Sure Thing Cover, What do you see?

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oldandnew

Active member
I am posing a question to all, while there is no sure thing, and I think we all agree that's what makes it interesting, in pheasant country, as you view cover from the car window, you see a certain type of cover and crop combination, and you say to yourself, or outloud, " If there aren't birds there, there aren't birds anywhere on earth". I'll start out. Most of my experience has been NC Kansas, SC Nebraska, some NW Missouri, ( don't laugh, we used to have birds), In those areas I had three special places, one which was a 160 1/2 milo, which dropped down to the lower eighty, completely choked with prairie grass and giant wild plum thickets. The second was a 160 with a 80 of either wheat or oats stubble, which dropped off to a creek bottom which had a live spring which fed a creek lined with native weeds, that never froze, the rest in native pasture and forbs, neighbors had 80@ of milo, which helped, big attraction where years with oats. Third is a current favorite, 300@ of marvelously diversified crp, even though old, retains a diversity of forbs,and legumes, with some plum thickets, bordered by hedge rows, neighbors all have corn. Birds never even leave it, they just fly deeper in. While we are not steeped in tradition as the grouse clan, these are the types of covers that are cherished and get named by us, and visited regularly. Habitat will vary by region as befitting an adaptable bird, give us a good description! May make us all more aware and sharper while scouting new covers.
 
Kochia weeds in South Dakota are magical. They are a bitch to walk and you better have a dog to find birds but OMG do the pheasants love it. I have never been skunked in Kochia. If you can find fields that have draws in them that are filled with Kochia you are in heaven. Opener this year had a young kid out and he was walking next to me. We had a milo field with a huge Kochia Draw in it. I told him to come with me down to the Kochia but he wanted to stay in the Milo, because he thought that is where the pheasants were going to be, not in those weeds. After my second step into the Kochica with two roosters down and about 30 flushed out it didn't take him long to get to me. Amazingly he listened to whatever I told him the rest of the weekend. We flushed over 150 pheasants out of that draw. Had guys from MO, LA, NE, on opener and they were all amazed how many birds came out of those "weeds". I know of guys planting Kochia now for pheasants. Even know of one guy who combined some for seed.
Milo foodplots stripped with cane are probably my second favorite. Usually short enough to watch the dogs pretty easy.
 
Dont know the correct name I call it "Snake Grass" anytime i see it i find Roosters in it! I dont find Hen's hangin in it as much but in Mn seems the rooster love it!
 
Johnson grass, those roosters love Johnson grass.
 
Kochia is always a top spot ALWAYS #1 for sure I love finding a 1/2 acre spot of that stuff. Sometimes its 10' tall and its hard to walk thru. One thing we have looked for in the past is what we call "red grass draws" , you can spot em a mile away and I'm not sure what the exact plant is but sometimes you'll find CRP fields that will have a red tinted grass in the draws. We find birds in and around those draws and it seems like the fields themselves will hold birds if they have the red draws.
 
oldandnew said:
While we are not steeped in tradition as the grouse clan, these are the types of covers that are cherished and get named by us, and visited regularly.
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You must hang out some on the "other" board populated by the eastern grouse gomers. I do get a kick out of all the pet names for there "covers" & "coverts". Also love to read the hand wringing posts about the proper etiquette for taking someone to a "covert" or hunting someone else's "covert".

Ironically many of them don't support public dollars to create habitat or expand public access. Many will also flat out state they don't want to see upland hunting thrive. Hunters outside their own personal inner circle are simply viewed as competition. A little sad really.

Back to the topic at hand. It's a good question but I find my hunting preferences change with the time of the season, even time of day and the area I'm hunting.

Early season regardless of time of day I like to hunt any CRP edges I can find next to freshly cut corn. The weather is still mild. The birds are still young & dumb and often seek the first suitable cover they can find adjacent to food.

By midseason if the crops are out I'm keying on lots of things. Early morning I'm hunting transitions and travel edges between roosting cover and food. At midday I like weed patches & other small food sources with cover. End of day I like to hunt spots where roosting grass, food & gravel are all in close proximity.

Late season isn't my favorite time to hunt but I will heavily target food sources on warmer, sunny days. Rest of the time I'm hunting typical winter shelter cover. Large cattail patches, shelterbelts etc.

Mostly though I just target transition areas and "isolated diversity". A patch of red willows in the middle of roosting/loafing grass. A waterway in a field of brome that includes some weeds or marsh grass or some woody cover. A patch of weeds in a low spot in the middle of a corn field. As mentioned above when in SD I never pass up a patch of kochia.

I think the fact I hunt public land clearly drives my outlook. Birds are pressured and move around a lot or migrate towards cover most hunters pass by. I try to move with them.

DB
 
Just to clear the record

No I don't haunt the "grouse boards", but Burton Spiller, read as a boy had a profound impact. I realized then that they were our betters, and we could never hope to aspire to reach those noble heights, (not). By the way I've proven that by potting a sitting, yes sitting on a limb, ruffed grouse, with a slingshot, for camp meat in Wyoming, years ago. The horrors! I would never dry gultch a rooster, short of starvation. As an aside, the roosters are much better eating in my opinion, but the grouse was better than another can of Dinty Moore stew!
 
oldandnew said:
No I don't haunt the "grouse boards", but Burton Spiller, read as a boy had a profound impact. I realized then that they were our betters, and we could never hope to aspire to reach those noble heights, (not). By the way I've proven that by potting a sitting, yes sitting on a limb, ruffed grouse, with a slingshot, for camp meat in Wyoming, years ago. The horrors! I would never dry gultch a rooster, short of starvation. As an aside, the roosters are much better eating in my opinion, but the grouse was better than another can of Dinty Moore stew!
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Couldn't have said it better. Ruff's can make for a pretty good dinner and a nice fall walk in the woods. Pheasants and prairie grouse on the other hand? Those birds are for hunting.
 
as you view cover from the car window, you see a certain type of cover and crop combination, and you say to yourself, or outloud, " If there aren't birds there, there aren't birds anywhere on earth".
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any windbreak with a "NO HUNTING" sign prominently displayed.. :thumbsup:
 
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