gets disappointed when the shooting is over and a rooster flies off... I've bought a bunch of target loads to burn up during the off season... :thumbsup:
 
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